Who Is the Villain in ‘Ms. Marvel?’

Now that we’re two episodes into Ms. Marvel, Marvel’s new Disney+ series about the teenage superhero Kamala Khan, we’re starting to get some clues about who Kamala’s main villain will be. There are a few possibilities, including one that might be a red herring, so let’s break it down!

Ms. Marvel, which will run for a total of 6 episodes, is about Kamala’s journey from an Avengers fangirl to a superhero in her own right. Joined by her best friends Bruno and Nakia, plus her overprotective but loving family, Kamala will learn that being a superhero isn’t as glamorous as she thought it would be.

If you’re particularly spoiler-averse, turn back now, as we’ll be discussing some hints from the comics!

The Department of Damage Control

At the end of episode 1, Kamala makes her accidental superhero debut by using her powers to save Zoe after Zoe gets swept away by a giant replica of Mjolnir. Everyone in attendance whips out their phone, plastering the Internet with footage of Kamala’s powers, and in the mid-credits scene, we see two very official-looking people take notice. They agree that Kamala looks like an enhanced individual, and decide to bring her in.

One of those officials is Agent Cleary, who first appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home as the agent who interrogated Peter and his friends after Mysterio’s allegation of murder. Cleary and the other agent, Agent Deever, are part of the Department of Damage Control (DODC), which cleans up the messes made by superhero fights and monitors enhanced individuals.

In episode 2, Cleary and Deever take on a decidedly sinister quality when they bring Zoe in for questioning. They try to pry Kamala’s identity out of Zoe, and when Zoe lets slip that the mysterious new hero is South Asian, they decide to start surveilling all mosques in the tri-state area. Then, at the end of the episode, they try to capture Kamala after she saves a little boy who falls out of a window at the Eid celebration.

Cleary and Deever are shaping up to be the bad guys for a couple of reasons. First, Kamala has done nothing wrong, which means they have no legal basis to apprehend her. Although they’re a government agency, their operation seems to be in a constitutional grey area at best. Plus, Deever seems to have no qualms at all about profiling people of color—and Kamala’s ethnicity might even be what’s emboldening Deever and Cleary to go after her instead of approaching her in a more peaceful way.

Luckily, after they try to catch her, Kamala is saved at the last minute by her new crush, Kamran. But is Kamran too good to be true?

Kamran and Aisha

We first meet Kamran when Kamala bumps into him at school. He’s a brand new student, who happens to have just transferred to Kamala’s school … immediately after Kamala’s powers were splashed across social media. Hmmmmmmm.

Throughout the episode, Kamran seems really sweet. He and Kamala hit it off at Zoe’s party, and he offers her, Nakia, and Bruno a ride home after the cops arrive to break it up. After he and Kamala bond over Bollywood movies (which drives Bruno up the wall, since he’s clearly jealous), he offers to give Kamala a driving lesson, which turns into a date. What a nice guy! And how cool that he likes Kamala exactly as much as she likes him!

In the comics, though, Kamran is a villain. He’s a fellow Inhuman whose biokinetic abilities were activated by the Terrigen Mist at the same time as Kamala’s powers, and he befriends Kamala in much the same way that he does in the series. However, in the comics, it quickly turns out that Kamran is working for a crime lord called Lineage, and after he tricks Kamala into thinking that he likes her, he delivers her to his boss.

The end of episode 2 adds an additional wrinkle in Kamran’s story: After he saves her from the DODC, he reveals that he’s the son of a woman who Kamala has been seeing in visions throughout the episode. The character’s name is listed as Najma, but it’s possible that she could be Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha, since we hear a lot about Aisha in the episode, and the woman tells Kamala that she’s waited a long time to meet her. Either way, this woman has been trying to find Kamala, and she’s clearly been using Kamran to do it.

So Who’s the Big Bad in Ms. Marvel?

The short answer is: We don’t know yet! Deever and Cleary are the frontrunners so far, but they’re being set up to be so shady that they’re beginning to look like a red herring. Don’t be surprised if they end up working with Kamala instead of against her, even though their tactics are unsavory and racist. That’s not to say that they’ll turn out to be good guys, but they may not be the main villain of the series.

If the series is following the comics’ lead, then Kamran and his mother could emerge as the main baddies … but that remains to be seen, too. We’ll learn more when episode 3 drops next week!

(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)