Diverse shades of power

With the hype Marvel’s most recent and most ambitious venture, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ has created for the upcoming Captain Marvel movie, fans cannot keep calm about Marvel’s first solo female superhero film. Not much has been revealed about the movie except that it will be set in the 90’s and will feature younger versions of Nick Fury, Agent Phil Coulson among others alongside Brie Larson as Captain Marvel.

With ‘Black Panther’ garnering much praise worldwide for its culture-sensitive portrayal and making history as the movie about a black superhero featuring an almost all-black cast to hit theatres, Captain Marvel seems like Marvel’s attempt to diversify and expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Captain Marvel could potentially open the MCU to the inclusion of two more women who would not only make amazing contributions to the MCU and the team ups but also add layers of diversity to the culture MCU is slowly opening itself up to. 

The first of these women is Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American teenager who took on the mantle of Ms. Marvel after her mentor, Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel. Kamala Khan became the first Muslim superhero to get a solo series.

Apart from having the amazing powers of polymorphism and shapeshifting, Kamala Khan is a teenager and her series provides great socio-political commentary on the life of an American Muslim teenager which is slice-of-life and not lost amidst the action, dealing with Islamophobia and balancing all the regular things that teenagers do.

Her gender, ethnicity and religion impact how others and she, view herself making hers a great coming-of-age story. Something special about her story is that she shares a happy functional relationship with her family none of whom are dead, unlike most superhero stories. Kamala Khan is one of Marvel’s most loved characters inspiring fan art, a Tumble convention and even going on to become a symbol of protest especially after Trump’s Muslim ban.

Fan arts and pictures of her tearing a photo of the President and punching him, reminiscent of Captain America punching Hitler, did rounds. Her costume, self-fashioned from an old burkini, also mirrors that thus helping her create her identity despite inheriting the mantle of Ms. Marvel. 
The other character is America Chavez a.k.a Miss America.

Boasting of superhuman strength, speed, durability, flight and the ability to jump between dimensions, Miss America is also unique because she happens to be Marvel’s first Latin American, LGBTQIA superhero to star in a solo series.

Written by a queer woman of colour, Gabby Riviera, much of her journey to self-discovery includes reflections from Riviera’s life.  While a lot of fans are unhappy with the characterizations and writing, it cannot go unmentioned that America Chavez is a character that brings some much needed diversity to Marvel.

While details about Marvel’s upcoming projects have not yet been revealed, and we cannot do much but speculate about Phase 4 and what it could bring to MCU, it is clear that Marvel is looking to include more diversity in both its publications and movies.

As some people have said, it could just be a clever money-making gimmick, given the global socio political climate, at least some form of diversity is being brought on screen and sparking discussion. It would indeed be refreshing to see characters like Kamala Khan and America Chavez on screen as they could bring a lot more diversity and representation to the MCU and inspire the young women sitting in the audience.

If not, well we can always go back to the comics and video games for some well-written strong female characters subverting patriarchal tropes and kicking ass.

By Sre Ratha