Recently, Marvel comics has been confronting the problem of cruel treatment towards the Muslim community directly through its comic books-specifically, the Ms. Marvel series, featuring Kamala Khan, a sixteen-year-old Pakistani-American girl from Jersey City, New Jersey.
Kamala first appeared in Captain Marvel:Issue 14 in August of 2013. In the Marvel Universe, Kamala Khan is a young girl who learns that she has Inhuman abilities after being exposed to terrigen mist at the end of the Inhumanity storyline.
After Marvel announced that a Muslim character would be headlining a comic book series, public reaction was very verbal, and the first issue of Ms. Marvel won the Hugo Award for best graphic story in 2015.
The character was created by Marvel writers and artists who wanted to provide the public with an accurate portrayal of the life a Muslim-American.
At first, the creators of the character had intended for her to be an Arab girl from Dearborn, Michigan, but chose instead to make her a Pakistani girl from Jersey City, New Jersey, because they wanted to make it more likely for the character to be able to interact with other Marvel characters and storylines, many of which happen in the city of New York.
The creators have said that one of the points of the character is that she has to overcome being a second-string hero from a second-string city.
The story not only focuses on Kamala’s battles with supervillains, but also focuses on her battles with her own religion and cultural identity.
Many people have also compared the character to Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man, due to the fact that they are both teenage superheroes who have to come to grips with their new lives and powers.
However, despite this comparison, the differences between the two characters are quite obvious. While Peter Parker may have had to face many problems throughout his life, his race was never really one of them, being a white male, while Kamala Khan must find her way through life while having to learn who she really is. American or Pakistani? Or both?
Because of Kamala Khan’s cultural background, she has to face many challenges that no other superheroes have to face, and she has to face them while also facing herself.
Her biggest conflict isn’t the battles she faces across her city with the attacking supervillains and everyday criminals, but more the internal conflict she faces twenty-four-seven.
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