Marvel Kept Kamala Khan’s Reveal Secret From the Ms. Marvel Cast

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel Episode 6. You heard it right: that was a riff from the X-Men ’97 theme to end Ms. Marvel. In Wednesday’s Ms. Marvel season finale, titled “No Normal,” Bruno Carrelli (Matt Lintz) discovers why Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) can wield the Noor energy harnessed by her “magic” bangle: because there’s something different about Kamala’s genetic make-up. Cue the X-Men music: that something different is “like a mutation,” Bruno says, suggesting she’s not a Djinn or an Inhuman — Kamala Khan is a mutant.

Whatever she is, it’s “just going to be another label,” Kamala shrugs. NBD. But behind the scenes, the X-Men connection was a Big Deal: so big that Marvel Studios kept the truth about Kamala’s DNA secret from most of the cast and crew.

“They sent me, and only me, the draft [of the final episode], and I immediately freaked out,” Vellani told Marvel.com. “I emailed [Marvel Studios chief] Kevin Feige in all caps. I was like, are you doing this like for real? Are you sure? I’m so honored! I was like yelling at him through an email. I was freaking out. This is the biggest deal in the world, and the fact that it’s happening in our show is crazy.”

But Lintz — whose character was this close to being the first to say the word “mutant” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — didn’t learn the secret until just before filming the scene. 

“They didn’t even have it in [the script],” Lintz said. “I remember I was having a conversation about it and [the directors] were like, ‘Yeah, you say this crazy thing.’ They wouldn’t even tell me what it was! I was like, ‘What’s the deal here?’ They were very secretive about that whole thing.”

Added Vellani, “People are going to lose their minds. They’re going to lose everything. I did. It’s truly a really big deal.”

The X-Men nod was such a big deal that Vellani, a well-read comic book fan, had trouble filming the scene because “any time Matt would say that word, I’d start giggling,” she said. “I think we got the one take. The one you see in the episode is one of two that we got where I was mildly serious. It was really, really, really difficult. I think we have so many outtakes of me just breaking because I was so excited and giddy over this.”

“I remember…you could just hear in the background [the crew] all screaming and the excitement and joy that they had was really, really funny,” Lintz recalled. “It’s a very big moment. I was just blessed and lucky enough to be able to share that with Iman and everybody else.”

Starring Iman Vellani, Aramis Knight, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Laith Naki, Azher Usman, Travina Springer and Nimra Bucha, all six episodes of Marvel Studios’ Ms. Marvel are now streaming on Disney+.