Did Kevin Feige ask for Ms. Marvel's role in Dead Language?

[Mister Mets]

Ms. Marvel was killed off in Amazing Spider-Man Volume 6 #26 by Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr.

Shortly after that, she was resurrected and connected to the X-Men comics (and presumably adaptations) with the reveal that she is a mutant. That was the plan when she was killed off, but plenty of readers were upset at the time.

In an interview with the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast, Cody Ziglar (currently writing the Miles Morales monthly as well as some spider-adjacent comics like the Spider-Punk mini-series, as well as other material like episodes of Futurama) said this was pushed by Kevin Feige.

Ostensibly there to promote Miles Morales: Spider-Man and Spider-Punk: Arms Race, Ziglar gets into his career on both sides of the fence, writing for the She-Hulk TV show and how that got him gigs co-writing the Beyond era of Amazing Spider-Man and eventually Miles and Hobie.

A lot of that involved working closely with Zeb Wells, the current writer of Amazing Spider-Man and the writer of the issue where Ms. Marvel dies. As Ziglar tells it, the request to kill Kamala and resurrect her as a mutant came from Feige, the president of Marvel Studios.

“It was funny watching when the whole Kamala stuff was going down,” Ziglar says in the interview. “He (Wells) had told me months before the plan, which was, 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,’ so he (Wells) was like, ‘F***, I’m the guy that drew the short straw? People are going to be very mad that I have to kill Ms. Marvel.”

Marvel was quick to say otherwise, suggesting Kevin Feige was not involved in the decision to make Ms Marvel a mutant.

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. Marvel Studios also denied that Feige was involved in the decision in a comment provided to io9 over email.

The insiders don't disprove the idea that Kevin Feige had a discussion with Zeb Wells about Ms. Marvel, but there are so many ways the story could be misinterpreted in a weird game of telephone.

So what do you guys think?

[Garlador]

Ms. Marvel was killed off in Amazing Spider-Man Volume 6 #26 by Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr.

Shortly after that, she was resurrected and connected to the X-Men comics (and presumably adaptations) with the reveal that she is a mutant. That was the plan when she was killed off, but plenty of readers were upset at the time.

In an interview with the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast, Cody Ziglar (currently writing the Miles Morales monthly as well as some spider-adjacent comics like the Spider-Punk mini-series, as well as other material like episodes of Futurama) said this was pushed by Kevin Feige.



Marvel was quick to say otherwise, suggesting Kevin Feige was not involved in the decision to make Ms Marvel a mutant.



The insiders don't disprove the idea that Kevin Feige had a discussion with Zeb Wells about Ms. Marvel, but there are so many ways the story could be misinterpreted in a weird game of telephone.

So what do you guys think?

I think this whole thing is a mess, but my current stance is this.

You can tell a good story where she's revealed to be a mutant, and you can do it without killing her.

You can tell a good story where she's killed and resurrected.

Dead Language was not a good story and I continue to find its execution troublesome, ignorant, regressive, and problematic.

[Frontier]

I think this whole thing is a mess, but my current stance is this.

You can tell a good story where she's revealed to be a mutant, and you can do it without killing her.

You can tell a good story where she's killed and resurrected.

Dead Language was not a good story and I continue to find its execution troublesome, ignorant, regressive, and problematic.

It was definitely tone-deaf and badly executed though it definitely sounds like Wells was ultimately just a hit-man.

[MisterTorgo]

If I had to guess from the somewhat-competing narratives, there's more evidence that it was Wells' idea to kill her off, isn't there? I thought I remembered an interview where he said he wasn't sure how editorial would take his idea and was surprised they went for it. Maybe Feige wanted her to be a mutant and Wells decided fridging her was the way to do it.

Either way, I assume Ziglar probably bought himself a bit of trouble.

[Jman27]

I think Fiege just ask to make Kamala a mutant and didnt care how it was done.

[Vegan]

I think this whole thing is a mess, but my current stance is this.

You can tell a good story where she's revealed to be a mutant, and you can do it without killing her.

You can tell a good story where she's killed and resurrected.

Dead Language was not a good story and I continue to find its execution troublesome, ignorant, regressive, and problematic.

This is pretty much my take on it. Not much changes in the way I view Wells and Dead Language.

Main takeaway is I hope no crap gets flung Ziglar’s way from Marvel Higherups

[Alex_Of_X]

I think the egg in this particular case is squarely on Lowe's face, actually.

