Overview
Marvel's first Muslim superhero is coming to your streaming queue, but she'll have to conquer high school along the way. Come Wednesday, June 8, the ever-sprawling and always-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe will add its seventh new TV series in 18 months to streaming platform Disney+, and it's all about Pakistani American teenager Kamala Khan — better known to comic-book readers since 2013 as Ms Marvel.
Arriving three years after Captain Marvel, the series that shares Ms Marvel's name focuses on a Carol Danvers superfan — who happens to discover that she has superpowers, too. Kamala (debutant Iman Vellani) doesn't feel like she fits in her hometown of Jersey City, and often escapes into gaming, writing fan fiction and her extremely active imagination; however, everything changes when she learns that she has more in common with her idol than she ever realised.
As Ms Marvel's just-dropped first trailer shows, viewers can expect teen dreams and high-school hijinks aplenty — but with a superhero twist. How Kamala will handle living out her fantasy life will fuel the show's six-episode first season, in the leadup to 2023 big-screen release The Marvels, which'll feature Brie Larson as Carol, Vellani as Kamala, and also WandaVision's Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau.
Yes, while the MCU's slate of Disney+ series is taking a different approach in 2022 — focusing on bringing characters previously unseen on-screen into the fold, rather than giving existing franchise players their own shows (see: WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and Hawkeye) — it's still linking in with the bigger Marvel Cinematic Universe picture.
Ms Marvel also gives the MCU a first — that aforementioned first Muslim superhero — after a decade and a half of hardly presenting diversity on-screen. Across the 28 films that will have hit cinemas before Ms Marvel drops, it took the MCU 18 movies to solely focus on a Black superhero, and 21 features across 11 years to do the same with a female superhero. It also didn't hand the directorial reins to a solo female filmmaker until its 24th movie, either —and, when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals both released in 2021, they visibly and welcomely stood out from the bulk of the franchise in terms of representation.
As well as newcomer Vellani, Ms Marvel's cast includes Aramis Knight (Into the Badlands), Saagar Shaikh (Unfair & Ugly), Rish Shah (India Sweets and Spices), Zenobia Shroff (The Affair), Mohan Kapur (Bullets), Matt Lintz (The Walking Dead), Yasmeen Fletcher (Let Us In) and Laith Nakli (Ramy).
And, it'll hit your streaming queue following the MCU's other announced show for 2022 so far — the Oscar Isaac-starring Moon Knight, which arrives on Wednesday, March 30.
Check out the trailer for Ms Marvel below:
Ms Marvel will start streaming via Disney+ on Wednesday, June 8.
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