Ms. Marvel’s Superpower Shift Distances Her from Marvel’s Biggest Bomb: The Inhumans

A superhero’s powers are a big deal. Their incredible, amazing, uncanny abilities and talents are what separate them from the audience and make them aspirational and inspirational (while ideally still relatable). When you hear about a new hero for the first time, it makes total sense to immediately ask, “What are their powers?” Now Disney+ is ready to introduce a huge audience to another new hero in Ms. Marvel. And now that we’ve seen the first trailer for the upcoming super-show, we have an idea of what her powers will be — and, uh, even diehard comic book fans will be surprised.

Let’s start with how Kamala has been portrayed in the comics since her introduction in 2014. Kamala is described as a polymorph in the comics, meaning she can change her size and shape — and she can even shape shift. However, Ms. Marvel mostly uses her powers to stretch and grow and embiggen (as she says) her fists into giant battering rams. Those are the powers that comic book readers are used to.

As seen in the trailer, Kamala Khan has abilities that seem kinda like a violet version of DC Comics’ Green Lantern; she can create solid objects out of a vibrant energy. She creates a lot of different objects in the two minutes we’ve seen, from a projectile that slams her door shut to a bulletproof force field and floating discs that allow her to step across a skyline.

There’s no size-changing or stretching involved — but, it is very very very important to point out that even with this new powerset, Kamala still embiggens her fists to great effect.

Honestly, this is very important! Imagine Spider-Man without his webs or Wolverine without his claws. That’s what Ms. Marvel would be like if she didn’t have huge fists.

So, why the change? Why is Kamala now powered by a bracelet instead of being all stretchy? The answer most likely has to do with the biggest flop in Marvel’s live-action history: 2017’s short-lived disaster of a TV series, Marvel’s Inhumans.

The series aired on ABC for one vigorously panned and gloriously unremarkable season, airing eight episodes before being cancelled and forgotten about. And thank Uatu for that, because series lead Anson Mount was able to tiptoe away from his role as the silent Inhuman king Black Bolt and suit up as a member of Starfleet. Now he has his own show: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiering on May 5.

So, what does Ms. Marvel have to do with Inhumans? To try to sum this up as succinctly as possible: back when Marvel did not own the feature film rights to the X-Men, the company tried to get around that by taking the Inhumans — another group of super-powered individuals with a soap opera-y vibe and weird abilities — and trying to turn them into a major priority for the first time in their 50-year history. This meant announcing an Inhumans feature film (which was ultimately scrapped and downgraded to a TV series because of a whole other kerfuffle that I don’t have time to get into), and Marvel started a whole bunch of Inhumans-centric stories in the comics. Ms. Marvel was one of those stories. In the comics, Kamala Khan finds out that she’s an Inhuman and her latent powers of embiggening awaken, thus allowing her to live out her Carol Danvers fangirl dreams of being a superhero.

Fast forward 5-ish years to Ms. Marvel the TV series and a whole lot has changed behind-the-scenes. Inhumans was an embarrassment, the characters did not catch on as hoped in the comics, and Marvel Studios now does have the rights to the X-Men. So why would Marvel, riding high on a marvelous decade+ of success, want to tie one of their new characters — a highly-anticipated new character! — to the one property that was an unequivocal bummer? How important was being an Inhuman to Ms. Marvel anyway?

So now she has new powers, powers that Kamala describes with one word: cosmic. I think it’s actually possible that the trailer includes all of the information we need to guess what Kamala’s new origin is — and I think it goes way deeper than her having a cosmic bracelet.

Let’s talk about that bracelet! In the comics, Kamala’s bracelet is a family heirloom that belonged to her great-grandmother. It has tiny compartments in it that she uses to carry things, and there’s nothing particularly cosmic about it. In the trailer, though, it’s clear that Kamala’s powers come from the bracelet — and you can see that she finds the bracelet in a box in what looks like the attic.

Here’s a theory: that bracelet is some sort of alien — specifically Kree — artifact, and Kamala’s great-grandmother was either Kree herself or an ally of the Kree. This could be Kamala’s origin story. For one thing, it connects her to the Kree, like her idol Captain Marvel. Obviously Marvel Studios wants to tie Kamala to Carol, especially over the Inhumans. This bracelet being the source of her power also connects Kamala’s powers to her heritage. Instead of just finding a magic bracelet, she’s likely following in her great-grandmother’s footsteps. That feels very on-theme and very Ms. Marvel.

Ms. Marvel premieres on Disney+ on June 8.

Stream Marvel's Inhumans on Disney+