Feige's request makes sense--he's the big boss, and he wants the character retconned for synergy. Not much different from an EIC decision, honestly.

The story IN GENERALITY is sound: she dies, gets resurrected on Krakoa with a newfound discovery of her mutancy.

Wells' execution of the above is alright, suitably emotional. (bear with me here)

The idea to do it in an issue of Spider-Man (!) as a payoff to a long-gestating story (!!) and then have a wake issue (!!!) all to mime that she was dead for real, only to then resurrect her is monkey business, plain and simple. Lowe should've restructured the whole thing. Hell, I'll do it now: she's badly injured in Dead language, we retitle "Fallen Friend" to "Death of Ms Marvel", she dies from injuries mid-issue only to break outta an egg on the last page! Boom! Simple as.

I sentence Lowe to exile and welcome Albert Balnazak as our new Spider-Editor

[bob.schoonover]

I think it'd be incredibly weird if Ziglar made that story up, so I believe he had that conversation with Wells. There is certainly wiggle room in Feige and Wells having a conversation where Wells believes he's received a request/requirement that Feige only considered a suggestion or prompt - that happens often enough where a misunderstanding like that might occur (e.g. Feige says something like, "It'd be great if we could just, I don't know, kill her and bring her back as a mutant since it's Ike's fault she's not a damn mutant in the first place" and Wells sees that as a directive).

It's frankly never made much sense that Wells had this idea out of nowhere and it just kind of magically turned into Kamala being the mutant she was always meant to be (w/the Hellfire Gala comic where she's resurrected lining up with when The Marvels was originally supposed to be released!) and Iman Vellani writing the character shortly thereafter. Whether that all happened because Feige ordered it versus casually made it known something like that would be a good idea is mostly academic to me.

[Frontier]

I think the egg in this particular case is squarely on Lowe's face, actually.

Feige's request makes sense--he's the big boss, and he wants the character retconned for synergy. Not much different from an EIC decision, honestly.

The story IN GENERALITY is sound: she dies, gets resurrected on Krakoa with a newfound discovery of her mutancy.

Wells' execution of the above is alright, suitably emotional. (bear with me here)

The idea to do it in an issue of Spider-Man (!) as a payoff to a long-gestating story (!!) and then have a wake issue (!!!) all to mime that she was dead for real, only to then resurrect her is monkey business, plain and simple. Lowe should've restructured the whole thing. Hell, I'll do it now: she's badly injured in Dead language, we retitle "Fallen Friend" to "Death of Ms Marvel", she dies from injuries mid-issue only to break outta an egg on the last page! Boom! Simple as.

I sentence Lowe to exile and welcome Albert Balnazak as our new Spider-Editor

Honestly I think a lot of the issues with current ASM can be pegged at Lowe.

I mean, Wells' own writing doesn't help but it ultimately seems like he's just following orders at the end of the day and doing what Lowe or corporate wants.

It just so happened to be, in this instance, a badly-implemented (and frankly unnecessary) bit of MCU synergy.

[Mister Mets]

If I had to guess from the somewhat-competing narratives, there's more evidence that it was Wells' idea to kill her off, isn't there? I thought I remembered an interview where he said he wasn't sure how editorial would take his idea and was surprised they went for it. Maybe Feige wanted her to be a mutant and Wells decided fridging her was the way to do it.

Either way, I assume Ziglar probably bought himself a bit of trouble.

Given the context of the X-Men comics at the time, where mutants who die are resurrected, what other way would be there for a superhero to pop up in a Spider-Man comic and discover she's a mutant?

In retrospect, it would have been cleaner to move her to an X-book and have that entire arc occur there.

I think it'd be incredibly weird if Ziglar made that story up, so I believe he had that conversation with Wells. There is certainly wiggle room in Feige and Wells having a conversation where Wells believes he's received a request/requirement that Feige only considered a suggestion or prompt - that happens often enough where a misunderstanding like that might occur (e.g. Feige says something like, "It'd be great if we could just, I don't know, kill her and bring her back as a mutant since it's Ike's fault she's not a damn mutant in the first place" and Wells sees that as a directive).

It's frankly never made much sense that Wells had this idea out of nowhere and it just kind of magically turned into Kamala being the mutant she was always meant to be (w/the Hellfire Gala comic where she's resurrected lining up with when The Marvels was originally supposed to be released!) and Iman Vellani writing the character shortly thereafter. Whether that all happened because Feige ordered it versus casually made it known something like that would be a good idea is mostly academic to me.

