She’s going higher, further, faster — if she finishes her homework. Disney+’s next superhero is a high schooler inspired by Captain Marvel, but Ms. Marvel is more than just a fangirl in the new TV show.
Marvel Studios released the first full trailer for Ms. Marvel in March 2022, and it’s clear that the newest addition is a little different than the darker Disney+ shows, like Moon Knight and Wandavision. The light-hearted clip introduces Kamala Khan, a teen who spends her days dreaming about superheroes.
“You’re staring out the window in your little fantasyland,” a guidance counselor tells Kamala (Iman Vellani).
She quips, “Do I have to figure out my whole future before lunch?”
Kamala Khan clearly isn’t the cool girl at school. She gets made fun of for her Avengers T-shirts, and she can barely speak around her crush. She spends her time geeking out over Captain Marvel costumes and going to superhero exhibits.
When she’s with a friend, she admits that everyone telling her to grow up might be right. “Maybe they’re right. I spend too much time in fantasyland,” she says. “It’s not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world. That’s a fantasy too.”
That’s when everything changes. The Ms. Marvel trailer shows Kamala putting on a mysterious bracelet and she starts to glow. She has new powers that include bursts of energy from her hands and the ability to jump between rooftops.
Being a superhero isn’t easy, though. “I always thought I wanted this kind of life, but I never imagined any of this,” Kamala says.
The teen must balance school and life with her devout Muslim family while also keeping her new powers a secret — at least from most people. It seems she’ll have at least one friend, Bruno Carrelli (Matt Lintz), looped into her new identity. “I’m a superhero,” she excitedly tells him.
Though the character’s comic book debut in 2013 makes her one of the more recent heroes (as opposed to someone like Captain America, who debuted in 1941), Marvel Studios quickly realized that Kamala Khan would have to make her way to the screen.
“Ms. Marvel is one of the newer characters in the Marvel comics, and when one comes in that grabs the world’s imagination like this, the questions are, ‘When are we going to bring Ms. Marvel to the screen?’” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recalled in a December 2021 sizzle reel for the upcoming series.
Showrunner Bisha K. Ali added that the themes of Kamala’s story align with those found in other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. “It’s so human. It’s about a teenager figuring out who she is and about relationships,” she explained in the December video. “Family and friendship is at the heart of the MCU cannon. That’s what’s so exciting about this story that we’re bringing, is that we’re going to introduce you to a new family that’s also going to be part of the wider MCU.”
Scroll down to learn everything to know so far about Ms. Marvel: