Text from the dccomicsciclejerk sub (full thing there)
Meet Bilal. A character introduced in 2024 as part of a family of Muslim Pakistani immigrants. He exists solely to challenge Ms. Marvel, who is learning about oppression for the first time in Lanzing and Kelly’s NYX (2024)*. She just found out she’s a mutant, of course, and only mutants know what it’s like to face prejudice, scrutiny, and systemic violence.
To drive that point home, they’ve created Cousin Bilal. Cutting edge bigotry. A first or second gen Pakistani immigrant prejudiced against Americans who moved away for five years then came back.
As of issue 5, he’s a terrorist. Or at least, an aspiring one. It’s a really bold new direction for marvel because instead of being a religious extremist type terrorist like about 20% of their Muslim characters, he’s a Proud Boys white-supremacist style terrorist. Note the tacit endorsement of the guy famous for blowing up school busses full of children (Stryker).
Kamala hasnt worked since her first run was interrupted by crossover bullshit. It ruined the main storyline by killing and rebooting everyone without explanation (if you haven’t read and don’t know about the crossover event), and then after that they put her on the Avengers and made her an A-list superhero in-universe, which nuked the character’s whole appeal as a plucky small-timer stopping junkyard mad scientists and hamburglar-types knocking over convenience stores in jersey city.
If they’d kept the original pace for the character she could have become A-list one day after years and years of story building up to it like a shonen book.