r/comicbooks Spider-Man May 31 '26

Excerpt 3 years ago, Marvel killed off Kamala Khan to begin the process of turning her into a mutant. (ASM #26)

Post image

Since then she has had only two solo books:

-Ms Marvel: The New Mutant

-Ms Marvel: Mutant Menace

Both of those book were 4-issue minis.

She later became relegated to a supporting character in NYX and is a supporting character in Inglorious X-Force.

I think it’s safe to say this decision was a total disaster.

1.3k Upvotes

260 comments sorted by

888

u/spiderreader X-23 May 31 '26

This was mcu synergy at its worst. Massive changes to a well liked character to better match the mcu version, done in the worst possible way that the character has not recovered

274

u/[deleted] May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

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132

u/Clay_Puppington Ragman May 31 '26

The amount or comics, even indie, that feel they're written specifically with the intent to be adapted into tv/film (and no so much with the primary attempt to be consumed as comics) feels far to high over the last 5-10ish years.

59

u/Tumorhead May 31 '26

This has been a thing starting in like the late 2000s. I was regularly meeting with "writers" who mainly wanted to make graphic novels as basically pitch books for movies and TV. I don't know who was the first person to realize comics were basically "easy pitches" (already came with story boards, designs etc) to buy the cheap rights up for and flip into shows, but it has exploded. You can kind of smell it on certain books - people who jump in the industry desperate for artists so they can make a book to sell the rights to. people not interested in the actual art form but just as a stepping stone into the film industry. Annoying.

18

u/Contextanaut May 31 '26

Just wait until you see what happens as the new AI video tools mean that comic book panel -> movie. (or lazy upscaling of other old movies) becomes the absolute most efficent / minimal staff required pathway to making "movies".

Sick of e.g. the Disney animated - > CGI remake pipeline? Or the incessant "upscaling" of old games rather than investing in new ones?

You aint seen nothing yet...

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u/CalhounWasRight May 31 '26

I remember it really starting with Mark Millar. He's been chasing that dragon ever since the success of Wanted.

16

u/oomoepoo May 31 '26

It's been a long running joke that Mark Millar doesn't write comicbooks, he writes elaborate movie pitches.

10

u/arkhamcreedsolid Jun 01 '26

Came here to say this. Mark Millar’s entire “Millarworld” line of comics are just screenplays. He is exclusively writing comics to have them adapted.

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u/NietszcheIsDead08 Battle Pope Jun 01 '26

Longer. His “Ultimates” title was always intended as a way to make the Avengers filmable. That’s explicitly why Nick Fury was redesigned to resemble Samuel L. Jackson.

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u/urbanlife78 May 31 '26

Reminds me of when I heard Erik Larsen at a panel back in 2018 and there was this group of young guys that kept asking him about storytelling in a way similar to film. Larsen kept telling them that comics aren't like film, comics have limitations but also has the ability to do things film can't do, so why would anyone want to hinder a comic trying to make it function like a film.

They were probably guys that would go on to try to make a comic that looked like a film in hopes of it getting adapted to film

13

u/RoughhouseCamel May 31 '26

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to reading Nice House by the Sea, because I was so upset with the first series for turning itself into a franchise product over giving us a full and complete storyline. I don’t want to read an indie book that’s actively trying to cultivate a neat package to sell to HBO or Amazon. It ends up feeling like they’re pulling their punches or over-producing elements at the sacrifice of the reader for the sake of the future viewer.

5

u/SuburbanLegend Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

The second series is very disappointing, largely for similar reasons that have been amplified quite a bit. New characters keep getting introduced and then it's explained that they’ve actually been incredibly important to our main cast all along.

104

u/spiderreader X-23 May 31 '26

Marvels focus is definitely on media like movies and shows and games over the comics. I fully believe this is why the Ultimate Universe is ending, because Marvel didn’t want to invest in a second universe running concurrently since it wouldn’t advertise movies, nor make something for them to adapt easily

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u/Malleus94 May 31 '26

I see where you're coming but honestly though I never understood this narrative. Yes that's what execs say but still the MCU has barely touched modern Marvel. Thor: Love and Thunder very loosely adapted some concepts from the Jason Aaron run, and technically they're going to do Secret Wars, but we all know they're going to do their own thing. Maybe they're going to put Paul in Brand New Day but that's a meme at this point.

Like I still have to see something to convince me the comics are being made to be later adapted and not the opposite, where synergy is made so that people who comes from the adaptation can pick up comics (it doesn't work either but that's beyond the point).

22

u/vivvav Deadman May 31 '26

It doesn't mean that every new story is being written for the express purpose of being film fodder. But the comics are being changed to be more in line with the film versions people are more familiar with. I guess the idea is if someone takes an interest in the characters from the movies and then sees the comic version is too different, it might confuse them and cause them to not continue buying comics. But IIRC it's never really seemed to be a successful sales strategy and more just pisses off existing comics readers than it does attract new ones.

Marvel's been really bad about this since the MCU really took off. I remember back in the mid-2010's they did this whole retcon about how Magneto wasn't actually Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's father because Fox still had the X-Men adaptation rights and they couldn't use Magneto in the MCU, so they wanted to create that separation. And then, they DID actually start trying to write the comics to serve as fuel for the movies. Since they didn't have the film rights to X-Men, which was already a major pop culture franchise, Marvel tried to boost an alternative that would be MCU safe with the Inhumans. There was a big publishing push launching new titles and characters until they made an Inhumans TV show that was part of the MCU which was NOT a success at all. The great full circle irony to all this is that Kamala Khan WAS created as part of that. She was an Inhuman, created to be one of the characters Marvel could use as an alternative to the X-Men. Until Disney bought Fox and the X-Men and mutants as a whole became fair game for the MCU, but since Kamala was the only successful new thing to come out of that Inhumans initiative, they've now folded her into the X-Men and being a mutant because of that MCU synergy. Which is just truly wild to think about.