It's definitely possible that the story is true, but people are making assumptions about particular details.

[Lee]

Honestly I think a lot of the issues with current ASM can be pegged at Lowe.

I mean, Wells' own writing doesn't help but it ultimately seems like he's just following orders at the end of the day and doing what Lowe or corporate wants.

That's a big claim. Do you have anything to back that claim up with?

[CrimsonEchidna]

I think it'd be incredibly weird if Ziglar made that story up, so I believe he had that conversation with Wells. There is certainly wiggle room in Feige and Wells having a conversation where Wells believes he's received a request/requirement that Feige only considered a suggestion or prompt - that happens often enough where a misunderstanding like that might occur (e.g. Feige says something like, "It'd be great if we could just, I don't know, kill her and bring her back as a mutant since it's Ike's fault she's not a damn mutant in the first place" and Wells sees that as a directive).

It's frankly never made much sense that Wells had this idea out of nowhere and it just kind of magically turned into Kamala being the mutant she was always meant to be (w/the Hellfire Gala comic where she's resurrected lining up with when The Marvels was originally supposed to be released!) and Iman Vellani writing the character shortly thereafter. Whether that all happened because Feige ordered it versus casually made it known something like that would be a good idea is mostly academic to me.

Thing with the podcast is all Ziglar said was Feige made the request to have Kamala be made a mutant. ComicTwitter took that and ran and played "telephone" with it, warping it into "Feige put out a hit on Kamala." lol

Going back and looking at the sequence of events though, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this was a call the Marvel Bullpen Higherups as a whole made. The fact that right after it there was a massive "Death of a Friend" company wide issue. That not long after it she was immediately revived through the X-Line. And that not long after that it suddenly gets announced that Iman Vellani, her MCU actress, would also be penning her next big mini series.

Feels like a pretty clear-cut case that after the Marvel Bullpen as a whole made the decision to make Kamala a mutant through the resurrection protocol, Wells was given the instruction to include that death as part of the story in Amazing since it's the flagship book.

[bob.schoonover]

Given the context of the X-Men comics at the time, where mutants who die are resurrected, what other way would be there for a superhero to pop up in a Spider-Man comic and discover she's a mutant?

In retrospect, it would have been cleaner to move her to an X-book and have that entire arc occur there.

It's definitely possible that the story is true, but people are making assumptions about particular details.

I think the whole thing was too cute by half. One can imagine all of the following being true:
*The Resurrection Protocols were the ideal way to make Kamala a mutant in a way that was far less confusing than, e.g. anything they've done in the past with Franklin Richards or Wanda and Piotr in terms of flip-flopping origins around to change their mutant status.
*Since Kamala didn't have her own book at the time, they didn't want to launch a "Death of Kamala Khan" book or re-launch Champions w/that plot as the opening arc
*Avengers was in the middle of massive Mephisto plot where Kamala's death would have received short shrift
*They wanted the resurrection as a mutant to be a surprise so they didn't move her to the X-Office prematurely
*They wanted eyes on her death because it was important but they didn't want to tell people WHY it was important
If you accept those things, you can talk yourself into "Let's have it happen in our best selling title" but I don't particularly agree with the premise (that I presented but have no idea is true) that the element of surprise was more important than other factors

I think the bigger sin than anything Alex said above is that Kamala didn't get enough screen time in ASM before Dead Languages so that fans of hers would know she was having a big role in ASM and that book deserved their attention. Her dying protecting MJ from a god and foiling his big plan is, on paper, a perfectly heroic death befitting someone of her stature, but she'd barely interacted with MJ and didn't have much of a connection to Wayep/Rabin, so it was all kind of silly.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Technically, Zeb didn't make her a mutant. That was the writers that picked up after her death.

Feige asking Wells to make her a mutant doesn't make sense. Because he didn't do that.

Him asking Wells to kill her makes more sense than him asking Wells to make her a mutant and Wells not doing it, but even then it's weird. Why do it in ASM? Why not ask Amanat or someone from the X-Office? Is it because Wells worked on the MCU and is the comic writer Feige is most familiar with?

Either way, this whole story is weird. Would love more information.

[lalalei2001]

https://agentsoffandom.com/zeb-wells-kamala-khan-death/ According to Wells and Nick Lowe it was their idea to kill her since Krakoan resurrection had already been established, as had her presence in the Spider-Man comics.

Feige may have given the order to make her a mutant, but he didn't say they had to kill her to accomplish that.