Ms. Marvel
Marvel hit it out of the park with this one. Kamala Khan is a Pakistani-American teenager who already has a lot to deal with. She’s seen as the Other by many of her peers because of her heritage and her Islamic faith, and her family expects her to fulfill their strict expectations, and forbids her from what Kamala considers normal teenage experiences. Then she gets superpowers, and what follows is like adolescence on steroids. Since she has shapeshifting abilities, she at first transforms herself into her hero, and the superheroine ideal everyone expects, Carol Danvers, the former Ms. Marvel. Kamala is not the first Muslim superhero Marvel has ever had, but her series is definitely one of the strongest debuts ever. Just by her existence, the new Ms. Marvel is burdened with representing more than herself, and the writers rise to the challenge by giving us an icon for our times: a complex teenage girl who also happens to be a superheroine, with complicated relationships with her family, peers, and the world around her.
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