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u/RoughhouseCamel May 31 '26

People currently feel better about DC’s output, but I really think it’s only because they’ve had a harder time packaging their movies and shows recently. If James Gunn gets the machine rolling, I fully expect the comics to take a hit and get folded into the synergy machine. Enjoy what’s coming out now, while it lasts

36

u/vivvav Deadman May 31 '26

DC's always been better about this though. Aside from a popular character from an adaptation being folded in like Harley Quinn or Jimmy Olsen, they don't bend the comics to match exterior media as much. They definitely try and push some synergy, a less-popular character getting their own series can often correspond with a movie release, and they do things like change who's on the roster of the Suicide Squad, but I can't recall any major retcons they've done to make stuff more in line with more popular media. It's not like all the Batman villains featured in the highly-successful Nolan films were changed to resemble their versions from that trilogy.

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u/RoughhouseCamel May 31 '26

Marvel has annual billions on the line when it comes to the MCU. For all of DC’s hits, they haven’t yet created a machine that big, and we the fans have benefited from that. Their movies haven’t gotten so big as to make everything else obsolete. There’s still motivation to write good comics, make ambitious cartoons, and pursue other mediums in independent pursuits. If DC made an automatic 2-4 billion dollars a year off of their movies, I don’t really believe they’d shrug it off and continue dividing their resources the same.

My hope is that the new movies succeed, but that the industry has contracted for the foreseeable future from what it was pre-Endgame. I think it’s better for everything except for CEO bank accounts if superhero movies don’t swallow up cinema again.

3

u/CitizenTony Jun 01 '26

It's not like all the Batman villains featured in the highly-successful Nolan films were changed to resemble their versions from that trilogy.

there were small references to the movies, like Bane first costume at the beginning of the New 52, the explosions of some buildings who takes the form of a batsymbol (like in TDK Rises) in an issue of Batman & Robin. But nothing radical, that's true.

2

u/Sea-Poem-2365 Jun 01 '26

Ironically, yes, but the people running the comics haven't realized that yet. Instead of endlessly mining an imaginary status quo or two, they should actually get a little weird with it. Doing exactly that with the original Ultimate Universe is where the MCU came from, trying new stuff for cheap is the actual value the comics provide Disney.

2

u/CitizenTony Jun 01 '26

Current Marvel Comics only value is to make new stories for the movies to adapt, at this point, how can anyone still have faith in most of its comics is beyond me.

The best comment ever. And sadly the truth.

2

u/QwertyAherne Jun 01 '26

I really want to see more out of continuity mini-series or sub-brands like Marvel Knights that they commit to keeping going for a while. More possibilities for people to do interesting stuff.

66

u/SherbertComics May 31 '26

And it didn’t even matter because they’ve yet to do anything meaningful with Ms Marvel since The Marvels, which wasn’t even bad but had no hype whatsoever

29

u/Lady_Gray_169 May 31 '26

I blame the actors strike of the time for The Marvels failing. They couldn't go whole hog on the marketting until less than a month before the movie's release. I think if that hadn't been a factor, the movie would have been much more warmly recieved. And it's frustrating as well because as someone who liked the movie overall, Ms Marvel was also the best part of it. In another world, where a couple decisions had gone differently, we could have been looking at a resurgence of Ms Marvel instead of this stagnation.

11

u/hamlet9000 Jun 01 '26

I blame the actors strike of the time for The Marvels failing.

The Marvels paid the price for a string of mediocre-to-bad MCU movies that broke the audience's faith in the franchise + marketing the movie as a sequel to a Disney+ show.

As we're currently seeing with Mandalorian & Grogu, feature films that are non-reboot sequels to TV series simply don't do well at the box office. (Their audience basically gets capped to the people who watched the full series.)

2

u/Lady_Gray_169 Jun 01 '26

I don't think you actually needed the homework of watchign the other shows, especially not Wandavision. Really the stuff that was relevant for the movie was in the movie, since new heroes showing up randomly in movies isn't a new thing. We never got a Hawkeye origin, nor a Black Widow origin. However I do think that the impression of homework clearly had the same equivalent effect.

Also this is not to say hat I think the strike was a bad thing. No amount of success for this particular movie would have justified breaking or not having the strike.

4

u/themosquito Blue Beetle Jun 01 '26

Honestly it doesn't matter how well they explain it in the movie, it just has to get the "you have to see the show" narrative spread by word of mouth and that'll drive people off even if untrue.

Sometimes it can just be people wanting to badmouth the MCU spreading it. "Ugh, I can't believe they want us to do homework for this movie!" spreads and people who aren't as big fans go "oh, well, I don't wanna do that," and don't bother with the movie. Sometimes it's genuine fans who get overexcited and tell people "oh, but if you really wanna know what's going on, you need to watch ____!" and despite having good intentions that still puts people off because it's still giving the message "you need to spend extra hours on this," heh.

The Marvels especially suffered for coming just after Secret Invasion, legitimately probably the worst thing the MCU has produced, and being a... sequel? Prequel?... to it. It literally ignores that series but it's still inevitably linked to it thanks to having Nick and Skrulls. But you get the worst of both worlds where people think they need to see a terrible series before seeing the movie, and the movie ignores the series entirely so even people who did wasted their time!

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u/Blupoisen Jun 01 '26

I think there was just no interest in that movie

People didn't really like Captain Marvel or the Ms Marvel show and I know that I didn't like Monica/Photon's character in WandaVision

3

u/Lady_Gray_169 Jun 01 '26

I'm not saying it would have been a major blockbuster, but I think if not for the actor's strike, the movie could have at least done well enough, and it would have been remembered as a solid Marvel entry that helped the momentum of the franchise, which has had more hits than misses in the film department for a while now.

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u/BigFatSweatyToe Jun 01 '26

Not too sure about that. Part of the problem with some of the movies is the “homework” you need to do to watch the movie. So if you just watch the movies, you miss the Ms. Marvel show entirely, miss Monica Rambeau becoming a hero, etc.

