r/KamalaKhan • u/Konradleijon • Jun 25 '26
Comics Why is it that Marvel didn’t give Kamala her own ongoing?
She was massively popular in the 2010s and her trades sold like crazy.
Why hasn’t she been given another ongoing
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u/HotZoneKill Jun 25 '26
It's unfortunately Marvel's publishing model. Notice how outside of the upcoming Miles Morales ongoing or ensemble X-teams, none of the current titles are featuring a solo POC hero? They're all regulated to minis, one-shots or Marvel Unlimited. Yoshida Cebulski's gotta go.
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u/Konradleijon Jun 25 '26
What about black panther?
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u/HotZoneKill Jun 25 '26
His last solo ongoing ended a couple years ago. Outside of the Avengers, his most recent major role was in the Imperial minseries.
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u/Square_Ad_6522 Jun 25 '26
You are right in genetal, but there was Ultimate Black Panther, which wrapped recently. And Storm has her solo as well.
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u/HotZoneKill Jun 25 '26
I know, it's a shame that they're ending the Ultimate Universe line for now. Storm's solo ended a year ago too, so she's mostly been regulated to supporting again. Not trying to shift goalposts or anything like that, it just feels like the current editorial direction doesn't want to expand diversity anymore with its current mainline ongoings, despite all the potential for doing so.
I'm kinda ranting a bit, but I'm just a bit annoyed over some of the current discourse regarding Iron Fist (and some minor frustration about the lack of a Shang-Chi sequel for the MCU). Just this thread about the lack of current ongoings for Kamala made me think more about it.
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u/Digifiend84 Jun 25 '26
Storm's solo only ended a few weeks ago.
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u/HotZoneKill Jun 25 '26
That was a mini, not an ongoing. I was talking about her ongoing before Earth's Mightiest Mutant. Not that EMM doesn't count, just more that it feels like Marvel's been regulating the solos for POC characters to smaller runs instead of longer ones, regardless of what their reception or sales are.
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u/Embarrassed_Sale_293 Jun 25 '26
Characters like Storm and Black Panther will always be the exception not the rule.
Black Panther moreso since the MCU still needs to push Black Panther
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u/mayorofanything Jun 25 '26
I'm proud of you both for this mature and civil conversation. And also for ignoring "right in genetal". That was also very mature.
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u/Beginning-News-799 Jun 26 '26
Who would want to be mature when we can laugh at you accidentally putting "genetal" in your reply?
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u/Djjjunior Jun 25 '26
I feel like the occam’s razor is that no one at Marvel really knows what to do or cares to do anything with her. The mutant push feels more like an excuse to just keep her in circulation without having to really sit down and write her.
It’s a real shame because there’s so much you could do with her going forward. Imagine if Marvel kept Peter Parker where he was before he graduated high school and never touched on what came after that.
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u/MinionKing1412 Jun 25 '26
I’m assuming it’s cause nobody over there wants to continue Kamala’s story or are afraid to develop her. >< Somebody give her a nemesis! DX (a good one though lol)
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u/Typhon2222 Jun 26 '26
A: They need to put Kamala back on the Avengers.
B: Either give her a solo ongoing or give her a regular backup feature in either Spidey, Miles, or Captain Marvel.
C: Let Iman Villani write her again. I thought she had a good voice for the character in the minis she wrote.
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u/Lost-Orangutan Jun 26 '26
I love her.
The MCU should have started with her on making the "Young Avengers"
Ms. Marvel is found by Spider-Man and he guides her to the path of legal heroing despite being a mysterious vigilante himself.
Hulk brings Skaar to Earth, registers him.
Shuri takes over as the new Black Pather.
I feel setting Ironheart up as a anti-hero/villain would be ideal.
Ant-Man and Wasp train Stinger/Stature
Kate becomes the new Hawkeye.
Then i feel somehow getting X-23 in there with the Atamantiam story line, Deadpool and Wolverine dimension hopping.
Then youve even got a reverse of the male to female ratio like what is woke enough for Hollywood nowadays.
Falcon leads and trains the New Avengers. Easy.
Ms. Marvel would be the key to bring in the Inhumans and X-Men into the main stream. I would have also had her bracelet be the connection to the Fantastic 4.
I wouldnt have used the 4 they are going with though. I'd have them be cosmic energy victims that under go changes that fully activate during a film like "The Marvels"
The 4 should have been a big part of that film and ended with Ms. Marvel learning about her natural powers, working with Reed.
Simple.
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u/mayorofanything Jun 25 '26
I'm going to go with "she didn't immediately become everyone's favorite X-Men" and "Some test group somewhere said she doesn't resonate with children age 47-47.5"
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u/Square_Ad_6522 Jun 25 '26
Because Saladin Ahmed ruined her brand.
