Ms. Marvel set pics reveal Iman Vellani in full costume

With the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Endgame, there were many who felt that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had peaked and anything else the studio put out afterwards would never live up to the decade long story arc that culminated in just about every MCU hero throwing down with Thanos’ forces. And in terms of sheer scale and build-up, that’s probably 100% accurate. However, just a few titles into the unofficially billed Phase Four and Marvel Studios has already surpassed what they’ve done before in one crucial area: Comics-accurate costumes.

WandaVision finally ditched Elizabeth Olsen’s leather-look to give us her iconic Scarlet Witch headgear, and we got the acclaimed 80s era all-white Vision for Paul Bettany’s synthezoid. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has also delivered arguably Marvel’s most comics-accurate costume to date as Anthony Mackie suited up in his Captain America outfit pulled almost 100% from the page, while Wyatt Russell looks perfect in his black U.S. Agent getup. For upcoming features, Scarlett Johansson’s white outfit in Black Widow, and Tom Hiddleston’s suit+headgear look in Loki are both right from the comics page as well.

And this trend of successfully adapting comic book designs to screen is continuing with the upcoming Ms. Marvel TV series on Disney+. We don’t know much about the show yet, other than star Iman Vellani will be introduced in this series before transitioning to the big screen to co-star in Captain Marvel 2. However, unofficial set pics for the Ms. Marvel series hit the web this weekend past (via Just Jared), giving us our first look at star Vellani in the eponymous role of Kamala Khan and damn she looks perfect!

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The scarf, the blue and gold tabbard, the red leggings and sleeves, the golden arm bracer… Hell, Marvel even gave her a domino mask which they’ve not done with any other on-screen character thus far (here’s looking at you, Winter Soldier!). It’s a pitch-perfect recreation. The only real diversion from Ms. Marvel’s comic book look is giving Vellani a pair of All-Star sneakers instead of superhero boots… and honestly, I think it works even better than the original. She’s a teenager, after all.

As mentioned above, we’ve seen very little of the Ms. Marvel series thus far outside of a video introduction to the character and why she’s such an icon in the Marvel Comics universe. As the first Muslim American superhero to headline a comic book Imala Khan was a trailblazing character for her creators – editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, writer G. Willow Wilson, and artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie – who went on to quickly become a massive fan-favourite.

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In the comics, Kamala is the teenage daughter of Pakistani immigrants living in New Jersey who discovers that she’s an Inhuman (aka humans whose ancestors were experimented on by the alien Kree race) when the transformative Terrigen mists are released worldwide. When her Inhuman body morphing abilities develop, Kamala turns to idol, superhero Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel for inspiration, adopting Danvers’ original Ms. Marvel codename and becoming a hero herself. Seeing the as the MCU’s Carol Danvers never used the name Ms. Marvel, and none of the Marvel Studios productions have even mentioned the word “Inhumans”, it will be interesting to see just how Kamala’s origin is tweaked for the screen.

Of course, I have to mention that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD dealt extensively with Inhumans and saw the worldwide release of Terrigen that could have triggered Kamala’s transformation. On top of that, we also had a very short-lived (and terrible) Inhumans show that dealt directly with the Inhuman royal family. However, neither the beloved AOS nor the reviled Inhumans were produced by Marvel Studios and overall boss Kevin Feige but instead were the products of the now-defunct Marvel Television division under the purview of Jeph Loeb and Feige’s rival Ike Perlmutter. As a result, all the productions under Feige have never even acknowledged the existence of the Marvel Television shows, and some recent evidence in WandaVision may have indicated that Marvel Studios are not considering them canon. I will admit to maybe being a bit overzealous in declaring that assumption as fact, and for that I apologize. At this point in time, it’s all up in the air, so there’s nothing else left for us to do but wait until Ms. Marvel debuts on Disney+ in the latter part of this year.

Last Updated: May 3, 2021