Marvel’s comics have suddenly dovetailed into what’s been going on in Marvel’s movies for a long time—even before the MCU hit stratospheric heights, there’s always been elements from adaptations that then make their way back to the source. But while this has been an often left-unspoken (or at least diplomatically danced around) relationship, it’s rare to actually hear about that relationship explicitly.
We’re talking, of course, about last year’s highly controversial issue Amazing Spider-Man #26, which saw Kamala Khan—who had been infrequently appearing in the Zeb Wells/John Romita Jr. run of the series as a guest star, without her own ongoing series at the time—perish at the hands of a villain named the Emissary, sacrificing herself to stop Mary Jane Watson being killed as part of a prophesied ritual. Of course, this being comics, Kamala got better just a couple of months later when it was revealed—as many had assumed at the time of her death—that she was in fact actually a mutant, and thus able to be brought back to life by the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols. Now, Kamala is both an Inhuman and a mutant, and has since appeared in her own series (including ones co-written by her MCU actress, Iman Vellani) and others as a regular X-Men character.
All this ties into the changes the Marvel Cinematic Universe had previously made with its own version of Kamala in her self-titled Disney+ series, and eventually The Marvels, where Kamala’s background as an Inhuman—her powers revealed through exposure to the Terrigen Mists—was sidestepped to reveal that she had genetic markers indicating she was actually a mutant. Synergy! But Spider-Punk and Miles Morales writer Cody Ziglar recently alleged that Amazing Spider-Man #26’s controversial twist came from one person in particular.
Speaking on an episode of the Amazing Spider Talk podcast (via ComicsXF) Ziglar recounted a story from Wells, who claimed that the ask to kill Kamala off—and resurrect her as a mutant—came directly from Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. “[Wells] had told me months before the plan, which was, [Kevin] Feige was like, ‘Hey, I don’t do this very often but, can you please do this to make things in line with Marvel because we have some stuff we want to do with Kamala,’” Ziglar said. “So [Wells] was like, ‘Fuck, I’m the guy that drew the short straw? People are going to be very mad that I have to kill Ms. Marvel.’”
Marvel Studios declined to comment to io9 whether or not Feige was involved in the decision, but a Marvel Comics spokesperson familiar with the situation flatly denied that this was the case, describing the decision to make Kamala a mutant character—a focus she’ll continue as part of the X-Men line’s 2024 relaunch, From the Ashes—as an explicitly editorial decision, one in the making well before the events of Amazing Spider-Man #26.
Like we said, this has been a common development in comics for the past decade and a half (and even before that). Marvel comics may provide the source material for Marvel’s movies and TV shows, but the latter are infinitely more widely consumed than the former; having elements of the films reflected back in current comics to entice moviegoing (or stream binging) audiences to come and check out what’s on shelves is just part and parcel of the business in the age of the superhero adaptation boom. Kevin Feige involvement or not, something like this was perhaps always inevitable.
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