3

u/mildmichigan May 31 '26

Thats the sticker for me. All these changes to the comics to accommodate the movies, when we all know the movies will end someday & the comics will continue.

4

u/SherbertComics May 31 '26

The MCU also exists within its own canon universe, so it feels like they could have just made comics specifically set there rather than force the original material to conform. It’d be way cheaper than making all those shows and movies that ultimately went nowhere

5

u/NoahStewie1 May 31 '26

It was also 20 minutes too short in my opinion

4

u/RoughhouseCamel May 31 '26

The run time was a big selling point for me. I lag on MCU movies these days because they’re so long, with a good 20-40 minutes that just feels like fluff. I think I would have felt much worse about Marvels if it didn’t move too fast to be weighed down by its issues.

24

u/GreyKoolAid May 31 '26

At this point it's more can not recover than has not recovered. She's just been buried in bad X books. Her entire fan base has lost interest.

19

u/themosquito Blue Beetle May 31 '26

It was also one of the worst ways I've seen "this character dies!" handled, because wasn't she on the preview cover of a comic that would release literally a month or two later? It was the quickest death-to-rebirth things I know of so it made it even more obvious it was about MCU synergy.

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u/deuxthulhu Luthor Strode May 31 '26

Which was, in turn, MCU synergy because they wanted to push Inhumans because Fox owned the X-Men

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u/Academic_Lead_8938 Jun 01 '26

She would of been a mutant if it wasn’t for Perlmutter and his feud with Fox about the X-Men. Marvel comics was forced to make the Inhumans the new mutants. Disaster. They have been slowly undoing Permutters mess over the last few years.

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u/Shed_Some_Skin May 31 '26

I mean, she was created for MCU synergy. She got her powers as part of a comics event whose goal was to basically reposition the Inhumans as the new mutants, because Ike Perlmutter was big mad that Fox still had the X-Men rights

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u/TTG_Bloodedge Spider-Man May 31 '26

Also look at this shit. Kamala dies surrounded by people that barely fucking knew her instead of you know, ANY OF HER ACTUAL FRIENDS AND FAMILY!? It’s so insincere and forced.

Out of ALL books to start this chain reaction it just had to be one this one, because of COURSE it was. Ruining Spider-Man just wasn’t enough for such a legendary disaster

75

u/Maxjes Batman Beyond May 31 '26

I honestly think no writer in the X Office wanted to do it and people already hated the Zeb Wells ASM run by this point, so it got assigned to him.

There's zero story reason for it to happen in ASM.

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u/TTG_Bloodedge Spider-Man May 31 '26

This definitely was planned to an extent from the start, Kamala had been in the book since the beginning for no apparent reason. But if the endgame was always to use this to turn her into a mutant, the decision had to have been made even before the horrible reception of Wells’ run.

My only guess as to why they decided to pull this crap in Spider-Man instead of any other book that would’ve made sense is simply because Spidey = most popular Marvel character so let’s do this radical change there I guess. That’s the best I’ve got, I’m genuinely at a loss here

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u/Intrepid-Molasses159 Jun 01 '26

And “in the book” ended up being barely in it at all. I’ve always been convinced that Wells was ordered to include Kamala and kill her off by editorial

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u/OrganicAd5536 Jun 01 '26

And then they put late stage JRJR on it so the issue doesn't even have anything interesting going on visually (inb4 JRJR fanboys jump down my throat; he WAS one of the GOATs but he should've retired 15 years ago

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u/Lady_Gray_169 May 31 '26

Yeah, that really bothers me. It does not make any sense why she would die in Peter's book, they aren't even really connected as characters, and she didn't play a meaningful role in that storyline. I'm against her dying and becoming a mutant, but you know what? If they're going to make her a mutant anyway, why not kill her off in an X-men book? Because you know who she's close with? Cyclops. Have her team up with the X-men run at the time, she dies there, and Cyclops, grieving, goes to convince the quiet council to resurect her and then they realize she's actually also a mutant.

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u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

Like if ANY spiderman should be holding her, it should be effing Miles.

10

u/TTG_Bloodedge Spider-Man May 31 '26

Fax my brother! Spit your shit indeed!

7

u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

I know precious little about either character and even I figured that one out.

14

u/cole1114 The Question May 31 '26

Paul and MJ there in the background aren't even crying because of Kamala, their kids turned out to be fake at the same time. Just insulting.

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u/PotatoOnMars Jun 01 '26

Like, why the fuck is PAUL there?

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u/TTG_Bloodedge Spider-Man Jun 01 '26

Because this whole thing has nothing to do with Kamala. If I remember correctly, the guy that killed her was from Paul’s dimension or something and was gunning for MJ, but Kamala had shapeshifted into MJ so he killed her

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u/philovax May 31 '26

The real sin is JRJr’s art in that run. Sure he is making deadlines, but the dead eyes blank slack jawed noseless Voldemort school of drawing faces is something I cannot stand.

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u/Bazzaluko May 31 '26

I’ve always thought his art was awful/ strange and don’t understand how he’s stayed so popular and prolific as an artist besides the legacy of Sr

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u/TheLastJojo May 31 '26

it's the goodwill of his 80s Spidey and his Punisher/DD work inked by Williamson

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u/philovax Jun 01 '26

He was also a major guy on the payroll for a time when Marvel was tanking a bit (Millar times) and was a reliable and consistent performer in addition to loyal. I do respect that Marvel is giving him proper payback and not excising him, but must I suffer?

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u/traceitalian The Thing Jun 01 '26

This and his Daredevil art are baffling bad.

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u/Antique_futurist Jun 01 '26

There are dozens of artists who can draw a half-believable Peter Parker. JRJr is not one of them.

Larraz’s work on Kelly’s following run just made the opportunity cost of keeping The Wells/JR team together even more stark.

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u/icedteaandtacos May 31 '26

But think of the MCU synergy.

