Trivia / Ms. Marvel (2022)

• Acting in the Dark: Apparently, Marvel kept the revelation of Kamala being a mutant from the cast.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Iman Vellani is also a Muslim of Pakistani descent (she was even born in Pakistan), like the title character. She is also a Promoted Fangirl similar to how Kamala is a fan of superheroes who becomes one herself.
  • Sagaar Sheikh is only actor of the modern day Khan family to be a Pakistani American Muslim like his character Aamir Khan.
  • Travina Springer is a Black American revert to Islam just like her character Tyesha Hillman.
  • In the Japanese dub, Fairouz Ai is of Middle Eastern ancestry, just like the character she dubs, Nakia Bahadir.
• Approval of God:
  • G. Willow Wilson tweeted that she had seen some early footage of this show back in 2021, and absolutely loved it. She also was happy at the amount of Easter Eggs and sight gags that were incorporated from her books into this series and considers Kamala's Adaptational Superpower Change to be the right move for the MCU.
  • Co-creator Sana Amanat worked on the show and similarly praised the power change and expressed excitement at the future of Kamala in the MCU.
• Ascended Fanon: In Episode 1, the final battle of Avengers: Endgame is referred to as the Battle Of Earth, an event name which was coined by the MCU wiki, but before this show that name wasn't used by any official sources.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Iman Vellani was ecstatic to join the MCU and kept constant notes of the Ms. Marvel (2014) run while on set to ensure the show stayed true to Kamala's character.
• Blooper: The credits for Episode 1 listed a "Makeup Assistant to Ms. Steinfeld", which led to speculation over Kate Bishop making a potential appearance until Disney officially confirmed that this was an error.
• California Doubling: The crew shot some pickup footage in Karachi but most of the scenes set in the city were shot in Bangkok, Thailand.
• Content Leak:
  • A leak in 2021 accurately described the Adaptational Superpower Change.
  • Another leak also accurately described the djinn angle of the story, though without the Noor dimension explanation.
• Darkhorse Casting:
  • In the Japanese dub, and in stark contrast with previous works from the MCU, the titular protagonist is voiced by Misato Matsuoka, a voice actress with very few roles under her belt, mostly as additional voices in Anime, and her main forte had been on videogames and minor roles on foreign dubs, and some of her well-known roles for non-Japanese viewers would be South Dakota in KanColle and Shimakk in Show by Rock!!, as well as Jerietta in I'm Quitting Heroing.^note This is possibly done in order to enforce the fact both the character and her voice actress are rookies both in and out-universe, compared with both her in-series idol, Captain Marvel and the voice actress who dubs her in real life.
  • The same goes in the Latin American Spanish dub, as her voice actress, Nicole Florencia, just like the Japanese case, is a relative newcomer with very few important roles, being her well-known role Sally Brown in The Peanuts Movie.^note And just like in Japan, the voice actress who voice Captain Marvel, Jessica Angeles, is a years-long veteran.
• Dawson Casting: Iman Vellani is four years older than the character she portrays.
• Dear Negative Reader: Iman Vellani responded to the backlash of Kamala's power change, emphasizing the fact that the series would keep the central message of self-acceptance.
• Development Gag: In an interview with Empire Magazine, co-creator Sana Amanat revealed that for her comic debut Ms. Marvel was originally planned to be a Mutant, which makes the MCU version a nod to that original plan.
• Distanced from Current Events: The majority of the final episode takes place at Coles Academic High School and features a group of teenagers trying to protect themselves from heavily armed aggressors. Coming weeks after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, Disney Plus prefaced the episode with a title card warning that certain scenes may upset some viewers.
• Enforced Method Acting: For the first episode, Iman Vellani was forbidden from stepping onto the set of AvengerCon until shooting started, in order to make Kamala's reaction to it as genuine as possible.
• Fake American: Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American born and raised in Jersey City, is played by the Pakistani-Canadian (and born in Pakistan) Iman Vellani.
• Fake Nationality: A diverse cast, many of whom do not match their character's nationalities, ethnicities or religion. Though some have a case of Adaptational Nationality and Race Lift at play.
  • Starting with the Khan Family. Pakistani Canadian Muslim Iman Vellani as Pakistani American Muslim Kamala Khan.
  • Pakistani Muslim Yusuf Khan states his family lived in Karachi for generations (Surname indicated Pashtun heritage too). Mohan Kapur is a non-Muslim Indian with Punjabi heritage.
  • Muneeba is a Pakistani Muslim of Muhajir origin. Zenobia Shroff is an Indian Zoroastrian of Parsi heritage.
  • Among the Khan family friends, Pakistani Muslim Aunt Ruby is played by Indian Hindu actress Anjali Bhimani
  • Italian American Bruno Carrelli is played by American Matt Linz whose surname indicates Germanic or Dutch heritage.
  • Turkish American Muslim Nakia gets a case of Race Lift and an inversion of Fake Mixed Raced as she is now a half Lebanese, half White American Muslim. Yasmine Fletcher is half Lebanese, half White American Christian.
  • Imam Sheikh Abdullah is a Pakistani Muslim (and is likely of Punjabi ethnicity as indicated by him speaking it). Laith Nakli is a British Syrian Muslim.
