When it comes to comic books, they tend to diversify their characters by adding different powers, different colours or different capes. Very rarely, they’ll chuck in the odd female superhero and never have they really ventured very far into racial or ethnic minorities when it comes to creating new characters. That’s all about to change, with the creation of a new superheroine. A teenage Muslim girl from Jersey – Kamala Khan.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this character might have been inspired by Nobel Prize nominated Malala Yousafzai, the 15 year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head and neck, only to survive and deliver a speech at the UN to call for worldwide access to education.

But no, the idea emerged out of a conversation between Sana Amanat and Steve Wacker, two editors at Marvel. “I was telling him some crazy anecdote about my childhood, growing up as a Muslim-American,” Ms. Amanat said. “He found it hilarious.”

They then told comic book writer and Islam convert G. Willow Wilson about their idea. She was keen to get on board and help make it a reality, but did so cautiously.

Any time you do something like this, it is a bit of a risk. You’re trying to bring the audience on board and they are used to seeing something else in the pages of a comic book.

Kamala, whose family is also from Pakistan, devotedly followed the career of the blond, blue-eyed Carol Danvers, who now goes by Captain Marvel. When Kamala discovers her powers, including the ability to change shape, she takes on the code name Ms. Marvel, and becomes a hero herself.

“Captain Marvel represents an ideal that Kamala pines for,” says Ms. Wilson. “She’s strong, beautiful and doesn’t have any of the baggage of being Pakistani and ‘different.’ ”

[Source : NY Times]