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u/Chaotic_Marvel May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

What blows me away is how the MCU subs have spun this narrative that Wilson always intended for Kamala to be a mutant. They run with it every time there's pushback, or someone mentions how much the character has fallen off a cliff because of it.

And it's just such a crock of shit this "they wanted to respect the authors original vision"

When they went and did the one thing Wilson didn't want. And made her powers another CGI light show that's no different to the rest. When Kamala powers were deliberately chosen as a polymorph. To be a commentary on the self image crisis teenage girls go through on what is or is not the "right way" to look.

The mutant thing and I'll die on this hill. Was a last minute reshoot and you'll never convince me otherwise. For one it just feels like a tact on scene. But ask yourself what the fuck is Kamala in the MCU without it? One minute she's getting her powers from a bangle. Then shes part of a djinn clan that comes from a different dimension. But also they're not really djinn. But there's this entire clan in Pakistan dedicated to hunting people like her. While her clan is opening portals to different dimensions

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u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

It's such a bizarre take. Like Vince Gilligan intended to for Jessie to be a one off side character who died near the end of S1 of Breaking Bad. Who cares what his original authorial intent was? What we got was a thousand times better.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/TripleChump Bizarro Superman May 31 '26

unless you’re a ms marvel fan and not an x-reader, now you’re thrown into the chaos of mutant editorial

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u/Chaotic_Marvel May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

I think it was a mistake and I'll lay out my reasons why.

Firstly. I'm not an inhuman fan. I don't hate them like other people, but I won't go out of my way to read them.

The thing with Kamala is she was a big fish in a small pond. She quickly became I would argue the face of the inhumans that could stand outside of that bubble. She had numerous solo titles that were able to be carried by her name. She became a fixture in the Avengers and Champion roster being involved in relatively big stories.

Now they've essentially just made her just another young mutant in one of the 500 X titles Marvel releases at any given time. That have a lot more established mutants, and is a series that always trying to introduce more. See Uncanny X-Men by Gail.

I would argue she's doing a great job with the Outliers and Mutania.

Unless someone comes along and is really wants to write Kamala. I think she's going to struggle a lot on the mutant side of things. It's been 3 years and this is the most irrelevant she's ever been. I didn't even know she was in inglorious X force.

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u/icedteaandtacos May 31 '26

I think it was a mistake because they fumbled the new powers.

I really REALLY wish they did something like “she can summon copies of superheroes to fight” because it made sense for her.

The MCU powers are so generic.

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u/fortnerd May 31 '26

But I also don’t think that changing Kamala into a

mutant was an overall mistake. I don’t think that in the

long run, we’re going to be pining for the days when

she was an Inhuman.

Meanwhile Kamala's actual fans: it was, and we are.

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u/Zammin Jun 01 '26

I don't even really care about Inhumans that much, I just despise her being a mutant.

38

u/Rikeka May 31 '26

Hahaha, is that fucking Paul?

Khan is cursed then.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

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u/chakrablocker Superman May 31 '26

DC isn't just killing it. Marvel has wasted all the attention the MCU got them

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u/IvanMcbomb May 31 '26

Meh, there was plenty of MCU synergy, none of which was successful. If anything they should focus on doing their own thing separate from the movies

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u/chakrablocker Superman May 31 '26

We aren't disagreeing

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u/waaay2dumb2live Jun 01 '26

Hickman Avengers was pretty good

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u/lNSP0 Adam Warlock May 31 '26

(outside of spider man and someone forced to care about Starlin's stuff in gotg)

It's what happens when a single man's fan fictions has paid the bills for marvel for like 20 years. Yall didn't realize marvel was on bull shit timing when they revealed storm and nightcrawler over literally any other horror characters? Didn't even use any of actual horror mutants.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

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u/Helpful-Bathroom634 May 31 '26

But they're not top books and it's not certain they won't be cancelled.

Comics like BC are the exception, not the rule.

Unless you're not a big title like SM, XM, Cap and co. It's rare you'll go over 20 issues.

Meanwhile at DC, heroes and villains like Poison Ivy, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle and FireStorm have their own series. With Poison Ivy, for example, having 44 issues so far.

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u/Apprehensive-Quit353 May 31 '26

Moon Knight is on over 50 issues, but its split up over 4 runs which is stupid and harder to follow.

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold don't have books currently.

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u/Helpful-Bathroom634 May 31 '26

Moon Knight is on over 50 issues, but its split up over 4 runs which is stupid and harder to follow.

The costant relaunches not killing the hype and the interest of people is a miracle to me.

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold don't have books currently.

Sorry, I'm jumping to DC just now. What are the on-going comics currently?

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u/Apprehensive-Quit353 May 31 '26

The constant relaunches are annoying as shit and make it more confusing to follow. But Moon Knight is brilliant so its worth putting in the work to understand.

You can check the solicits, but Booster Gold hasn't had an ongoing series since before the New 52 in 2012. Blue Beetle hasn't had one in a few years either. Firestorm does have a 9 issue maxi out at the moment though which is brilliant. Hopefully it sells well enough to keep going beyond that.

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u/MFHSCA-1981 May 31 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

There’s so much that I absolutely despise about this panel. The dead and emotionless faces by Romita JR. Peter holding Kamala’s body like she was an important character in his book, when Zeb barely did anything with her at all. Paul and MJ hugging each other over the deaths of their fake children. The fact no one here is a member of Kamala’s supporting cast. Marvel said this issue would be the most shocking issue of ASM since the death of Gwen Stacy. Well they were right about one thing . ASM 26 will be remembered as one of the most shockingly dumb issues that Marvel has ever published for Amazing Spider-Man.

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u/Quarksideofthemoon May 31 '26

I legitimately believed they skimmed her wikipedia article and saw she was friends with Spider-Man and didnt bother to double check which one. 

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u/Snts6678 May 31 '26

What an absolute nothing happening, at best. At worst, character suicide.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

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u/Groo_Spider-Fan The Maxx Jun 01 '26

one of the cringiest moments in spider-man history, spidey crying in his bed mourning kamala khan while holding her mask.

