Sana Amanat has been with Ms. Marvel from the beginning. Back in 2014, she was the Marvel comics editor who collaborated with writer G. Willow Wilson, artist Adrian Alphona, and fellow editor Steve Wacker in order to help bring the teenaged superhero from Jersey City to life. When the trailer for the upcoming Disney+ series dropped, the style and color of the production really stood out among the often-grim superhero shows that Marvel has previously produced.
“The comic was very much a guiding light for us. We needed to make sure that it worked in the MCU, of course, but we wanted to make sure that we had that quirkiness and the stylistic distinction that the comics did so well,” said Amanat in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “We wanted to find our own MCU version of it.”
One of the big differences between the comics and what we see of Kamala Khan in the trailer is her powers. In the comics her powers are elastic and stretchy—she can make parts of herself bigger, expanding and “embiggening” herself to punch a baddie with a fist the size of a garbage truck. In the trailer, however, they seem to be much more “cosmic,” to use Khan’s own words.
Amanat addressed the backlash with EW, stating that the powers Khan wields look different because they are different. She also says that she and Willow discussed the change beforehand, and to them, “this made sense.” Changing Khan’s powers was “the right move because there are bigger stories to tell.” Part of this goes into the fact that this is an adaptation, and changing Khan’s powers is about introducing her to the MCU itself, which means giving her different powers that “feel big in scope and cinematic in a different way.” Especially since Khan is slated to appear in the Nia DeCosta-directed Marvel film, The Marvels, currently scheduled to release July 28, 2023.
Amanat reassures readers that despite the cosmic changes, Khan’s powers are still “ fun and bouncy... the essence of what the powers are in the comics is there, both from a metaphorical standpoint and from a visual standpoint.” In response to the classic Kamala Khan beat ‘em down move, Amanat says not to worry: “We’re doing the embiggened fist.”
Ms. Marvel premieres June 8 on Disney+.
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