Ms. Marvel, played by Kamala Kahn, has taken up the role of the young and vivacious Avenger previously occupied by Tom Holland.
Move over, Spider-Man, because there’s a fresh wide-eyed youngster fighting it out with the grizzled veterans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and her name is Kamala Khan (or Ms. Marvel, if you’re being mean). Screen Rant suggests that now that the life-changing events of Spider-Man: No Way Home have caused Peter Parker to reach a more mature stage in his life, Marvel needs new blood to fill the role of the spunky child attempting to find their footing in a world filled with gods and monsters. Iman Vellani’s character, Kamala, enters the picture at this point.
Although we don’t believe that Spider-Man will ever leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), he does not play the same part in the franchise as he did in the past. Spider-Man and his alter ego, Tom Holland, were presented to fans of Marvel for the first time in Captain America: Civil War. Holland played a newcomer to the heroic life at the time of his introduction. During the iconic fight sequence in the airport that took place in Civil War, Peter Parker didn’t spend nearly as much time fighting as he did marveling (pardon the pun) over everyone else’s awesome powers and costumes.
But over the course of three solo movies and two additional trips with the Avengers, Peter Parker went through a significant amount of maturation. At the conclusion of No Way Home, he was no longer the star-struck kid he once was, leaving a hole in the fabric of the MCU that Kamala Kahn now has the responsibility of filling in.
In addition to providing comedic relief through his never-ending stream of one-liners, the adolescent web-slinger also had another purpose: he acted as a surrogate for the audience. Peter Parker stood in for the audience members in many respects as they watched the movie. He refers to the superhuman identities of the Avengers as their “made-up names” because he believes that this is how an average person would refer to them.
Now, Kamala Khan is performing same duties, and she could even be doing a better job than Peter did. It’s true that Peter Parker encapsulated our nerdy enthusiasm for watching the Avengers in action, but Kamala takes things a step further. In the Disney Ms. Marvel series, Kamala Khan goes to AvengerCon, which is a fictitious representation of real-life ComicCons, such as the ones that real-life Marvel fans go to.
Peter Parker’s hero worship of Iron Man was a parody of the fixation that many Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have with Robert Downey Jr.’s flawed portrayal of a rich playboy. On the other hand, Kamala Khan takes her admiration of heroes to an entirely new level. Her bedroom has been transformed into a shrine dedicated to Captain Marvel, with the walls adorned with photos of the hero torn from magazines and even some that Kamala has drawn herself.
Fans of comic books used to do exactly this back in the day. They would often purchase two copies of the same issue of a book so that they could read one and then cut pictures out of the other.
The impending sequel to Captain Marvel, titled The Marvels, will mark Kamala Khan’s first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) outside of her own self-titled series on Disney+. If the promotional material for The Marvels is any indicator, Kamala’s preoccupation with superheroes and their ilk will reach an all-time high by the time the movie rolls around. Just in the trailer by itself, we get not just one but two glimpses of her excitement about the prospect of seeing Nick Fury. And throughout both of these encounters, she badgers him into signing up with the Avengers.
It is unknown when we will see Tom Holland’s Spider-Man again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), as Marvel has been tight-lipped about the subject. However, it is likely that when he does return, he will have become too accustomed to living in the world of superheroes for him to be able to provide any fresh insight for fans regarding how strange it is to live in the Marvel universe. Fans now have Kamala Khan to thank because of this fortunate turn of events.