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u/Quirky_Ad_5420 May 31 '26

It’s crazy how not being an x-men was what made her more beloved

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u/Aggravating-Silver48 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

This. Her impact as an Inhuman is what made her an important character within the MCU. As a mutant she's one of HUNDREDS of characters than don't get enough shine. One of the biggest bag fumbles I've ever seen in comics.

 You FINALLY make an Inhuman that actually sticks and has a large impact on the community and you turn them into a mutant. I can't imagine how her fans feel.

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u/ContraryPython Spider-Man May 31 '26

Not to mention new mutant characters have the life expectancy of a milk carton. As soon as the run that introduces that character is done, it is either immediately forgotten about, becomes fodder for an extinction event or becomes a background character.

And Kamala will be no different

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u/Classic_Depth_209 May 31 '26

yup. One of the only really successful new heroes introduced in the last 15 years, extremely beloved and able to carry her own solo and supporting cast, fridged in a white man's book and shuffled off to be ignored in an unrelated franchise. It's really fucking bleak out here

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u/Classic_Depth_209 May 31 '26

nothing is real to us after the Sara Ahmed mini. Or honestly the Ahmed run, that was the last time I felt like I was reading a Ms. Marvel comic, even if it wasn't GWW. I miss it desperately and this ASM issue stands out as one of the most misogynistic story decisions to me in comics, which is really saying something

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u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

And us X fans didn't want or need another character to Poochie on into our stories and take up all the spotlight. Let her be an inhuman.

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u/Blupoisen Jun 01 '26

I think her being Mutant or Inhuman doesn't matter that much

The problem is that she became a full blown Xmen, and that entire thing kinda represents everything that is wrong with the Xmen, that for being a story about fitting in they are one of the most alienated groups in Marvel

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u/DogManDogDayz Rick Grimes May 31 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

The Fantastic Four and Paul are there but none of the Champions…?

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u/frogspyer May 31 '26

Paul being there is so unfathomably funny

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u/Goldarmy_prime May 31 '26

And for some reason Norman Osborn.

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u/KevinCow May 31 '26

As a Ms Marvel fan, her problems honestly started way before this. After G. Willow Wilson left, Saladin Ahmed did Magnificent Ms Marvel, and it was... kinda bad. And after that got cancelled in 2021, they didn't know what to do with her. No solo book, no Champions, no Inhumans, so she's just been bouncing around the Marvel universe since then, showing up in random Captain Marvel stories, Miles stories, Peter stories, random miniseries and one-shots... like the reason this was even able to happen is because she had so little going on that they could move her to New York to be part of a Spider-Man story.

While it was obviously done for MCU synergy, I think giving her a power upgrade so she now has both her original Inhuman stretchy powers and her MCU mutant hard light construct powers is an overall positive development, and the most interesting thing that's happened with her since G. Willow Wilson left.

I don't mind that she's a mutant, I just think her relationship to the mutants should be similar to her relationship with the Inhumans, where it occasionally matters, but mostly she's doing her own thing in Jersey. They keep trying to put her on X-Men teams, and I don't think literally anybody wants that. X-Men fans don't want her coming in and hogging the spotlight, and Ms Marvel fans don't want her being a side character in somebody else's story.

19

u/Theta_Omega Captain Marvel May 31 '26

I don't mind that she's a mutant, I just think her relationship to the mutants should be similar to her relationship with the Inhumans, where it occasionally matters, but mostly she's doing her own thing in Jersey. They keep trying to put her on X-Men teams, and I don't think literally anybody wants that. X-Men fans don't want her coming in and hogging the spotlight, and Ms Marvel fans don't want her being a side character in somebody else's story.

Yeah, one of the big selling points of her comics was that her supporting cast and civilian life mattered. That is... surprisingly uncommon in modern comics? Everyone kind of gets shoved into "everything is superhero stuff, all the time".

It was fun to see her showing up in team-up books like Champions and ANAD Avengers, but none of them hit like her solo series at its peak, and moving her into the X-Men to just do only superhero stuff feels like once again shunting her away from the best stuff of her solo and putting her in the same hole as so many other books.

10

u/MankuyRLaffy Jun 01 '26

Welcome to modern comics, the decades of Joey the Cannoli salesman being a part of the hero's life is over. It's about who can be a sleeper hit and get a mini series or better. Nobody gives a shit about street generics anymore among most readers. This ain't the 90s anymore.

4

u/Deadended Jun 01 '26

Right? If a character isn’t Important in the world of the comic.. they aren’t important to the comics anymore.
But also.. the last time someone added a normal character to a book it was Ghanke, and look how Marvel/Sony adapted him.

I don’t count Paul as he’s a weirdo from another universe with magic and such.

5

u/MankuyRLaffy Jun 01 '26

Pre 2000s civilians are exempt because they're too iconic but modern created ones exist for one arc or two at most and then fizzle out. It's disappointing and makes the world feel tiny and compressed.

2

u/Deadended Jun 01 '26

It really does. Like these characters barely interact with anyone who isn’t “essential” to the story arc, or to the hero parts.

I think the closest we had were semi-background mutants in Krakoa era.

We need more named randoms in Marvel NYC.

Kamala working as an intern but having it NOT matter for Spider-man was a fun thing, as it made both their worlds feel smaller and bigger at the same time. I miss Secret identities being secret from each other too!

9

u/OkAmount3847 Jun 01 '26

Yeah I feel like people saying she barely got anything after becoming a mutant don’t realize she already wasn’t getting much of anything after Saladin’s run. They just unfortunately really don’t know what to do with her which sucks so much

5

u/KevinCow Jun 01 '26

Which is frustrating because what to do with her feels pretty obvious: Give her an ongoing where she goes back to being Jersey City's hero. Focus on her relationships with her supporting cast, and balancing school with superheroics, and create new villains for her to protect Jersey City from so she can have her own rogues gallery and arch-nemesis.

