Artist recreates Captain America's iconic battle with Hitler using Ms. Marvel and Donald Trump
I f Donald Trump had his way and was able to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., Kamala Khan’s parents probably never would have been able to immigrate from Karachi to Jersey City, New Jersey.
Even if the Khans were able to make it to Jersey, where their superhero daughter Kamala (Ms. Marvel) is currently fighting supervillain gentrifiers, chances are that Trump wouldn’t exactly be a fan of hers. Not only is Ms. Marvel an Avenger, but she, like her parents, is also a practicing Muslim.
Trump’s recent turn to explicit Islamophobia as a campaigning tactic has prompted many to compare his politics to other bloviating demagogues like Adolf Hitler (something Trump says he’s cool with.)
Earlier this week, Ms. Marvel creator G. Willow Wilson took to Twitter to lament the conflict of interest keeping her from retweeting some of the internet’s choice Khan vs. Trump fanart.
When artist Matt Stefani saw the groundswell of support for more art featuring Khan and Trump duking it out, he decided borrow a page out of Captain America’s back issues.
The very first issue of Captain America features an iconic Jack Kirby cover depicting Steve Rogers clocking a disheveled Hitler. Stefani told me that updating the cover with the villains and heroes of today was easy.
“I want people to understand that there is such a thing as visual metaphors,” Stefani explained. I don’t advocate actually punching Trump in the face, but the illustration represents a lot of the frustrations that people are having with him.”
Stefani and I discussed the meaning behind his decision to depict Kamala using her Inhuman-grated powers of “embiggening” in her fight with Trump.
In the Marvel universe, the Inhumans are a race of superhumans who can go their entire lives without knowing about their heritage until being exposed to a substance known as the Terrigen Mists.
Kamala’s origin story invoves her and hundreds of other ordinary humans suddenly undergoing dramatic transformations after a massive amount of the Mists are released into the atmosphere. The public’s reactions to the new wave of Inhumans (Nuhumans) is decidedly mixed.
Some Nuhumans, like Kamala retain their original human forms while gaining fantastic abilities, while other are physically changed in life-altering ways.
In many ways, the plot lines involving the Mists and the Nuhumans echo the stories of countless immigrants and other minorities born in the U.S. whom, despite being citizens, now find themselves under hostile scrutiny. I asked Stefani how he thought Trump would respond to an influx of Nuhumans if he were a Marvel character.
“I think the Donald would fail to see the difference between good and evil Inhumans and just lump them all into one “bad” category,” Stefani told me frankly. “I’m sure this kind of statement would resonate with a certain base, but all in all, all it’d do is alienate the Inhumans like Blackbolt that are actually trying to help the public.”
Stefani elaborated that much in the same way that the majority of Muslims living in the U.S. aren’t radicalized terrorists, most Nuhumans are just regular people.
“Trump’s policy on Inhhuams would probably only serve to alienate the ones who just out there living life, as EMTs, bloggers, athletes, administrators, moms, dads,” he said.