‘Ms. Marvel’ Ending and Post-Credit Scene Explained: Is Kamala Khan [Spoiler]?

As an origin story, Marvel’s Ms. Marvel Disney+ series has been slowly putting Kamala Khan’s character together, revealing the source of her powers, her costume, her name, and even her classic catchphrase (“Embiggen!”). But just when we thought we’d gotten the whole story, Episode 6 took an unexpected turn—and made a lot of Marvel fans, including me, jump out of our seats.

This post contains major spoilers for episode 6 of Ms. Marvel!

In Episode 6, Kamala returns home to Jersey City to deal with the Department of Damage Control, which, thanks to Agent Deever going rogue, is hellbent on capturing Kamala and her friends. After an epic final showdown at the high school, Kamala gets Kamran to safety and enjoys the wholehearted support of the people of Jersey City. But, it turns out, Bruno has some big news for her.

Bruno’s revelation

In the final scene of the episode, Bruno tells Kamala that her brother, Aamir, has been asking if he might have powers, too, since both he and Kamala are descended from the ClanDestines. Bruno says that when he went back and looked at Kamala’s genetic make-up again, he discovered something in Kamala’s genes.

“Like a mutation,” he says. AND THEN THE X-MEN THEME PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND. Kamala brushes the revelation off, saying that whatever the mutation is, it’s just another label. We all know what it means, though: The mutants have officially arrived in the Marvel cinematic universe! This is real. This is not a drill. The X-Men are coming!

But what about the Inhumans?

In the comics, Kamala is an Inhuman, a subset of humanity that has powers thanks to ancient Kree experimentation. Many fans were disappointed when it became apparent that the MCU Kamala wouldn’t be an Inhuman.

Now, it looks like the MCU might be streamlining the Inhumans and the mutants, combining them into one group (at least, on Earth-616—remember that Doctor Strange 2 had that Black Bolt cameo). We’ll have to wait and see what the mutants’ origin story is—whether they have a clear beginning, like the Kree experiments that led to the Inhumans, or whether the mutation is simply the next phase of human evolution.

Plus, since the Department of Damage Control is already running around trying to catch enhanced individuals, we could see them fomenting anti-mutant sentiment in the future. Agent Cleary mentions the importance of public opinion to Deever, and it’s Jersey City’s support for Kamala that forces the DODC to scrub their operation. It’s possible that the DODC will start trying to turn people against mutants in order to make the work of catching them easier.

Cool! But what about that end-credits scene?

I know! Weird, right??

To recap: Kamala is in her bedroom, flopping on her bed instead of doing her science homework, when her bangle starts glowing. When she gets up and inspects it, she suddenly gets sucked into some kind of vortex, and who should appear in her place but Carol freakin’ Danvers! It’s the Brie Larson cameo we’ve all been wondering about for months!

When you first watch the scene, you might wonder if Kamala has shapeshifted. Remember that, in the first issue of Ms. Marvel, Kamala’s very first manifestation of her powers is shapeshifting into a Carol Danvers lookalike. Could that aspect of her powers be manifesting here?

If you watch closely, though, it becomes clear that this is actually Captain Marvel, not Kamala in a new form. When she gets up off the floor, Carol doesn’t seem at all surprised about her own appearance. Instead, she looks at her surroundings in confusion—in particular, the dozens of Captain Marvel posters. It looks like Kamala and Carol have somehow switched places, with Carol ending up in Kamala’s bedroom and Kamala ending up—uh oh!—probably somewhere out in deep space. Hopefully Carol was in a place with oxygen before the switch?

So what could this development possibly mean? At this point, it’s not clear. It’s worth remembering that there’s a second bangle somewhere out there that the ClanDestines were never able to find, so it’s possible that the switch happened when Carol found it. Plus, we’ve known from the start that Ms. Marvel would be setting up Kamala’s involvement in the upcoming movie The Marvels, so Kamala getting whisked out into the cosmos seems like a logical first step for her team-up with Carol and Monica Rambeau. We’ll probably have to wait until the movie comes out in July 2023 to find out what exactly happened. (I know, I know … a whole year! That’s so far off I want to hug a sloth baby for comfort.)

But in the meantime … MUTANTS! Mutants are in the MCU! And Kamala’s the coolest mutant around!

(featured image: Marvel)