Ms. Marvel becomes a slice of real life in Jersey City
Close-up of the Ms. Marvel mural on Central Avenue in Jersey City. Artist Sarah Maung @eaint66 designed and installed the mural for the Central Avenue Special Improvement District. (Photo: Holly Smith for Public Square Amplified)
“Now WHY doesn’t Jersey City have a Ms. Marvel mural yet?????” @eareney tweeted in 2021.
"That's a legitimate question because the city is full of murals,” artist Sarah Maung told Public Square Amplified, “As one of the few local Muslim female mural artists, I might be the only person capable of doing that."
Maung’s Meanwhile in Jersey City mural stands around the corner from an elementary school. Its inscription reads: “This mural is not just Ms. Marvel. It is the representation and power that comes with her. It is for the kids of Jersey City to take up space both metaphorically in the media, but also physically on the walls of Jersey City.”
For readers who haven’t been keeping up with comics, Marvel re-launched its Bronze Age Ms. Marvel title in 2014. Its titular Kamala Khan is a teenage, Muslim, Pakistani-American Jersey Girl with shapeshifting powers, inspired by the experiences of her co-creator Sana Amanat. The comic, and later the Disney+ series (2022) and movie The Marvels (2023), is set in Jersey City and, more specifically, “Coles Academic” (a mythologized version of the real-life McNair Academic High School).
Devang Solanki worked at Jersey City’s now-closed FJB Comics during Ms. Marvel’s first historic print run. The shop got a cameo in the pages of the book it was selling.
“The first few weeks it was impossible to keep the book on the shelves,” Solanki said, “You'd have people that weren't regulars just show up and be like, ‘Do you have this book? I heard this takes place here…’ so we'd keep the book out [visible] as soon as you walked into the door.”
Solanski said that many comic fans find the appeal of Ms. Marvel to be that, “She has heart, right? She kind of stuck out for that. She reminds me a lot of early Spider-Man or Miles Morales.”
Solanki also said readers could easily pick up the comic, as “you don't have to go back 30 years researching a character.”
Although Kamala Khan is the product of a global multi-billion-dollar company, the connection the fans have to her is real and personal. Muralist Maung added one key element to her Ms. Marvel: a hijab.
“One, I wanted a hijabi on the wall because I know a lot of Muslim kids need it,” Maung said. “And two, I was afraid if it looked exactly like Ms. Marvel, Disney would find me and sue me.”
“My friends are like, ‘You gave her your nose.’ Yeah, I did,” Maung continued, “Because after years of being shamed for having an ethnic nose, this is something I'm proud of now. I know Kamala is lighter-skinned. I was like, no, no, I want her to be melanated.”
Enduring winter work conditions and frozen paint, Maung completed the mural in February 2024. She recalled a friend commenting: "Do you know you're making history?"
Rutgers University junior Noran Nazir was a part of the history surrounding the Disney+ Ms. Marvel series launch in 2022.
“When I read the comics for the first time in seventh grade, I was reading it as a character,” Nazir told Public Square Amplified, “I didn't quite put myself in her shoes. But in high school, I was where she was in the comics.”
Nazir literally stepped into Ms. Marvel’s boots at ared carpet screening for the series, donning her interpretation of the comic costume alongside Iman Vellani, the Pakistani-Canadian actress who plays Kamala Khan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fiction met reality as Vellani struck poses with the Jersey City teens. At one point, Vellani rested her head on Nazir’s shoulder.
Jersey City Ms. Marvel fans power pose with Iman Vellani [Kamala Khan] on the red carpet during a Paley Center special screening of Disney+ Ms. Marvel, June 9, 2022. Noran Nazir stands to the left of Vellani. (Photo: Julia Bannon for Mickey Blog, used with permission of Mickey Blog)
“Iman got to see the impact that she has. She's a superhero. We want to be like her. We were happy to represent that character, so to see that it made her happy, it’s awesome,” Nazir said.
Nazir, then a senior at McNair Academic High School, also participated in media inquiries the school received around the launch of the show, speaking to the importance of having positive Muslim female representation.
“Wearing the suit makes you feel more powerful,” Nazir said, “I carry that with me and it helps me know that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. I hope that other young girls can see her in the same way that I was able to from such a young age.”
Srija Patcha, another Ms. Marvel fan who cosplayed the character at events for the Jersey City Public Library and Welcome Home, left Jersey City to attend the predominantly white Princeton University, where she hung her poster of Ms. Marvel in her dorm room.
Ms. Marvel-themed graduation cap. (Photo: Srija Patcha, used with permission)
Patcha says she appreciated how the brown immigrant first-generation experience is reflected in the pages of Ms. Marvel.
“The things that Kamala goes through, whether it's pressure from her parents or whether it's certain expectations, not just academically but also to stick to tradition and cultural values, can be restrictive at times,” Patcha said, “That was a battle that I was fighting in high school too, juggling all of these family responsibilities with my ambition.”
“Sometimes it's hard to tell when your parents are wrong about something,” Patcha said, emphasizing why Ms. Marvel’s representation matters, “Seeing yourself portrayed in a character that you know is a good character, you know she's doing the right thing, having that role model gives you the confidence that it's okay to be breaking these rules to be pursuing your own path as a brown girl.”
Patcha feels representation has come a long way since 2014.
“When people like the writers of Ms. Marvel come out with these authentic stories that are very much grounded in our own experiences, they shatter that [warped lens] and they bring us back to reality,” Patcha said. “They help us learn more about ourselves and to have pride.”
Early in her superhero journey, Kamala Khan remarks, “It's not really the brown girls from Jersey City that save the world.”
When asked about the quote, Nazir saw things differently.
“I did not agree with that,” she said, “We do save the world.”
Image credits:
Top left: The Meanwhile in Jersey City mural on the corner of South Street and Central Avenue in Jersey City. Artist Sarah Maung @eaint66 designed and installed the mural for the Central Avenue Special Improvement District. (Photo: Holly Smith for Public Square Amplified) Top right: Artist Sarah Maung poses in front of her mural, Meanwhile in Jersey City. Maung designed and installed the mural for the Central Avenue Special Improvement District. (Photo: Sarah Maung/@eaint66 via Instagram, used with permission) Bottom Left: Side-by-side view of a Ms. Marvel interior page on display in the lobby of Jersey City’s City Hall compared with the exterior of the building. (Photo Collage: Redditor ThatMarkGuy, used with permission) Bottom Center: McNair Academic High School student Sarah Chaudhry poses for a #IAMMsMarvel selfie during a Word JC Bookstore signing featuring Ms. Marvel writer G. Willow Wilson in February 2014. Wilson revealed Kamala Khan’s high school in the comic was “Coles Academic,” a fictional version of McNair Academic. (Photo: Holly Smith) Bottom Right: Jersey City resident Hafeya Khokar wears a Ms. Marvel costume as she reads to children during the Jersey City Public Library “Tales of Our City” event. September 28, 2018. (Photo: Holly Smith)
