The first trailer for Ms. Marvel is here, and it features a lot of teenage angst and superhero action. The new Disney Plus original series stars Iman Vellani as a young teenage girl from Jersey City who develops superpowers.
Scored to The Weeknds incredibly catchy song "Blinding Lights," the Ms. Marvel trailer opens with Kamala Khan (Vellani) daydreaming in high school. She's then seen sitting across from a cool young guidance counselor who tells her he "gets it." We see that she's a big fan of The Avengers, even wearing a T-shirt with Captain Marvel on it, which her peers make fun of her for. She then swoons over a boy at a pool party as the guidance counselor points out that she's always staring out the window, fantasizing about superheroes. She then sarcastically replies, "do I have to figure out my whole future before lunch?"
The Ms. Marvel trailer then shifts to a slightly more serious tone, as Kamala doubts herself, saying that "it's not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world." From there, Kamala adjusts to her newfound superpowers, which she calls "cosmic" as she leaps through the air. As the Ms. Marvel trailer shows quick cuts of her dawning her new costume, Kamala states, "I always thought I wanted this kind of life, but I never imagined any of this".
The Ms. Marvel trailer really nails the essence of Kamala Khan's character, even styling some scenes with a fun hand-drawn aesthetic to highlight her personality. Kamala Khan made her comic book debut in 2013 in Captain Marvel #14. Created by a powerhouse comics team made up of editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, writer G. Willow Wilson, and artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie, Khan became Marvel's first Muslim character to headline her own comic book. In the comics, Kamala is a Pakistani-Muslim teenager from New Jersey who discovers she has inhuman genes that give her superpowers.
Something that the trailer emulates from the comics really well is that Kamala is a superhero fan, spending much of her time daydreaming about her hero, Brie Larson's Captain Marvel. In the years since her comic book debut, Kamala Khan has become one of Marvel's most popular characters and has appeared in dozens of comic book storylines and even video games. The new Disney Plus series marks her live-action debut in the MCU. While the character looks extremely faithful to her comic book counterpart, one key difference between the new series and the comics is the portrayal of Kamala's superpowers.
In the comics Kamala has shape-shifting abilities, allowing her to manipulate her body by changing her size and density to great effect. This allows her to become a giant, or enlarge and shrink one of her limbs during a fight. However, In this new trailer, her powers almost look more akin to a character like DC Comics' Green Lantern, who can create objects and force fields with his green Power Ring. In the trailer we see Kamala use her powers to a similar effect, creating a shield for herself and mimicking a giant fist as well as using tiny force fields to hop along with the air.
Why this change was made is unclear, but regardless, the series still looks like it gets to the heart of what makes Kamala such an enduring and relatable character for Marvel fans everywhere.
Ms. Marvel premieres exclusively on Disney Plus on June 8th, 2022.
Source: Marvel Studios