Iman Vellani, who plays Kamala Khan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be co-writing the new comic book series, Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant, with Ms. Marvel’s show writer, Sabir Pirzada, Entertainment Weekly reports. The series will be drawn by artists Carlos Gomez (Rogue and Gambit) and Adam Gorhan (Star Wars: Darth Vader). The covers will be drawn by Sara Pichelli (Ultimate Spiderman).
“This was way scarier than joining the MCU for me,” Vellani told EW. “Those projects feel like they live in their own dimension, so I guess I can separate myself easier. But you can hold a comic book! I’ve never written anything before in my entire life, but I have read many comics, so I just wrote what I would want to read. I was given a very professional tool to write what is essentially my own fan fiction.”
While fans mourned Ms. Marvel’s sacrifice in the Amazing Spider Man #26 earlier this year, there was anticipation surrounding Khan’s return because superheroes rarely remain dead.
This anticipation will be rewarded in the upcoming X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, where Ms. Marvel will return as an inhuman mutant like her character on-screen. Khan will be brought back to life by the X-Men’s Krakoan Resurrection Technology and will learn to grapple with her new hybrid identity while battling anti-mutant foes, according to Marvel.
“I want to make it very, very clear that we are not [retconning] her Inhuman origin. That’s a part of Kamala’s identity that Marvel editorial and myself would very much like to keep and protect,” Vellani told EW. “Our book will absolutely reflect all those core themes of identity that the Ms. Marvel comics have consistently explored — only now, there’s a whole new label that Kamala has to learn to accept. It’s going to be pretty crazy.”
Along with a new identity, the new series is debuting a new costume for Ms. Marvel. Jamie McElvie, the artist of Carol Danvers’s iconic Captain Marvel suit and Khan’s original costume, has replaced the usual Ms. Marvel lightning bolt with X-Men logos to signify Ms. Marvel’s transformation.
Vellani’s co-writer Pirzada describes her experience collaborating with Khan as “humbling” because of the actor and writer’s impressive knowledge of comic book references.
“It was actually a very humbling experience to work with Iman, because she knows her comics even better than I do, and that is saying something,” Pirzada said to EW. “She was throwing out references to specific comics that came out before either of us were born. She has a very great eye for what makes for a good sequence on the page as drawn by an artist. It was very impressive to me to see her throw out all these references to different artists that she’s been following through the years.”
According to Marvel, the new four-issue series Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant will be available to purchase on August 30th.
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc. Follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our efforts to produce diverse content about the AAPI communities. We are supported in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.
