Revealed at this year’s New York Comic-con, the upcoming Avenger’s game from SquareEnix detailed its next joining character; Ms. Marvel. While to some people this may have come across as Captain Marvel, it’s actually that of Kamala Kahn, a Muslim hero that’s been around since 2013.
Debuting as the sixth playable character in the upcoming Avenger’s title, Ms. Marvel looks to be the one that sets in motion the reuniting of the team. Early looks at the game with numerous gameplay trailers have shown the Avenger’s dismantling after a horrible event goes awry and leads to the apparent death of Captain America. While fans were expecting to see Hawkeye or another popular hero, they were rather stunned, at least a vocal majority, that Kahn was the next choice.
Personally, I’m very excited to see what Crystal Dynamics does with the character as she’s been featured pretty prominently in the comics the past few years. Her role in the game looks to be something substantial, and for the character being not just female, but the daughter of Pakistani immigrants living in Jersey City. Inclusion and representation in media is becoming massive, and it’s always a good thing when people get to see more of themselves in what they enjoy.
I criticized the initial trailer for this game as playing it safe, taking well-established characters and leaning on them heavily, ride the enormous coattails left by the massively popular MCU films. By placing Kamala front and center, a character that hasn’t been in large scale media, it’s a bold move that has made me change my opinion on the game considerably. Studio head Scot Amos had more to say on this as well:
"We have these other characters, maybe you've read them or watched them in other mediums. But then you get to Kamala and you're like, 'Who's this? This is something fresh and new…I think there's a uniqueness we get to from that storytelling in the campaign."
For those who don’t know who Kamala Kahn is, well she’s a teenager who is fascinated by superheroes that just happens to have superpowers of her own. She’s also an Inhuman, which is something similar to that of Mutants. When Terrigen Mist was unleashed upon the city, it awakened her Inhuman genes giving her shapeshifting capabilities and a powerful healing factor. She took the name of Ms. Marvel due to the character dreaming about Carol Danvers during the incubation phase of her powers awakening. This then led to her taking her form during the early moments of her gaining her abilities via her shapeshifting, and then keeping the name but reverting to her own form instead and a costume that looked to honor the old Ms. Marvel.
Kamala is an interesting choice and with the character to debut in an MCU connected Disney+ series coming soon, Kamala Kahn is about to go mainstream in ways we can’t imagine.