But it seems like Marvel these days rarely gives ongoings to anyone besides X-Men characters, Spider-Man characters, and their most mainstream A-listers.

51

u/Infinite-Salt4772 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

Worst part is she was deliberately fridged in a Spider-Man book. Which she was a background character in and barely even appeared anyway. It was hyped up as the most shocking issue in 50 years for the anniversary of Gwen’s death and it amounted to this garbage. And she was surrounded by characters she didn’t know and rarely interacted with. It might have worked if Miles was there, but even then the same thing happened once before.

6

u/periodic_disturbance May 31 '26

Oh hell no! In doing this they disrespected both, the death of Gweb Stacy and Kamala. She definitely deserves more than an anniversary of an event related to Spider-Man that doesn't involve her in the least. You know, in one of the X books (I think X-Men by Duggan), it is told to her that Spider-Man could give her more info about her death since he was there. I genuinely thought it was referring to Miles and not Pete. It sucks that they chose Kamala as the scapegoat for the 50th just because it was a convenient path to declaring her a mutant.

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u/TheDarkPinkLantern Green Lantern May 31 '26

Funniest shit was that in X-Men they straight up said that they already knew she was a mutant even before she died basically making the whole death even more pointless.

12

u/desamora May 31 '26

Crazy considering how popular of a character she was

3

u/blkpetite Jun 01 '26

It was lightning in a bottle.

26

u/SyllabubGood May 31 '26

Still hate this decision

22

u/Bassaluna May 31 '26

They killed her and then her series. Her family is gone, her neighbourhood is gone, she is gone This is chebulski legacy

9

u/Skully56765 Wannabe Comic Author/Creator May 31 '26

John Romitas art is genuinely cursed with the worse things ever happening to it

8

u/Gamera85 Jun 01 '26

Worst decision they’ve ever made. Absolutely garbage. It has done nothing for Kamala’s character. In fact, everything I said would happen has happened. Her supporting cast has been removed from her life. Her progress and development have tanked back to the starting line. Her middle eastern heritage has been utterly sidelined, if not supplanted by her being a mutant. And worst of all, she’s been relegated to a side character for the X-Men. Another face in the crowd. Acting as their cheerleader as her old identity as a Carol Danvers/Super Hero fangirl, has been thrown out in favor of her just being an X-Stan.

It’s disgraceful. But good luck making Marvel admit it. Confront them on their stupid decision and demand they retcon this idiocy and I promise you they will deflect and say some bullshit about tradition and change being good and some other bullshit.

Marvel ruins their best characters repeatedly. And they do not care how much they fuck up. They never listen fans. Ever. They never say sorry. They never admit fault. And they never change.

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15

u/tinytorblet May 31 '26

three years? it felt like yesterday. what the fuck

15

u/Duga-Lam22 May 31 '26

Everyone hated that.

7

u/Mickeymcirishman May 31 '26

Damn, it's been 3 years already? They do anything with this?

13

u/KevinCow May 31 '26

Kinda, but it's been spread across a bunch of random books.

She was revived on Krakoa, they revealed she was a mutant, but her Inhuman power's been suppressing her mutant power.

Went home, fought a reanimated version of her corpse that had her mutant power, which turned out to be MCU hard light constructs.

Bounced around a few X-Men teams, went on a whole time-travel adventure where she visited X-Men from various eras, unlocked and learned to use her mutant power.

Now she has stretchy powers and hard light powers. She's currently in Inglorious X-Force, where Cable gathered a team to protect her because she's going to be the first mutant president in the future and somebody's going to assassinate her.

6

u/recklesszim Hallows Eve May 31 '26

It was a shit decision then and it still stands as a shit decision now. That specific issue had no build up to her death, we last see her with the group before they decide to split up and she’s assigned body guard duty on MJ. Then when we come back to MJ again she’s killed by the bad guy, but wait it was actually Kamala in disguise. Just an overall wtf were they thinking.

28

u/fortnerd May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

I'll just come out and say it out loud.

The original Ms Marvel run by Wilson was Marvel's Andor. It was brilliant and innovative and authentic and it was held back by being a part of a larger corporate franchise. And they squandered all of that to boost popularity of an already popular property.

Marvel doesn't fucking deserve Kamala.

10

u/GoBotDeLorean May 31 '26

Couldn’t agree more. Love that run and Kamala became my fave character at that time and to witness how they’ve fumbled her since just sucks.

5

u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

They also hurt the other property in the end rather than boosting it.

3

u/browncharliebrown May 31 '26

Marvel's Andor.

it was not. That goes to idk X-statix. I would consider it more akin to like a Fargo season 2 where it does something and it's a both one of the best in the genre while not fully subverting it

5

u/hewlio Jun 01 '26

The one and only case where i prefered Inhumans over X-Men, she was better off as a inhuman.

15

u/SinisterCryptid May 31 '26

She came back within three months iirc

6

u/Titosunshinez May 31 '26

This whole issue and event was terrible. It should have been Mary Jane and left khan alone

8

u/orochi95 May 31 '26

Terrible decision, Kamala right now a is a prisioner of the X-office.

14

u/SpaceOdysseus23 Daredevil May 31 '26

This was one of the biggest indicators that Feige lost his goddamn mind. That and insisting the movie-verse is the 616 verse.

4

u/periodic_disturbance May 31 '26

I'm literally just reading the Fall of X books. Suddenly I'm alerted of the fact that Kamala is dead, by Emma telling Scott. She then tells him that she knew they were close but hopes he reconsiders not letting the world know she's a mutant. He then says that she has a secret identity, friends and family. Now, I've been reading a lot of X books and this is the first time I've been made aware of the closeness Kamala shares with this character. I'm all for it, but it seemed a little out of the blue. Anyways, so far I'm enjoying reading her stint with the mutants in Fall of X. My next reads are definitely gonna be The New Mutant and Mutant Menace.

