Pop quiz! Tell me the first Muslim hero from a movie, game, comic or TV series that pops into your head! When I say “hero”, I basically mean “not a terrorist”. Go! … What, do you need a little bit more time? It’s fine, I’ll wait for a while. Still drawing a blank, huh? Yeah, sadly, those who believe in the Islamic faith are rarely depicted as anything more than fanatics who want to blow stuff up… Which, honestly, isn’t that surprising considering the fact that this is generally how the West perceives Muslims. Can you blame them, though? Even though the overwhelming majority of Muslims – especially those living in America – just want to live normal, peaceful lives, that’s not the people the news report about. “Man opens fire in a gay nightclub while screaming Allahu Akbar”, “Refugees rape dozens of women in a single night”, “Bomb threat by Arab man prevented”…

I don’t blame the media for reporting on these events, because they are most certainly worth reporting, but they paint a very wrong picture of an entire culture. Nobody bats an eye when a white person shoots numerous children in an elementary school – or at the very least, nobody says “Man, these white people are all savages!” But when someone of the Muslim faith does something wrong, people immediately go “Ah, see, I told you these Muslims” were a threat, even though most Muslims actively want nothing to do with religious fanaticism of any sort. It actually reached the point where, when an FBI informant infiltrated a mosque and attempted to stir up the fanatics in order to uncover potential terrorist activity, the people there actually went ahead and reported the informant to the FBI as a potential threat. Still, these stories generally go under the radar in favor of the more traditional fear mongering which feeds to the popular illusion that every single Muslim – man, woman and child – is a mass murderer waiting to happen.

So when Marvel announced that they would be introducing their very first Muslim superhero, and she would be the one to bear the company name, well… Let’s just say the reaction was mixed.

Ms. Marvel’s introduction to the Marvel lore is part of an ongoing effort to diversify the company’s most popular heroes (most of which have been white males for over fifty years). Tony Stark was replaced by a black teenage girl, Hulk was replaced by an Asian teenage boy, Spider-Man gained a female counterpart in the form of the Asian Silk, Thor became unworthy of his hammer and was replaced by a woman, Captain America was replaced by the Falcon (a black man), and hell, even Star-Lord himself was a woman for a bit! The former Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers (who will be making her cinematic debut in 2018), left that name a couple of years ago in order to take up the more dignified mantle of Captain Marvel, leaving it open. So when a teenage girl from New Jersey happened to obtain superpowers, it was only fitting that she would take up the name of her idol. And while initial reactions to the reveal were mixed (as they often are when a long-standing character is being replaced by a younger, ethnic alternative), it only took the first issue for people to warm up to the new Ms. Marvel and accept her as an essential part of the Marvel universe. Today, Ms. marvel is at the forefront of the Marvel universe – she was an Avenger, is currently leading her own team (the Champions) and has appeared in numerous Marvel videogames, all despite the fact that media has branded her a terrorist for her religion.

Why is that? Why all the support? Is it just Marvel pushing their ethnic characters to the forefront, opinions be damned? Well, not entirely. It’s because Ms. Marvel is fun. Kamala Khan, as she’s known to her parents and friends, is not defined by her faith, even if it’s a part of her that she respects (her very first appearance in her book shows her sniffing bacon because apparently there’s no rules in the Quran against smelling it). After all, she was born in the US, and despite her religion is an American girl through and through. But she’s not just a regular girl – she’s a fangirl. She spends her time writing fanfiction about her favorite heroes, she freaks out when she has a team-up with someone she’s idolized, and naturally she jumped at the opportunity to join the Avengers. She’s fun, she’s goofy, she has a sense of humor, she’s adorable, she’s someone that you would genuinely want to hang out with. But most importantly – all of her fangirlish qualities allow the reader to see themselves as her. As a matter of fact, back when issue 1 was released (which had a cover that only revealed half of Kamala’s face), there was a meme circulating around comic book circles in which people – regardless of their race or religion – held up the cover to their face and “completed” it, with their own eyes showing up where Kamala’s should be. The message was clear – we are Ms. Marvel. Things like where we’re from or what we believe in are important, but there are far more important qualities that define us as people. And, just like teenagers 50 years ago could identify with Spider-Man, teenagers today can identify with Ms. Marvel even though, in many ways, she is very different from them.

When she was introduced into the Marvel canon, Kamala had two very important jobs ahead of her – she had to properly represent both the Muslim community and the fanboys. And honestly, I’d say that she fulfilled both of them perfectly. In no small part thanks to her, people who used to scoff at the idea are now perfectly open to having Muslim characters lead the media they like. Every day, more and more people pick up a comic book, or discover her in a game, or just see a funny picture with her online, and realize that Muslims aren’t terrorists – they’re just people, like everyone else. And, as an added bonus, readers of the Islamic faith finally have a character they can look up to who also looks like them. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what representation is all about?