Kevin Feige, we are asking you once again — hire Iman Vellani to work behind the scenes of the MCU as well as in front of it.
As undoubtedly the biggest Marvel fan to actually play a Marvel hero, The Marvels star has proved her multiversal expertise numerous times — she’s the only one willing to challenge Feige on his insistence that the MCU is Earth-616, not the correct Earth-19999 — and she’s even proven she’s an idea machine for the future of the franchise too. Just check out her pitch on how to handle Avengers: Secret Wars.
Sadly, with The Marvels bombing at the box office, it’s unclear where we will see Vellani as Kamala Khan next. However, the actress remains hopeful that she’ll get to return in a Ms. Marvel season 2. And, true to form, the actress knows exactly where she wants the show to go next if it does receive the greenlight. When asked which villain she would wish to face in season 2, Vellani revealed that she had definitely already put ample thought into this question and had an answer ready to go. As she told The Direct:
“Definitely Doc.X. I think that’s a great villain from the comics and can really resonate with the Gen Z audience. It would be so interesting—I don’t know, messing with kids’ psyche almost when you have this villain who only exists on your phone, and on your laptops, and on all your screens that we can’t avoid. I think it’d be really interesting position to put them all in to fight against something that you can’t even see, right? Yeah. Yeah, that’s one of my favorite comic storylines. So I would love to see that play out.”
Ms. Marvel season 2 could introduce the perfect next-gen version of Ultron
As Vellani alludes to, Doc.X was an evil AI introduced in the comics in 2017. Despite only appearing in six issues of Ms. Marvel Vol. 4, the villain clearly made a big impact on Vellani as a reader as she can see how such a character could have a hug impact on those of her generation if they were to be adapted by Marvel Studios.
So who is Doc.X? Unlike Ultron or Vision, Doc.X has no physical form and their insidious threat comes from the fact they are able to spread throughout the internet and infect countless devices at once. Originally created as a virus by a World of Battlecraft (no, that’s nothing like World of Warcraft) administrator, Doc.X initially infected the account of one player, before growing in intelligence, knowledge, and sentience as it came into contact with other players.
One of these was a user by the name of SlothBaby, none other than Kamala Khan. As Doc.X’s reach grew to mean it had gained control over many devices and networks in the greater New York area, it discovered the truth that Kamala was really Ms. Marvel. Using her secret identity as leverage, Doc.X attempted to blackmail Kamala into uploading it into the main S.H.I.E.L.D. server, which would allow its reach to expand exponentially.
With the MCU strangely reluctant to bring back Ultron in live-action, Doc.X would be the perfect timely response from Marvel to the growing problem of AI. It’s worth mentioning that another secret Doc.X threatens to out in the comics is that Kamala’s rival Zoe Zimmer is secretly in love with her best friend, Nakia. This is another plotline that would be worth exploring in Ms. Marvel season 2 to allow for both supporting characters to receive some much-needed development.
Sadly, Ms. Marvel season 2 remains a pipedream for now, but, Iman, if you can just keep on bugging Kevin Feige and texting him everyday about it until he gives in and commissions more episodes, we would all appreciate it.