MS. MARVEL Star Iman Vellani Talks About the Most Exciting Thing About Kamala Khan Being a Mutant
One of the big surprises revealed about Kamala Khan in Marvel’s Ms. Marvel series was the fact that the creative team made her a mutant. A lot of fans rolled their eyes at this plot point. Technically, Ms. Marvel is the first mutant introduced in the MCU. While some fans weren’t happy with the change in character, actress Iman Vellani was super excited about it. In fact, she’s writing a new comic for Marvel titled, Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant.
The actress sat down with Marvel.com to talk about her new comic and writing the first chapters of Kamala Khan's journey as an X-Men member. She also talked about her excitement and the reaction from the fans about the character being a Mutant, saying:
"It is a big deal! And how cool that she's a big enough character for this change to matter so much! The uproar on social media after it was announced was crazy, but so exciting for me that so many people cared, and obviously they hadn't read the story at this point, so they are not one to judge right now."
In preparation for writing the comic, Vellani took a deep dive into X-Men. She had to because she never read any X-Men comics before:
"But I was so excited, because being a mutant is just—I mean, I never really read a lot of the X-Men comics; I will say that. That was really scary for me, because I was just deep diving on everything X-Men, finding my favorite characters. Grant Morrison and [Jonathan] Hickman's runs were basically my textbooks throughout this entire thing."
When talking about continuing to explore this mutant side of Kamala and the weight that it brings into her life, saying:
"I think it was just so fun to explore this different side of her, because for Kamala, she's already dealt with so many different labels. She's been an Avenger, she's been an Inhuman, a Champion, Pakistani, Muslim. She starts off thinking that being a mutant is just another label to add to the list, and it doesn't really change anything because she's always had the X-gene, so it doesn't really matter. Little does she realize that this new suit, the new colors, they bear so much more weight than she was expecting.
"The world's entire perspective on Ms. Marvel shifts very drastically, and for the first time, she gets a taste of what it's like to be seen as a villain and an enemy, because after Hellfire Gala especially, the world just hates mutants—it's horrible! We've put Kamala at Empire State University and created a program that's funded by Orchis... and it is hard for her, as it would be!"
Vellani will return to the role of Ms. Marvel in the upcoming Marvel film The Marvels. I imagine writing a Ms. Marvel comic book was able to keep her in tune with the character and obviously allow her to explore her journey further. She seems excited about it!