The following article contains spoilers for episode six of Ms. Marvel – you have been warned!
We knew the Ms. Marvel finale would be setting up The Marvels, but we weren’t prepared for that other big reveal this week.
Episode six of Ms. Marvel saw Kamala Khan get her iconic costume, reveal her identity to her friends and family, and most importantly, receive her superhero moniker.
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It was the tried-and-tested way to end a solo origin story, before Kamala makes an appearance on the big screen in next year’s Captain Marvel sequel (more on that later).
But what we weren’t expecting was to find out that we’d had the origin of Kamala’s powers wrong all along. The show hadn’t changed her from an Inhuman in the comics to a Clandestine here, as we’d been assuming – it had turned her into a Mutant.
Before we get into how the post-credit scene sets up Kamala’s next MCU adventure, let’s break down what this twist means for the character and whether it means we’ll be seeing the X-Men on-screen anytime soon.
The New Mutant
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We’ve already seen Patrick Stewart’s Professor X in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness – whose introduction was via a tease of the X-Men Animated Series theme tune, which also plays here.
But this is the first time we’re seeing a reference to the X-Men within the MCU’s Earth-616 timeline itself.
Previously, several Mutants from the comics have appeared – most notably Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver whose lineage was changed for the big screen due to Disney not owning the rights to the X-Men at the time.
However, it’s interesting that our first direct X-Men reference within Earth-616 is through a character who was an Inhuman in the comics.
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Following Black Bolt’s cameo in Multiverse Of Madness, is this further confirmation that the Inhumans we’ve previously been introduced to with the 2017 TV show now exist outside of the MCU timeline, in a far corner of the multiverse?
It’s worth noting that the word “Mutants” isn’t used, with Bruno only referring to a “mutation”, which Kamala naturally rolls her eyes at.
There’s already a fan theory that within the MCU Mutants may instead be referred to as “Marvels” – Captain Marvel has already been speculated to be a Mutant by some, while Monica Rambeau’s DNA was rewritten after entering Scarlet Witch’s hex, leading to her developing superpowers.
With the three joining together for The Marvels next year, it appears some fans are already wondering whether or not this is secretly a soft-launch for the X-Men.
Captain Marvel Is Here!
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Brie Larson returned as Captain Marvel for the episode’s post-credits sequence, which gave us more than a few teases of what we could expect from upcoming movie The Marvels.
It all kicks off when Kamala’s bangle starts to glow, before she’s whisked away, appearing to swap places with Carol Danvers elsewhere in the universe.
As Larson’s hero arrives in a teenage girl’s bedroom, it’s clear this isn’t a Freaky Friday style situation (although there is potential for a body swap comedy in the MCU – get on this, Kevin Feige), and that both heroes are within their own body, just potentially lightyears apart.
Marvel Studios
Kamala’s bangle has a similar counterpart in the comics in the form of the Kree Nega-Band, an artefact that can give those wearing it superhuman strength and crucially, the power to teleport.
There’s speculation this is what Kamala’s bangle really is (let’s not forget the blue hand it was picked up from in episode three’s prologue), and considering Danvers’ ties to the Kree from her previous MCU outing, this would be a logical way to tie both characters together.
We’ll find out for sure when The Marvels arrives in UK cinemas in just over a year, on 28th July 2023.
