Why are Ms. Marvel’s powers different from the comics?

Ms. Marvel, the latest Marvel series on Disney+, is out, and it’s pretty good. As Hawkeye was a light comedy, Loki a Doctor Who-esque sci-fi riff and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier a political thriller, Ms. Marvel is a coming-of-age story. Kamala Khan is a goofy teenager from Jersey City who comes into superpowers when she puts on a bracer sent by her grandmother in Pakistan. Does she want to be the proper lady her mother wants her to be, or does she want to be “cosmic”? Smart money’s on option #2.

The bit about the bracer may throw comic book fans, since that is very much not how Kamala gets her powers on the page. There, Kamala is an Inhuman, part of a group of superheroes who have been kicking around Marvel Comics for decades. Her powers are dormant until she’s exposed to something called the Terrigen Mist, after which she has the ability to stretch and grow her limbs to fantastic sizes, kind of like Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four.

In the TV show, Kamala shoots purple beams of energy, and while she can kind of do the big-transforming-hands trick, her actual hands don’t grow or stretch; that’s handled by those purple energy fields.

Kevin Feige isn’t making “an exact translation” of the Ms. Marvel comics

So her powers are pretty different onscreen vs in the comics; I’d venture to say this is the biggest comics-to-screen difference we’ve yet seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why the change? Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige revealed what he could to Empire. “We adapt the comics; it’s not an exact translation,” he said. “[Kamala] came about in a very specific time within the comic-book continuity. She is now coming into a very specific time within the MCU continuity. And those two things didn’t match. What we will learn about where those powers come from, and how they come about, is specific to the MCU.”

"You will see great comic splash panels in some of our action sequences. If you want big, giant hands and arms, well, they’re here in spirit, if not in stretchy, plastic-type ways."

That’s a pretty big non-answer, although I’m sure we’ll learn more details about Kamala’s powers as the show goes on.

I guess I can understand how introducing the Inhumans all at once would have been cumbersome; Marvel has included them only glancingly so far — Black Bolt made an appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, albeit in an alternate dimension — and Disney clearly wants to keep this new series grounded in everyday life.

That said, randomly getting powers from an old family heirloom is a pretty big change from the lore-heavy logic behind Kamala’s powers in the comics, although it does have an old school charm to it. Stand by for more on all of this.

New episodes of Ms. Marvel drop on Disney+ every Wednesday.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels