While Kamala Khan made a big impression on fans in the premiere episode of Ms. Marvel last week, folks are still not happy that Marvel elected to reimagine her powers for the MCU. Instead of the Mr. Fantastic-like elasticity and shape-shifting Kamala has in the comics, a product of her Inhuman genes, the MCU’s Kamala can produce hard-light energy forms thanks to her bracelet, a mystical family heirloom.
People have been grumbling about this as they don’t see why it was necessary to alter such a fundamental part of the character. But maybe, just maybe, that’s not what Marvel has done at all. Maybe they’re just holding off on Kamala’s comics-accurate powers to create a major fan-pleasing moment in the finale. That’s the theory pitched by New Rockstars’ Erik Voss in his latest video, which you can check out below.
This theory is based on a certain amount of evidence, too, as Voss spoke to Ms. Marvel directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah about Kamala’s powers and they revealed that she’s yet to “evolve” into her full set of abilities, with the finale set to deliver “the real deal”, whatever that means. These teasing comments led Voss to inspect the action scenes in the pilot and theorize that Kamala’s hard-light energy is actually a kind of cocoon, an adaptation of the Terrigen Mists that usually give the heroine her powers.
The idea goes that the energy is slowly being depleted each time Kamala uses her skills and eventually, by the finale, her ultimate evolved form will be revealed. This would then presumably closely resemble how her gifts work in the comics and Kamala will be able to “embiggen” herself for real, not just emit energy constructs like a Green Lantern knock-off.
There’s a lot of optimism to this theory, for sure, but having Kamala’s powers evolve like this would act as a neat metaphor for the coming-of-age themes of the series, so there could be something to it. We’ll find out if it’s on the money as Ms. Marvel continues Wednesdays on Disney Plus.