Not Dead, Only X-ing

Ms. Marvel gets more "Marvel."

I confess, I’m a little annoyed with one of my favorite super heroes right now.

I wrote a piece a year ago talking about the weirdness surrounding Ms. Marvel, the world’s most prominent Muslim superhero, who was getting a big push in TV and movies—and, at the same time, dying in the comics. How’d that all work out?

No less weirdly!

Ms. Marvel’s comic-book death was impermanent, but her movie debut died a more meaningful kind of death—it was nearly a $300-million loss. Hard to blame her for it, though: Iman Vellani’s rendition of the character was charming as ever.

There are a few theories to explain the movie’s failure—the anti-woke contingent seized on some predictable ones, which Barbie mostly disproved. The likeliest problem was “Marvel fatigue,” and more specifically, fatigue with Marvel’s baroque, insidery approach to cinematic storytelling.

The three sort-of title characters in The Marvels had some pre-existing relationship, but to know their whole deal, you had to watch not only the Captain Marvel movie but the Ms. Marvel and WandaVision TV series. And even all that wouldn’t tell you why Monica Rambeau was the third “Marvel”: to know that, you’d have to read the comics—and not even the current comics, because “Captain Marvel” is only one of many aliases she’s had and discarded.

But let’s keep our focus on Ms. Marvel, AKA Kamala Khan. Her comic-book resurrection was quick even by superhero standards. The X-Men, in their role as mutant-rights protectors, claimed Kamala as a mutant and shared the perks with her, beginning with returning her to life:

Kamala’s origin showed her as an Inhuman, a different subspecies of superhuman (Eternals, altered humans, and gods are Marvel’s other main types). Inhumans never quite caught on the way Marvel hoped, so there’s a sort of marketing logic behind Kamala discovering she’s not just Inhuman but also mutant—the first character to claim both heritages. (Her onscreen version seems to be simply a mutant, and has different powers than her comic-book self.)

But Kamala has always been a person in whom seemingly contradictory identities found peaceful coexistence—Pakistani-American, Muslim in the somewhat secular world of superheroes, fan turned pro.

Adding mutantdom to the list of things that makes her her was therefore easier for Kamala than one might think. But it hasn’t come without challenges, because almost as soon as she joined the X-Men, they once again fell on hard times. When they resurrected her, they’d gathered almost every mutant in existence, including many reformed villains (and some…sort of reformed villains) into a mighty island nation.

Shortly thereafter, that nation was lost, putting them on the run from evil agencies and a fresh wave of hysterical prejudice. Meeting those circumstances with courage and positivity would be hard for anyone, but as written by Iman Vellani—her onscreen portrayer—she seems equal to the task.

Most of that is great; the rest is just delightfully weird. None of it is why I’m a little irritated with Kamala Khan. I’m irritated because I’ve spent a decade or so saying or thinking her name and never meeting any other Kamalas, which has left me unprepared to pronounce…

The other Kamala.

Kamala Harris is COMMA-la HAR-ris; Kamala Khan is ka-MAH-la CON. Having learned one pronunciation, my brain resists resetting to another, even though I know some people who mispronounce it are following Trump’s example. (Which I don’t wanna do!)

Nobody’s at fault here, but it still feels like someone’s played a prank on me. At least I know Kamala Khan herself would be patient about it.