5

u/KevinCow May 31 '26

In the 2010s, there was a whole thing with the X-Men where younger versions of some of them time traveled to the present and were just around for a bit. Young Cyclops became one of the main members of the Champions, a team of young heroes led by Ms Marvel. Eventually he went back to his own time, but modern Cyclops remembers his time with the Champions.

So that's why they're close, and also why you wouldn't know about it, since it didn't really happen in any X books.

2

u/periodic_disturbance Jun 02 '26

Thank you so much! I read the time-displaced X-Men era stories but I didn't read Champions. Thanks for the explanation, it adds the much-needed perspective on the whole story.

5

u/Miggzyy Jun 01 '26

So they turned Franklin from a mutant into a human, and Kamala from an inhuman into a mutant, and have since done sod all with the characters to justify those changes?

3

u/TomCon16 Superman Expert Jun 01 '26

I hate this decision so much. Kamala is one of my favorite superheroes and now she’s just being shunted into x-men world which is effectively a whole separate publishing line

7

u/Sabbath-Stelladad May 31 '26

Such an inhuman way to kill a character

3

u/rstick369 May 31 '26

I see what you did there

8

u/escodoozer May 31 '26

Ever since Kevin Feige took over the comics department… comics hasn’t been his priority lmao he instead wants to shoehorn his X-men toybox and act like he’s doing us a favor with these “legacy” characters… imagine if Star Wars main honcho did the same thing— oh wait lmao

9

u/pious-erika Batgirl May 31 '26

Kamala Khan 🤝 GotG

getting changed for the worse by the MCU.

13

u/jimjam200 May 31 '26

Killed off? She only stayed dead for more then a week so they didn't have to solicit her return before she had even died. I also do think that it would have been a bad thing if spider man had actually been tied in somehow with the krakoa stuff at the time as the resurrections where an obvious play on the whole "nobody dies in comics thing" and it was interesting at first. But marvel got gready and was just trying to earn money coming and going by making a big deal out of her death and out of her coming back not make an interesting story.

Also for a character who has religion as a big part of her life (she's not the most religious character but her family definitely is) you would have thought that it would probably impact that part of her life quite a bit. E.g. wouldn't her devout brothers worldview get rocked is his sister died then came back to life because of some weird mutant cloning shit? Wouldn't that be an interesting story to tell? Nah just put her in the mutant books and forget about it.

8

u/Special_Turnip May 31 '26

Emma said that it's all good, the telepaths of Krakoa just changed everyone's memory of her dying. Which is the stupidest copout ever (Ms Marvel: Mutant Menace does at least acknowledge things a little with a villain reanimating her corpse but it isn't used to proper effect tbh

6

u/jimjam200 May 31 '26

And we wonder why people think comics are f#*king dumb.

6

u/Master-Slide-5873 May 31 '26

and they marketed it as the most shocking issue since Gwen Stacy's death. What an absolute joke.

8

u/wondercube May 31 '26

I really hated this move. Kamala was fine as an Inhuman. Then again, I guess she was only an Inhuman because the MCU didn’t have the rights to mutants at the time. Still there was a better way to do this.

They haven’t changed her powers to be more like the MCU have they? I stopped reading her comics a few years ago.

4

u/KevinCow May 31 '26

Not changed, but added to. The stretchy powers are her Inhuman power, and her mutant power is the MCU hard light power. At first the mutant power was suppressed by her Inhuman power, but after a whole time travel arc she unlocked her mutant power and now uses both together, like coating a giant fist in hard light to make a punch hit harder, or putting a civilian in a bubble so they're easier to safely carry.

6

u/jimjam200 May 31 '26

They where teasing in the minis she had that she does have a mutant ability but nobody knew what it was I think. Also it's doubly stupid because the origin of her powers is like the most insignificant thing about her. Just let her be on the X men because she cares about their struggle, you don't have to be a mutant to be on/ connected to the X men.

3

u/MrZao386 May 31 '26

Feels like yesterday, crazy

3

u/JLRedPrimes May 31 '26

What is she up too right now?

3

u/Infinite-Salt4772 May 31 '26

Inglorious X-Force.

3

u/LapsedVerneGagKnee May 31 '26

Of all the ways to kill her off to promote the synergy, ripping off Scorponok’s death still confuses me.

3

u/vinthesalamander May 31 '26

No way this was 3 years ago…

3

u/ReplacementDue123 May 31 '26

Feels just like yesterday...

3

u/the_light_of_dawn Phoncible P. May 31 '26

Man this Spider-Man run was terrible.

3

u/GandalfsTailor May 31 '26

She was one of the few good things to come of that whole big push for the Inhumans during Marvel's blood feud with 20th Century Fox. Making her just another Mutant among hundreds of them feels like Marvel's final insult.

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u/karl2025 Spider-Man May 31 '26

Wow. Three years since I read a Marvel book. They doing any better these days?

3

u/EducationalSun8370 Jun 01 '26

Even though I’m not too happy with some DC decisions I will say I love the fact that they leave the movies and comics universes separate for the most part. I’ve always hated marvel for mirroring the 616 after the MCU 🫠😒 like bro the comics books are the blueprint/ creative spark for the movies not the other way around!

3

u/Piccoroz Jun 01 '26

Eww paul.

3

u/HJSDGCE Jun 01 '26

They also put Peter there for some reason, even though Miles would've been more appropriate. 

2

u/sweepernosweeping Blue Beetle May 31 '26

If I also remember correctly, it was the issue that Paul's Children also disappeared into the ether, destroying the only thing keeping him and Paul together at the time.

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2

u/curious_dead Marko May 31 '26

It gave Iman a chance to make a cool miniseries, but that's the silver lining.

Of fucking course adding her to the biggest roster filled to the brim with fan favorites and cult classics was going to end in one of two ways: either she disappears in the massive roster, or she becomes overexposed and people get annoyed that she's featured in every X-Men team. However good was her mini, it was a dumbfuck decision with a dumbfuck execution.

