G. Willow Wilson, a convert to Islam, has created a female Muslim superhero for both educational and entertainment purposes. Abraham Riesman interviewed her at Vulture.com.
“G. Willow Wilson,” he writes, “has done something even Superman never bothered to do: create a female Muslim superhero and turn her into an overnight marketing sensation.
“Wilson writes Ms. Marvel, a monthly Marvel Comics series that debuted in February. It stars Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old child of Pakistani immigrants living in Jersey City …
“Kamala is a hero in the Peter Parker tradition: dweeby, self-doubting, unpopular. Like so many of today’s teen geeks, she spends her nights resenting her parents and writing fan fiction for online forums. A bizarre incident leaves Kamala with shapeshifting powers. …
“Born in New Jersey herself, Wilson was a white kid with no religious upbringing, but converted to Islam during the height of the War on Terror. She’s lived in Egypt, done foreign correspondence for the New York Times, penned a memoir, written an acclaimed novel, and labored in relative obscurity within the mainstream comics industry for years.”
Riesman asks Wilson, “What’s unique about writing a female Muslim superhero in 2014, as opposed to 10 or 20 years ago?”
Her response: “If we had written Ms. Marvel ten years ago, Kamala’s religion would probably have to be an even bigger part of the conversation than it is today, because closer to 9/11, there was a lot more scrutiny placed on the actions of everyday American Muslims. But today, now that there’s a bit of distance — particularly for the younger generation, for whom 9/11 happened when they were small children — there’s a greater desire to see more well-rounded stories. Being a Muslim is really only one part of her overall arc, her overall journey. …
“I write about real life as it is lived by the young American Muslim women that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting throughout the course of my travels as a writer and being able to speak in different places and meet different people at signings and things.”
Read more at Vulture, here, where you can also see a few panels from the comic strip.
Photo: Vulture
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 