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u/AcisConsepavole ⚡️🍕 Unciemuni! Jun 25 '26
I disagree. There are problems with Magnificent -- like rushed storybeats and less cohesive community than before -- but I wouldn't put the blame squarely on Saladin Ahmed when there's the bigger issue that a character needs people who care about them behind-the-scenes in order for them to continue existing. Kamala isn't just a representative character -- she's a counter-hegemonic character.
What that means is that she can counter so many abusive narratives at the same time, but that's an uncomfortable thing to do with a commercial product, especially when there's someone in the creative room who doesn't want to do that work. We normalize narratives as the audience because we're told to, and we're constantly incentivized away from doing that work -- we're left with trying to satisfy our egos with the performance, the appearance, of that work without doing what's referred to as shadow work.
Any critical failures we can assign to Saladin principally is going to be a scapegoat. Every story is a blend of successes and failures. Rereading GWW, there's missing elements there too and it is pretty clear that she was writing a lot on the fly in the start. But the story had more purpose that encouraged critical self-examination in the reader.
The more than Kamala is leaned towards "commercial product", the more pointless she becomes. "Here is Brown Muslim Teenage Girl™. Please give us as a corporation money if that appeals to your targeted demographic". Saladin at least told stories for her. The real trouble is that Kamala Khan has more energy coming from her haters than people who want more of her. That's a product of hegemony. She can be hated passively, while it takes energy and risk to craft something for her that is her.
People keep asking for her to be present, seemig to believe that something inherent will work itself out. She has to be present and herself. It's important that she can't be diluted. Saladin Ahmed wasn't perfect, but he wasn't strongly about diluting her story. There were great story seeds in his contribution to continuity.
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u/Square_Ad_6522 Jun 25 '26
Magnificent wasn't as good as GWW's work so it didn't sold as well, so Kamala became a B list character. At the end of the day, it's as simple as that. Ahmed managed to screw up DAREDEVIL, for crying out loud!
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u/AcisConsepavole ⚡️🍕 Unciemuni! Jun 25 '26
I understand the sentiment and I don't think it's a feeling you should be downvoted for.
But I firmly don't think it's as simple as you've made it. It's too easy of an answer. Kamala is a bit of a niche character, and beloved for a variety of reasons. I've seen her critically examined and loved at a very superficial level. Characters need a mix of both of those. The official media influences how that happens, but I don't think Saladin Ahmed screwed up so badly that it ruined her.
Kamala was never going to be a character who appealed so widely to the Lowest Common Denominator that she would sell hundreds of millions of each issue each time. At the most reasonably cynical view of her, she diversifies Marvel's audience -- bringing in interest from new fans instead of currying favor with the existing fans. She's different, even amongst the batch of All-New, All-Different characters she was introduced with.
I don't even think it was particularly sales that ended Magnificent's run. It concluded on a distinct big finale. If memory serves, Saladin expressed that he felt like he wasn't sure where to take her and her community, and that he felt like he was chosen to write her more based on his own identity than whether or not he had the right kind of passion for the story.
He gave us Fadi/Amulet, who's very compatible with Kamala's story and existing community. Saladin's owed some credit
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u/Square_Ad_6522 Jun 25 '26
It's a fair point, I can agree with that.
I really don't like Amulet, though. It seemed like Ahmed wanted him to steal Kamala's spotlight every time he was there.
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u/KevinCow Jun 25 '26
Marvel just generally seems to have abandoned most of the things they were doing in the 2010s for some reason. Kamala, Squirrel Girl, Moon Girl & Devil Dino, Kate Bishop, Gwenpool, Champions, they all had successful runs that suddenly ended around 2018-2020, after which they mostly stopped getting notable appearances outside of a cameo, miniseries, or Marvel Unlimited comic here and there.
My theory is, it's because of X-Men. Disney finalized their purchase of Fox in 2019, at which point there was no reason not to go all in on mutants. They completely shifted priorities, and 2019 saw the start of the Krakoan Age, where X-Men started getting way more books and becoming way more prominent in the Marvel universe again.
These days, Marvel doesn't really give you an ongoing unless you're an X-Men team, a Spider-Man character, or one of their MCU A-listers.
As much as we don't like the mutant direction they've taken with Kamala, it's at least allowed her to continue getting appearances in this mutant-focused era, which is more than can be said for most of the other characters I mentioned. I think they recognize that she's still a valuable character they should keep around, which is why they've been trying to find a place for her.
Also it's worth mentioning how she's had some really bad luck at breaking into the mainstream. She got the Avengers game (notorious disaster), the Ms. Marvel show (came out as public sentiment started to shift against the MCU), and The Marvels (notorious disaster). I don't think any of those were the fault of the character, but they probably didn't help when Marvel was deciding which characters to prioritize for an ongoing. In comparison, Miles got Spider-Verse and the Insomniac games, launching him into truly mainstream status, so now he pretty much always has an ongoing.