Ms. Marvel May Have Brought The X-Men Into The MCU In A Big Way
I can't wait to see where this goes.
The most significant change made by the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Kamala Khan in the Ms. Marvel series was how her powers manifested. In the comics, Kamala was exposed to Terrigen Mists, triggering her Kree blood and Inhuman abilities. On the show, it was her bangle that initiated her genetic code, tying it back to her heritage. However, Kamala may still be a mutant, just an X-Men instead of an Inhuman.
Warning: Spoilers for Ms. Marvel’s finale follow. Kamala’s big showdown with the DODC brought all her friends together at the high school. Everyone, from Kamran to Bruno, even Zoe and her enormous follower count, helped defeat the evil bureaucrats. Back with her posse at the end of the episode, Kamala and Bruno confabbed, and Bruno told Kamala that he’d been looking over the DNA of her whole family to see if her abilities can be directly traced back to her ancestors. However, when he made the comparison, he discovered there was “something off.”
Bruno said Kamala has something “different” in her genetic code from the rest of her family, and then in the quote of the entire series, he added, “Like... like a mutation.”
The song that starts playing on the soundtrack at that moment might sound familiar to longtime Marvel fans, or maybe just anyone who saw Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness in theaters recently. It’s the well-known theme song from 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series, also used when Patrick Stewart’s Professor X turned up in a cameo in the recent MCU film.
Is this a hint that Kamala, and her next appearance in The Marvels, will bring the long-awaited introduction of the X-Men? Marvel has been deeply cagey about bringing the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe; like Spider-Man in 2015, a particular slice of the pantheon has been beaten into the ground by endless reboots over the last two decades.
Spider-Man, thankfully, was only one character; the series introduced him as an aside in a larger crossover vehicle for all of one scene. The MCU and Sony then skipped all the usual origin story hallmarks, picked up Peter Parker’s story already in progress, and took an entire trilogy to grow him into the character fans are familiar with while putting his older iterations to bed for the final time.
The X-Men are a little more complicated, because there are a good dozen characters of whom viewers already have seen multiple variations. It would make sense, in this case, to come at the character set from an entirely new angle and perhaps introduce some new characters no one has met before. After all, the X-Men number nearly 100 members over the decades of comics. If Kamala is about to become one of them, she’s got many compatriots who aren’t Wolverine to hang out with instead. Fans will have to wait and see what happens.
All episodes of Ms. Marvel are streaming on Disney+. The Marvels is scheduled to debut in theaters on July 28, 2023.
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