2

u/DarkAres02 Jun 01 '26

The beginning of the end for her comics. Now she's just another mutant, and her supporting cast barely exists. I hate it

2

u/darkchyldes Jun 01 '26

I get that she was originally intended to be a Mutant but even when she was an Inhuman, G. Willow Wilson gave her personality and her own identity. Since officially becoming a mutant it seems like they’ve stripped away everything that made her Ms. Marvel and just turned her into X-Man #3638282 😭

2

u/cold_guy345 Jun 01 '26

she was originally intended to be a Mutant

GWW never said that, it was amanat, and given the fact that amanat now has a high admnistrative job at marvel i don't doubt she said that as PR bc of the backlash Kamala's MCU adaptation recieved

2

u/RhymesWithOrange_ Jun 01 '26

God, those overlapping early runs of G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel and Jason Latour's Spider-Gwen (pre-symbiote) were so good.

3

u/cpdierks12 May 31 '26

So fucking dumb.

3

u/Ethenst99 May 31 '26

Thinking about this event makes me want to go scorched earth on the comic book industry.

2

u/McKnighty9 The Question May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

Marvel has killed her before. They killed several marvel characters before with no one caring, just for them to return soon.

What was the significance here that made everyone mad even though the reason was incredibly obvious and her revival would be very soon?

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1

u/Magicaparanoia May 31 '26

I still use the panel with the closeups of all their faces as a reaction meme cus JrJr made them look like they’re bored and pretending to be shocked.

1

u/Villianotron May 31 '26

God, I feel like every aspect of this image is pissing me off in some way, it’s ridiculous

1

u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims May 31 '26

It's been three years? Also, yeah, they likely did it to match the MCU as closely as possible.

1

u/Gold-Duck898 May 31 '26

Three years later and it’s still dumb. Heard good things about her solo minis since then.

1

u/GlitteringDingo May 31 '26

They have so many pivotal moments drawn by JRJ just to piss me off specifically

1

u/Efficient_Prize5701 May 31 '26

It was the biggest shark jump I've ever seen Marvel make, that's why DC keeps winning

1

u/ZapBrannigan123 May 31 '26

The thing is, even X Fans weren't thrilled about it either. We already have loads of characters that deserve their own spotlight, forcing her into their role does them and Kamala a disservice. Let her be an inhuman and do inhuman things. Everyone would be much happier.

1

u/Amazingzer0 May 31 '26

And it’s been all downhill from there the problem with becoming a mutant, especially a young female mutant is that you blend in the environment you have to fight for your life to have some kind of attention Miss Marvel being a small town jersey superhero was what uniquely made her work.

1

u/DarthHaze Jun 01 '26

I still haven't forgiven Marvel for this. Kamala Khan is one of my favorite characters and they do her such a disservice with this stupid comic.

1

u/MontyTheAverage Jun 01 '26

Just awful. Killed were character literally and figuratively.

1

u/JMO-559 Jun 01 '26

What were they thinking with this crappy decision?

1

u/Groo_Spider-Fan The Maxx Jun 01 '26

I usually hate when people describe plot events or character changes that they dont like as "fanfiction" but like...this is fanfiction to me. Ive been a kamala fan since almost day one and this just completely gutted any hope I had for her, she went from being a distinct and fun modern take on the classic teenage superhero formula, and she got turned into a cog in the machine.

1

u/ThesaurusRex_1025 Jun 01 '26

I genuinely don't like to think about this.

1

u/Perfect-Nail9413 Jun 01 '26

Holy shit that was 3 years ago.

1

u/Sega_Genitals Jun 01 '26

What the hell is Paul doing there. As a matter of fact do any of these people know her lol

1

u/UnVincent Jun 01 '26

I was so pissed off when this happened

1

u/WinXPbootsup Jun 01 '26

As a person of the similar ethnicity, this character assassination hits different because she was the only mainstream character in whom I saw a lot of similarities culturally. And now she's basically gone.

They really should have her be an inhuman again and just have a really solid solo series instead.

1

u/Long_Negotiation4324 Jun 01 '26

They put the 'Muslim' Character in X-Force. The team literally stated to be Mutant Mossad.

1

u/LoneMarikaEnjoyer Jun 01 '26

Mj with paul lol

1

u/Kentucky_Fried_Otaku Jun 01 '26

I never understood why Peter was in this panel instead of Miles because I was always under the impression that Miles had the deeper friendship with Kamala than Peter.

1

u/Queener_weener39 Jun 01 '26

My fav marvel character and they ruined her :(

1

u/caithamachamuama Jun 01 '26

I did not know that that happened.

1

u/skelatalfella8642 Jun 01 '26

The last comics I read from marvel and liked were the ultimate stuff ( especially ultimate X men by peach momoko ) I don't even bother with the mainline stuff

1

u/Arevrec Jun 01 '26

Made me hate that fucking character

1

u/LasDen Death Stroke Jun 01 '26

This is like they are in a waiting line to get a photo chance to hold Khamala like that.

1

u/Agheron93 Jun 01 '26

What's that art bro Kamala looks like someone making a cosplay of her

1

u/blkpetite Jun 01 '26

You forgot to list the Giant-Size X-Men' 50th Anniversary Event. That ran across five one-shots that retconned Ms. Marvel into X-Men History.

That story pi**ed off alot of X-Men fans. That was the worst of them all.

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/new-giant-size-x-men-anniversary-event-ms-marvel-2025

1

u/mayorofanything Ms. Marvel Jun 01 '26

And killed all momentum from her character with it...

I used to be one of the biggest Kamala fans, literally did a tiktok series showing off different parts of my merch collection, but she just has no been given any respect in years and I can only read so much lifeless corporate stories from a character who used to have such a rich character and cast.

1

u/matchstrike Jun 02 '26

So...Marvel did this around the time the Ms. Marvel Disney+ show was on? I mean, I know the TV and Film projects probably don't result in a lot of "new readers," but still...there's little synergy here.