00:00Legacy heroes are a common idea in superhero comics, the idea of the hero's mantle being passed down for generations.
00:04Sometimes legacy heroes can outshine their predecessors, like the most well-known version of heroes like Green Lantern and The
00:10Flash being the second versions of those characters.
00:12We've seen this idea make its way onto the big screen recently.
00:15Black Panther had to switch from T'Challa to Shuri due to the past on Chadwick Boseman.
00:19We've had two different Captain Americas headlined big blockbusters, and the Spider-Verse movies are all about second Spider-Man
00:24Miles Morales.
00:25Now, one of my favourite heroes is a legacy hero, Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel.
00:29And I find her an interesting legacy character, because she's a reinvention of what a legacy character can be, and
00:35how she fits into the larger Marvel mythology.
00:37So this episode, we're gonna look at that.
00:39Created by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, Jubela Wilson, Adrienne Alfonia, and Jamie McKelvey, Kamala Khan is the fourth person to
00:46inherit the title of Ms. Marvel.
00:48The first was Carol Danvers, who got Kamala to Captain.
00:50The second was Sharon Ventura, who became She-Thing.
00:53The third was Carla Sulfon, the villain Moonstone, who took the mantle of Ms. Marvel under Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.
00:58Kamala Khan is probably the most impactful one out of the bunch.
01:01When she was revealed in 2013, she got a lot of media coverage, especially non-nerd outlets like The Guardian,
01:07because she was the first Muslim hero to mainline her own book in a mainstream comic book company.
01:11Which brings me to my first point about Kamala Khan and legacy heroes.
01:13Somebody different.
01:14One of the things about legacy heroes is they change the status quo by having someone different in the costume
01:19and with a different perspective.
01:20You can have someone with a different background take the mantle than the last one.
01:23Think of the Robins.
01:24Dick Grayson, a former circus acrobat who lost his family.
01:27Jason Todd, pulse crisis continuity anyway, an orphan who never knew his family with a bit of recklessness to him.
01:32Tim Drake, who had a family and a life outside of Batman.
01:35And Damien Wayne, Batman's kid, who lived a shared life and was raised by an assassin group.
01:39Different characters, different backgrounds, and entirely different Robins.
01:42With Kamala Khan, she's a Pakistani-American from New Jersey who's also a nerd.
01:45That's a bit different from Carol Danvers, who was a white lady who worked for the Air Force.
01:49Big difference there.
01:49As I mentioned before, representation is important.
01:52In writing for The Guardian in 2013, Muaz Khan wrote about what Kamala Khan would mean for young Muslim people.
01:57Having worked with young people for over a decade, the need for relatable role models, be they fictional like Kamala
02:03or based in reality like Malala, is growing, particularly for young Muslim women.
02:07This is even more crucial within a posted 9-11 world where young Muslims sometimes struggle to find their identity
02:11in a time when they're being pulled out from every direction.
02:14One can only imagine the positive impact these role models could have in the years to come.
02:18How something different to take the role of the superhero can bring a different set of eyes to that hero's
02:22role and can also show a different direction to take the hero.
02:24And that brings me to the other aspects of legacy heroes that Kamala Khan has.
02:28She's something completely different.
02:29Another thing that's interesting with Kamala Khan is that she has something to do with Carol Danvers.
02:33Unlike some legacy heroes who are either someone related to the hero, a form of psychic, an ally, their child,
02:38their clone, Kamala Khan isn't related to Carol Danvers in any way.
02:41Kamala is just a fan of hers.
02:42This severance gives her her own space to come into her own.
02:46She has her own supporting cast and even her own villains.
02:48Even her stories aren't that close to Carol Danvers.
02:50They're more in line with the early Dicko Spider-Man and I'm not the only one who thinks that.
02:54In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, then-editor Axel Alonsov said,
02:57She is Pia Parker of the 21st century.
03:00Pia Parker can be a 16-year-old Pakistani girl from New Jersey if her story is universal and people
03:04are going to come to read it.
03:05If it feels true, it resonates.
03:07People are going to come.
03:08The character is a nerd.
03:09Pia Parker was a science nerd because what would make geek culture wasn't a thing in the early 60s.
03:13Who's a bit of an outsider who has to balance their superior careers with their personal life-rich roles around
03:17high school and family.
03:18Now you can say her being an inhuman connected to Danvers by six feet of separation because they were created
03:23by the Kree and Carol has ties to them.
03:25And I can see that, but it's a bit of a stretch.
03:27I also should mention that Kamala Khan is now part of the X-Men and Carol was an ally and
03:31lived with them.
03:32Which I can see tying Kamala to Carol.
03:34And that's a fair point, but my point still stands.
03:37There are other legacy characters who have had a clean break from Antichrist.
03:39Most importantly would be Green Lantern, with Alan Scott's stories being fantasy-themed pulp adventure, comics to the Silver Age.
03:45With how Jordan's story is going into space, making a clear distinction between the two characters.
03:50Kamala Khan's early stories were more grounded and dealt with more down-to-earth issues.
03:54That set Kamala apart from her predecessors, which were, especially in Carol Danvers' case, more in line with the Cosmix
03:59side of the Marvel Universe.
04:00So that was my brief analysis on Kamala Khan and how she finds certain legacy hero moulds and strikes out
04:05on her own.
04:05Is there any points you'd think I missed? Then please leave a comment below and don't forget to click that
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