A visit to a comic shop (part 4: Ms. Marvel)

part 1, part 2, part 3 if you missed them.


When I arrived home after visiting the comic shop in part 2, after I had let the dog out and then fed him, I eagerly opened the bag of comics, right there in my kitchen.


First of all, Ms. Marvel appears to be a well-written comic, in the opinion of someone who doesn't know comics. The teenage drama is spot on, as is the cultural aspects. She deals with a traditional (at least I think so) family, sneaks out to attend a party, and is cruelly teased because of her religion and her skin color. Some sort of weird fog obscures everything, and she has a vision of Captain Marvel and her fellow superheroes. She tells Captain Marvel that she wants to be just like her. Captain Marvel, with a few words of warning, agrees.


The next frame shows a White, blonde Ms. Marvel.


I literally cringed.


Obviously, as demonstrated by the first 3 parts of this series of posts, I am not looking at this from a comic based knowledge. Instead, I am looking at this from the perspective of someone who has had multicultural awareness (and hopefully, some sensitivity) pounded into her. In my most recent multicultural class we watched videos of African-American teenage girls discussing the discrimination against those with darker skin and the desirability of lighter skin, and the things they do to appear more "White": bleaching and straightening their hair, for example.  A book that I read years ago, about passing as white (and other issues), The House Behind the Cedars, by Charles W. Chestnutt, left a lifelong impact. Amy Tan's books also tend to deal with the conflict between the traditional and the younger generation, who are often in the process of acclimating to the dominant culture. The list could keep going for several posts. It's a thing. Unfortunately.


As I stood there leaning against my kitchen counter, with the dog munching contentedly at my feet, staring at a teenage girl dealing with family conflict and being made fun of by other kids because of her religion and the color of her skin, who had asked to be someone else, who then changes into a superhero who is blonde and White and who presumably meets societal expectations of "pretty":


My heart hurt.


With the information I have so far about Kamala Khan, (although before making an actual determination, we would need to question her further and obtain more pertinent information) she would most likely fall within an assimilation or conformity stage of a racial identity model, in that she is struggling with her race/religion/family and wants to fit in with the dominant culture.


I knew that the professor who had taught my most recent multicultural class actually is a comic book aficionado. I brought my Ms. Marvel comic books to campus to let him look at them.  I told him that they were really well written, and the cultural aspects were spot on, but that he would know the moment in the first book which caused me to cringe.


We flipped through the pages, and I pointed out her conflict with her family, the moment where she gets teased and made fun of at the party, and where she tells Captain Marvel she wants to be like her.


Then we turn the page, and I show him how she looks as Ms. Marvel, and wait for it.


He looked up, shocked.  "She's White?" he said.   "Why?"


"I've been thinking about it," I replied.


"First, she asks Captain Marvel if she can look like her, and this is what Captain Marvel looked like when she was younger, presumably. Plus, they're rebooting Ms. Marvel, and therefore, she needs to look like Ms. Marvel has looked in previous versions. I think." I said.


"I guess," he said.  "But it still sends a message."


I nodded.


"They're going to have to resolve that at some point in the series," he said.


We'll see.