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Culture

A new superhero

Eilís O'Neill, SeattleFebruary 14, 2014

The new Ms. Marvel superhero is a teenage Muslim who grew up in Jersey City, in the US. The comic's creator, G. Willow Wilson, a convert to Islam, hopes her character, Kamala Khan, will flip stereotypes on their head.

https://p.dw.com/p/1B8tr

US publisher Marvel Comics issued the first "Ms. Marvel," featuring 16-year-old Kamala Khan, this month. The character is said to have grown up in Jersey City and is a Muslim with a Pakistani-American background. She is the fourth incarnation of the Ms. Marvel superhero and is said to have been inspired by the first character in the series, Carol Danvers.

Danvers made her first appeared in a "Captain Marvel" comic in 1969 and became the subject of her own comic books series in 1977.

Kamala Khan is the first Marvel superhero who is Muslim. The comic comes less than a year after "Burka Avenger" an animated TV series, featuring a burka-clad Muslim superhero named Jiya, was launched in Pakistan.