Ms Marvel Star Reveals Her Fears About Changing Comics Lore (& Asking Kevin Feige’s Advice) [Exclusive]

Kamala Khan is one of Marvel’s most successful characters introduced in the last few decades. She was the new face that revitalized Ms. Marvel’s character and elevated her to the powerhouse that she is today. She rocked the comic book world, and she’s already made the jump to live action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her race towards the stars isn’t slowing down anytime soon, especially because she was brought to life by the incredible Iman Vellani. Iman is a rising star in the acting world, not only starring in two MCU projects, but also joining Andy Serkis’s Animal Farm, which hits theaters May 1. 

ComicBook interviewed some of Animal Farm’s biggest names, and in that process, got a chance to ask Iman about the most controversial aspect of her Ms. Marvel career. The MCU introduced a whole new powerset for Kamala that was wildly different from her comic counterpart’s, and those abilities found their way into the comics themselves. Iman Vellani was the writer who co-penned the story of Kamala’s rebirth as a mutant, that being the Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant miniseries. She shared the fears of introducing such a drastic change and how Kevin Feige helped her push through it:

“ I remember I think he’s probably read both of them, or at least that he has, I think, because in the second one, we have like an introduction of her MCU powers in the book, which was like super controversial. And I was like, I don’t want to write this. And then I like, wrote Kevin an email or, you know, I wrote the Marvel editorial email, and I talked to Kevin in real life. I’m like, I don’t know how to do this. Like, give me some advice, because I think there are so many ways it can go wrong, and we want to make sure we’re doing it for the right reasons. And he’s so supportive of my little comic book venture that, you know, I he will just like, let me do anything and hear me out and let me word vomit. So I’m very well supported in that community.”

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The New Ms. Marvel, Courtesy of Reinvention

Image Courtesy of Marvel Studios

Comic book fans are notorious for hating change, and the most vocal part of that is hating movie synergy. Generally speaking, major changes introduced to established comic characters for the sake of making them look or act more like their movie counterparts are groaned at on the best day. With this being Iman Vellani’s writing debut, and with her being the face behind this shift to such a beloved character, the pressure was on. It’s somewhat inevitable that she would express being reluctant to go through with it, and it’s great that she was given the chance to talk through it with the president of Marvel Studios himself. 

Obviously, there’s no way to make fans happy when they’ve already made up their minds to be upset. People were going to hate the changes to Ms. Marvel no matter who wrote them or how well they were executed. The only way forward was to accept that and tell the story that Iman Vellani felt needed to be told, which is exactly what she did. She penned the new take on the character she embodied in live action, and that experience helped her in her journey with the character.

How Writing Ms Marvel Helped Iman Vellaini Play Her in the MCU

Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Being the face of a new take on Ms. Marvel and the one introducing this change to the comic book world could only have been terrifying, but Iman poured her heart and soul into the series. Acting means becoming the character, but to write, you have to be in their head and construct the world around them, guiding the character through the story as you see it, and letting them guide you when they take control. These are two similar but very distinct disciplines in character work, and Iman shared just how much writing Ms. Marvel helped her become her.

“Yeah, I actually I think it helped me understand me. The first series that I wrote was, I mean, I had like such a wonderful co-writer, Saba, who I was like kind of pouring my heart out to him because I wanted this to be like an allegory for all the things that I was going through when I first started working at Marvel.

“Like I had gone from 0 to 100. So Kamala coming back to life as a mutant was like me getting cast in the MCU. And I was dealing with, like, all of these wild dreams and like, ideas of who I was going to become and if I was going to lose my identity in the process. And like I came in having such a strong sense of self already as a teenager, and I really didn’t want to lose that.

“And I was like, my number one fear. You hear all these horror stories of like how people become in Hollywood. So I got to explore so much of how my mind works through making comic books. And I already like, I’m such a visual thinker that that part was kind of easy. It was more so about like, how do I make this accessible and like, resonant, resonate with like the broader comic audience who loves this character as much as I do? So yeah, it was a bit of a challenge, but I think I did learn way more about myself.”

Writing and acting, especially when bringing in changes to pre-established characters, is insanely difficult. Iman Vellani had the fortune to tackle Ms. Marvel from both perspectives, and in doing so, managed to make a piece of that awesome character her own. Even the most static characters are always growing because change is a constant, and I, for one, am excited to see what Ms. Marvel and Iman Vellani have in store for the world next.

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