Ms. Marvel is set to grace our Disney Plus queues in just two weeks, and directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have set their sights high for Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, hoping that she’ll reach a similar level of popularity in the MCU comparable to Spider-Man.
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man reached a would-be conclusive height late last year in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but we’re almost guaranteed to keep seeing the web-slinger in future projects. Similarly, Kamala Khan’s future beyond the Disney Plus series has already been confirmed, as she’s set to appear in 2023’s The Marvels.
In an interview with Total Film (via GamesRadar), El Arbi touched on how the Spider-Man film in particular is driving the pair of directors to do their absolute best work with Kamala Khan.
“In the same way you see Tom Holland as Peter Parker evolve… that’s the bar, basically. For us, personally, it’s a masterpiece of a movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The bar is now so high. It just inspires us and also the other people involved in Ms. Marvel, to be like, ‘What can we do to try to reach that goal one day?’”
Vellani also pointed out Kamala Khan’s relatability as a character, which may help propel the character’s popularity.
[Kamala]’s a fan [of the Avengers], just like us, and that’s why we root for her when she meets Avengers in the comics. That’s why we root for her when she gets her powers. Everyone can definitely see themselves in her. You don’t have to be Brown or Muslim or Pakistani. It’s about this Avengers-loving, fanfic-writing nerd who just happens to be a Pakistani-American Muslim girl.
The first episode of Ms. Marvel will release to Disney Plus on June 8 later this year.