No one understands where Kamala Khan came from more thanSana Amanat.
Willow Wilson, artist Adrian Alphona, and editor Steve Wacker.
These days, she’s a producer on theMs.
Aramis Knight plays Kareem, a.k.a the Red Dagger, on ‘Ms. Marvel’.Marvel Studios
Marvelseries currently streaming on Disney+.
She knows firsthand how complex the creation of such an instant icon is.
Check out an edited version of that chat below.
Kamala Khan teams up with Kareem a.k.a Red Dagger on the cover of ‘Ms. Marvel’ #23 by Valerio Schiti and Rachelle Rosenberg.Marvel Comics
I see you on Twitter sometimes sharing the joy of the show.
How would you say you’re feeling?
SANA AMANAT:Yes, I think joy is the best way to describe it.
It’s been a very long journey, obviously.
It was just a little idea that grew from there.
I am so grateful and I feel really lucky.
But joy is exactly the word.
I just love that people are really resonating with it.
EW: Speaking of stylistic choices, this show is very colorful!
But even when it’s in a New Jersey mosque, the show just looks so colorful.
How did you all decide on a different style forMs.
We always knew that and would just be like, ‘how bright can we go?
How much can we get away with?’
while making sure it still felt like it was in the MCU.
But I mean, that’s what I loved about the comics was the brightness of it.
You know the comics, Christian.
We wanted the show to feel like it was their world come to life.
And they would just show us the bright lockers and all the time.
They would show us the comic and really appreciate how much they paid homage.
The shift to djinn as her background is really interesting.
AMANAT:I switched over to Marvel Studios two and a half years ago.
I was very aware of what we were walking into.
That was Kevin’s first challenge to me.
He was like, “can you adapt this?
You’re so close to the comic, do you think you’re able to adapt this?”
There were only a few issues that were done about it in the comics.
I think that’s really how we found that balance.
It doesn’t seem like Kamala’s comic book powers are going to be changing anytime soon.
AMANAT:I hope not!
I hope they stick to what they got.
She comes from an alien, you know what I mean?
What do you like about this character and concept?
He came in like, “yo, Red Dagger’s so cool.”
We made fun of him a little bit.
I completely agree, I think Red Dagger is super awesome.
Going to Pakistan feels like a season 2 thing, and we did it in one season.
Great aggressive move on the writers.
I know Kevin was very excited about that in particular.
I’m a huge fan of the Red Daggers.
I love making them an order.
But I love their team-up.
I know everyone’s talking about there being a romantic interest, but there isn’t right now.
Everyone’s like, “really, three boys?”
But we intentionally pulled back on that.
That’s really what I think the whole point was bringing in Waleed and Kareem into this show.
Kamala is a proud Jersey girl and wears that on her sleeve, literally.
The cliffhanger ending even sends her back to the time of the Partition.
Why did you want to connect her to this history?
Those are some of my favorite scenes in the show.
At one point some people were worried it was slowing down the episode, but I was adamant.
By the way, I did not name the character Sana, the sweetheart writers did that.
It was a very sweet tribute to me before I joined the project.
I’m like, “guys, my name’s on this everywhere.
We don’t…” But it was just very sweet.
Samina Ahmed, who plays the grandmother, is a delight.
She’s a true joy and she’s a lovely person.
She reminds me of my family and my grandmother.
That scene was so important.
I think also in any jot down of big, traumatic, historical events, the women are forgotten.
You talk about the men, but the women are sort of forgotten.
So far the Clandestines have come across pretty evil, but is that an intentional shading?
I’m glad you caught that, very lovely observation.
I was like, “are people going to get that or no?”
Ultimately, this is a story about identity.
How do you understand your identity without understanding what home is and what home means to you?
There’s a much larger metaphor there and I want to see what people think of it.
I’m really interested in the post wrap-up conversations about this entire show.
I mean, it’s what Kamala’s parents did.
They came to a new country, they created a home for themselves here.
And yet, Kamala feels like she doesn’t understand what that means.
So, there’s certainly a lot of parallels and very intentionally so.
The next episode is going to be an interesting one.
Full disclosure, it’s the episode I’m most nervous about.
I think it’s really great, but we took some risks with that episode.
So, I’m curious to know how people are going to respond to it.
