Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: marvel, ms marvel, september 2021

YA Novelist Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet Ms Marvel #1 in September

Samira Ahmed is a YA novelist best known for works such as Love, Hate & Other Filters, Internment, and Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know. And in September she is writing her first comic book, Ms Marvel #1, launching a five-issue mini-series Ms Marvel: Beyond The Limit from Marvel Comics, to be drawn by Andrés Genolet. Genolet is best known for drawing Runaways, Spider-Girls, and X-Men for Marvel. Samira Ahmed is also the first female South Asian writer to write the Ms. Marvel comic, following on from G Willow Wilson and Saladin Ahmed. Ahmed was born in Mumbai but grew up in Illinois.

Samira Ahmed told Entertainment Weekly that she has been familiar with the character fo a long time and that regularly used the WWMMD, What Would Miss Marvel Do? acronym with her South Asian cousins. "A lot of it will be about food, because we can all relate to Kamala on that level. Sometimes it will be about bigger things in life. She looms large in my familial culture… For kids of color, Muslim kids, there was literally zero representation when I was growing up. Just the fact that Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman was brunette and from someplace outside America was like, 'Wow, that's amazing!' So when Sana and Willow announced Ms. Marvel, I was just so stunned. My heart soars for all the kids who will have Ms. Marvel comics as part of their childhood. For me, what's cool about her is that she's a girl like all the other girls. She's balancing all this stuff: Parental expectations – which I can 100 percent relate to now even in adulthood – plus school, crushes, and then this extraordinary side job. I feel so much that that is teen life, where you're struggling to balance all those things and find your voice and where you fit in."

Samira Ahmed's previous YA novels often include young South Asian Americans standing up to dystopian powerful controlling futures, or parents' expectations, which both fit well in Ms Marvel's wheelhouse. Ahmed says "She fits in so naturally with many of my characters. I always tell people that in all my fiction there's this through-line of the 'revolutionary girl.' What girl is more revolutionary than Kamala Khan? She literally has a giant fist that is punching through a glass ceiling! But at the same time, as she's doing that, she has the heart and the powers to protect people so that shards don't cut them on the way down. Her powers are a metaphor!" How many people have had those awkward moments as a teen where you wake up one day and start thinking, 'Wait, are my ears too big for my face?' Andrés is bringing the story to life in such a cool way. Fans that have been there from day one will love to see how we're playing around with her powers, exploring them, and maybe pushing them. I think it's cool for her to examine them a little bit. I don't want to give any spoilers, but there are gonna be some questions that arise about the source of her powers and what that means. We're definitely going to have some food in there, we're definitely gonna have some pretty striking South Asian cultural elements that people are gonna see right off the bat in the series. There are gonna be some familiar faces and fan favorites, but also some new faces. I've just been looking at the sketches, it's so cool seeing the story come to life with some new faces and maybe even new places becoming part of Kamala's world. Willow and then Saladin have created such an incredible world. I'm just excited to explore it and even push it out a little further."

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