  • Indian Bollywood actor Farhan Akhtar plays the Pakistani Waleed.
  • Kareem is 100% Pakistani. His actor Aramis Knight is a non-Muslim American with Pakistani/Indian and White heritage ^note Aramis has stated his paternal grandmother is Muslim and spoke with her to better understand the culture of his character.
  • The ClanDestine as a whole are Composite Characters with Lineage's Gang and Kamran's family in the comics. So rather than all of them being British Iranian half human/Djinn hybrids, they have a case of Adaptational Diversity.
    • Downplayed with Najma and Aisha as both are played by Pakistani actresses. Both are inspired by the Iranian Djinn Elylath, the ClanDestine matriarch. But they match Bushra (Kamran's Mum in the comics) and Aisha's nationality from the comics.
    • Fariha is portrayed by a British Nigerian. Whilst the ClanDestine are British Iranian
    • Aadam is played by an Iraqi American. Adam Destine in the comics is British White (and Human not Djinn)
    • Saleem is American and Ambiguously Brown.
    • Played with due to Composite Character in regards to MCU Kamran, who is portrayed as a British Pakistani Muslim exchange student to the US. Rish Shah is a non Muslim British Indian, for what it's worth. Meanwhile, comics Kamran is a Pakistani American Muslim and the ClanDestine are British Iranian. His possible status as a Mutant could make him similar to Zeeshan: a one-off mutant character in the X-Men comics who happened to be from a British Asian Muslim background.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • Kevin Feige and lead cast member Iman Vellani noted how the series drew on the style of John Hughes films for the upbeat vibe.
  • In a Polygon interview, series producers Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi noted they wanted the show's visuals to be reminiscent of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
  • As demonstrated in "Generation Why", the series unmistakably pays tribute to the idiosyncratic camera movements and visuals of Edgar Wright.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Kamala Khan is established as being a superfan of Carol Danvers throughout the show. Iman Vellani only gave Captain Marvel two stars on Letterboxd, although she still admitted to liking Brie Larson herself.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The scene in the trailers where Bruno warns Kamala against using her Captain Marvel cosplay as her superhero costume and Kamala quipping that she and Carol Danvers can hug it out in court is absent from the series.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Ever since leaks and trailers revealed Kamala's power set change, many people peddled the claim that Kamala's powers were changed because of Reed Richards coming to the MCU, or Marvel Studios wanted to distance themselves from Inhumans, as the likeliest reason, in light of the lack of official statements on the matter. The claim is that Marvel Studios didn't want to have two headlining characters with Rubber Man abilities, nor wanted to be associated with the apparent "tainted" reputation of the Inhumans brand following its mandated push in the late 2010s by Ike Perlmutter. For nearly a year before its release, various commentators entertained the theory almost as if it was a fact. However, it quickly fell apart close to the series' release, with official statements from series producer Sana Amanat confirming that Reed Richards didn't factor into the change. Likewise, the appearance of Black Bolt in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness shows that the MCU isn't averse to using Inhuman mythology. Although some chalk up his appearance to having been considered the best part of that show, and is the first of the Illuminati to die anyway. Not helping the matter was The Reveal of Episode 6 that Kamala is a mutant, though her creators mitigated this by revealing they had originally intended for Kamala to be a mutant in the comics.
• Promoted Fangirl: Iman Vellani revealed on a Disney+ documentary that she liked Ms. Marvel (2014) so much she eventually went to school dressed as Kamala. She was also a fan of the MCU and Marvel as whole, to the point of expressing irritation over the designation of the MCU as "Earth-616" in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness instead of the previously designated "Earth-199999".
  • Vellani has since been promoted even further; Marvel hired her as a co-writer for Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant.
• Release Date Change: The series was previously set for a late 2021 release date until Hawkeye was announced to take that slot. It premiered on June 8, 2022.
• Remade for the Export: In a rare non-video game example, the series will be released in Pakistan reassembled into three films through Disney's Pakistani distributor HKC Entertainment. According to series director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, each film will contain two episodes released on a bi-weekly basis, within the original series release period. This was done to get around the country's lack of Disney+ availability at the time.
• Uncredited Role: During the 2023 WGA strike, A.C Bradley (the head writer for What If...?) revealed she did multiple rewrites of the script that went uncredited, and has yet to be compensated for.
• Wag the Director: Iman Vellani has reportedly bickered with Kevin Feige over his designation of the MCU as "Earth-616" when Marvel had previously designated it as "Earth-199999".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Iman Vellani mentioned that she wanted to put a Lockjaw easter egg in the show, but it didn't come to pass.
  • Originally, Kamala Khan was going to have firsthand knowledge of the final battle in Endgame by retroactively revealing that there were drones and live streamers present at the scene, but it was later retooled into being a secondhand account via Scott Lang's podcast due to Kevin Feige shooting down the original idea.
• Word of God: According to Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, Kamala and her family are some of the survivors of the Blip.
• Word of Saint Paul: Rish Shah believes Kamran was genuinely interested in Kamala as he would have someone to connect with and wasn't out to manipulate her like his comic book incarnation did.

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