‘Ms. Marvel’ review: Disney+ blends culture and magical fandom to remix the superhero origin story

Ms. Marvel doesn’t even try to disguise the formulaic origin story anchoring its opening episodes on Disney+.

The tricky family dynamic, the low-rent costume, the deserted rooftop, the inevitable pop music-inflected training montage — it’s all there. We’ve seen it play out on screen countless times, and more than once in the case of perennial faves like Spider-Man and Batman. But with Kamala Khan, Pakistani-American alter-ego of the series’ eponymous Marvel superhero, the origin formula hits different.

Star Iman Vellani’s geeky high schooler may have grown up in a world where the Avengers and their powers are very real, but she’s recognizably a fangirl through and through. We see it right up front in the first episode as a colorful introduction narrated by Kamala features her doodles of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s major heroes and villains in an animated reenactment of the story so far.

So when she ventures up onto a rooftop with her high school bestie Bruno Carelli (Matt Lintz) to test out her newfound powers during the second episode, we see a young fellow geek fulfilling a fandom fantasy. Kamala Khan, a ride-or-die Captain Marvel fan and effervescently committed cosplay enthusiast, gets to live the dream.

That’s just one piece of the propulsive energy driving Ms. Marvel‘s opening two episodes, the first of which premieres on June 8. Vellani’s take on Kamala feels authentically rooted in the youthful vigor of a modern young woman, for better and for worse. She knows that metahumans have changed the world, and she understands that power and responsibility go hand-in-hand.

She also understands how an exurban teenage Muslim girl typically fits into that big picture: not at all. As Kamala says early on in an oft-quoted line that was featured in the first trailer: “It’s not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world.” Ms. Marvel sets out from moment one to correct the record on that assumption, for Kamala and Disney+ viewers both.

Kamala’s effervescent personality and independent spirit frequently clashes with her more conservative family, and her mother Muneeba in particular.
Credit: Marvel Studios

That’s not to say it’s an easy journey. In Kamala, the scripts introduce us to an awkward teen geek with few friends and a social rapsheet filled with public embarrassments. Vellani plays it perfectly, bringing visible discomfort and uncertainty to her physical performance. Kamala is instantly lovable in an underdog sort of way; she’s a goofy kid who loves what she loves, but she clearly hasn’t figured out how to outwardly own those innate qualities as part of herself.

A big piece of that, we quickly learn, is a product of the family dynamic at home. It starts with Kamala’s mother, Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), a controlling and intensely protective parent who labors to shield her daughter from the everyday realities of bigotry, toxic masculinity, and other modern threats that traumatize and shift young perspectives.

Shroff’s conservative performance rarely goes big, but that’s the point. She may become something more by the time Ms. Marvel‘s six episodes reach their conclusion, but the first third of the season introduces us to Muneeba as a well-meaning but domineering obstacle to Kamala’s growth. Her genteel dad Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) is, quietly, more constructively supportive, but there’s no question about who runs the Khan household — and it ain’t him.

Kamala’s struggles to evolve into an independent young woman are further hampered by her older brother, Aamir (Saagar Shaikh). As an observant Muslim himself who has followed in his parents’ tradition-rooted footsteps, we’re shown again and again during family scenes how Aamir is everything Kamala is not.

He clearly understands that the family’s mother-daughter relationship is wracked by regularly clashing perspectives. Aamir loves his kid sister and wants her to be her best self, there’s no question of that. When Muneeba shuts down Kamala’s request for permission to attend the first-ever AvengerCon fan event, it’s Aamir who later steps in and pitches a compromise. Shaikh plays the “favored son” role with relish, putting a low-key comic spin on fraught family moments with line deliveries that feel thoughtfully blunt.

Vellani’s take on Kamala feels authentically rooted in the youthful vigor of a modern young woman.

There’s a natural chemistry in the entire Khan family dynamic that’s evident in their every scene together. The traditions that shape their daily lives may not be familiar to every Ms. Marvel viewer, but there are universally applicable contours to Kamala’s relationships with her mother, father, and brother. The magic of this series lies in the details most of all.

When it comes to the Khan family and their tight-knit Muslim community in Jersey City, Ms. Marvel‘s portrayal of Islam is rooted in beauty and love. It’s hardly idealized, as demonstrated in a plot thread involving Kamala’s friend Nakia (Yasmeen Fletcher) which starts with the two grousing during a mosque service about men and women being forced to worship and observe in separate areas.

The tension between progress and tradition is a central theme explored in Ms. Marvel‘s first hours — and it feels like one that’s going to define the long arc of the series in the end — but that exploration never happens at Islam’s expense. Series writer and creator Bisha K. Ali, a Pakistani-British comic and writer who also contributed to Marvel’s Loki, opts instead for a more hopeful and positive take.

Yes, religion can be a regressive force in culture, the show seems to acknowledge, before adding: But the kids are all right. We see the world of Ms. Marvel through Kamala’s eyes, and while there’s no question at all that she has a complicated relationship with faith, it’s also an important piece of who she is. That’s reflected not just in the way she engages directly as a character, but also more subtly in the way the show itself is presented.

A light touch with action in the first two episodes leaves more to time linger and immerse viewers in a particular moment. Close-ups fill us in on small, easily missed details, from the fangirl ephemera splashed across Kamala’s bedroom to the impeccably well-kept clutter of the Khan family’s shared living spaces. An Eid Mubarak party in the second episode mixes consciously loving depictions of the event’s food, dress, decor, and social complexities in alongside key character moments.

Kamala’s many high school scenes perfectly capture the awkwardness of geeky teen years.
Credit: Marvel Studios

Kamala’s youthful daydreaming and geeky sensibilities also come to life in the surrounding world of Ms. Marvel. When she and Bruno hatch a plot to get themselves to AvengerCon, their ideal scenario plays out as a live-action fantasy, complete with death-defying bicycle acrobatics and a flashy hero landing. The animated sequence that kicks the series off is followed later by similar flourishes, from a text message back-and-forth woven into background elements of a scene to graffiti that comes to life as Kamala tells a story.

Here, too, the action-light approach early on leaves more time to connect Kamala directly to her fandom, and us to her by extension. When she finally does make it to AvengerCon, the wandering camera winkingly pauses on references to things like “America’s ass” and the Avengers musical — because, obviously, the memes and bits we ourselves derive from the MCU have a similar kind of impact in the diegetic context of its fictional modern landscape.

That basic relatability is Ms. Marvel‘s greatest strength. It’s the thing that helps carry the two episodes past slow-to-develop plot threads tied to Kamala’s family history and the complex relationship dynamics between her, her crush-turned-boyfriend Kamran (Rish Shah), and a jealous Bruno. It’s also what makes Vellani’s portrayal of the show’s eponymous lead so fundamentally compelling.

Kamala Khan isn’t just the main character here; she’s also our window into the world itself. The show works right off the bat by staying away from the kinds of things that make it distinctly Marvel and focusing instead on how those distinctly Marvel things have influenced a younger generation. While we talk in the real world about telling stories and creating art with an inclusive mindset, this Disney+ series imagines how that mindset manifests in a world where the MCU fantasy is tangibly real.

The visceral thrills of blockbuster superheroics will surely take center stage before these six episodes are finished. But by slowing down in the early hours to consider context and put serious thought into how a superhero is really born, Ms. Marvel‘s hopeful remix of the origin story is already a winner.

Ms. Marvel comes to Disney+ on June 8, with new episodes arriving every Wednesday after that.