Marvel Comic featuring Muslim-American teen becoming a top seller.

By Jesse SchedeenMarvel's All-New Marvel NOW promotion resulted in the launch of a lot of new superhero comics earlier this year. And while there were certainly a fair amount of Avengers and Wolverine-themed comics, there were also plenty of titles that focused on relatively lesser-known characters. Books like She-Hulk, All-New Ghost Rider, and Elektra have tried new things when it comes to storytelling and visual presentation. They've helped address the problem that not enough superhero comics focus on female and minority characters. They've earned Marvel plenty of critical praise, but not a lot of cold, hard cash.

The sluggish sales of these books would seem to support the notion that the general superhero audience just doesn't care for books that don't revolve around A-List characters and big, continuity-driven storylines. However, not every book has struggled to find and maintain a large audience. The new Ms. Marvel series might just be the biggest success story to come out of All-New Marvel NOW. It's new, it's different, and it's built up quite an impressive audience over the past nine months or so. Ms. Marvel (and books like it) taps into a niche that Marvel and DC haven't done enough to cater towards in the past. And it's a niche that will continue to be important not just in terms of comic sales, but the continued growth of the superhero film genre.

Clearly something about Ms. Marvel is hooking readers in a way books like She-Hulk haven't quite managed. Sales for monthly issues of the series are surprisingly robust. The first issue alone is going back to the presses for a seventh printing, which is something we haven't seen since the launch of DC's New 52 comics three years ago. And there are even rumors that Ms. Marvel is the rare sort of comic that sells better digitally than it does in print. There's no way to corroborate those rumors since publishers are still reluctant to reveal digital sales figures, but any way you slice it, the future is pretty rosy for this comic.

But why has Kamala Khan proven such a hit with readers when more established Marvel characters continue to struggle to find an audience? Even writer G. Willow Wilson seems surprised by the reception to the series, as she's admitted she never expected the book to last more than six months. Clearly it's not simply a matter of Marvel placing the spotlight on a female character. Otherwise She-Hulk and Elektra would be selling much better than they are.




http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/21/between-the-panels-why-ms-marvel-is-the-new-spider-man