#super powers
G. Willow Wilson has a great interview over at CBR. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=51863
She talks about Kamala’s home life and how important her family is to her story and growth, her developing super powers, creating a secret identity and tease what’s in store for our heroine in the future.
One of the most interesting things she had to say was on why Kamala was given a shapeshifting power set which leads to an interesting comment on assigning superpowers in general: “Trying to think what those powers might be and what the limitations on those powers might be was very interesting. We knew going in that we wanted her to have very physical, kinetic powers. We didn’t want her to be another sparkly telepath who floats in the air and shines. [Laughs] We wanted her to have powers that were interesting to look at on the page and that were sort of unexpected for a female character. It’s most often male characters that get the dramatic growing, shrinking, stretching powers, because those aren’t pretty powers.
The more we thought about this character, the more we thought that making her a polymorph might nicely parallel, in a metaphorical sense, a lot of her struggles in her non-super hero life. Shape-shifters in comics are most often cast as villains; characters like Mystique and Morph. We’re naturally suspicious of people with fluid identities. We assume they must be hiding something.
Ironically, the people who get the explosive and destructive powers are most often good guys. The people that can shoot bolts of lightning, manipulate fire and shoot laser beams from the eyes are most often good guys. So we’re sort of turning two sets of stereotypes on their heads; the stereotype about what the life of a young, American, Muslim girl must look like and what a polymorph must look like.”
(Spoilers!) Luther (Spaceboy) and Alison (The Rumour) while being close, didn’t always have a romantic relationship. This changes in the fifth issue of The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, when they share a moment on the rooftop of the academy. Alison then whispers in his ear, rumoring him into wanting to kiss her, and then they do so. From then onward, they motivate each other to keep fighting, and have what is arguably a stronger and more special relationship than anyone.
In Marvel comics, Deadpool is far from the only character to break the fourth wall. And he wasn’t the first. She-Hulk, aka Jennifer Walters, the lawyer cousin of Bruce Banner that premiered in 1980, was the first. And in her second series, The Sensational She-Hunk, it was her thing. Commenting constantly on the writing of the comic, her own objectification, as well as marvels fan-base, she was one to often (literally) peel back the layers of her own pages. Practically every cover of The Sensational She-Hulk was a fourth-wall break, and funny ones at that.
So, did y'all get your superpowers?