The Four Color Media Monitor

Marvel published a Secret Wars tie-in called Secret Love, where they seem to put in a brief love between the Muslim Ms. Marvel and a new Ghost Rider of a different racial background than his predecessors, though I've got a feeling it won't last, for guessable reasons:

The cover story is a Ms. Marvel/Ghost Rider team-up, pairing two of Marvel’s newer, younger legacy characters of diverse backgrounds. And I mean “diverse” not only in the fact that they are not your standard-issue white characters, but that they are very different from one another, with little in common beyond the fact that they’re both still in high school.

This story is both written and drawn by Felipe Smith, who penned the short-lived ongoing starring this new Robbie Reyes version of Ghost Rider (and drew a little bit of it). Based on the looks of this, Smith could and maybe should draw his next Marvel ongoing (and he definitely should get a next one, if he wants one, even if it doesn’t star his Ghost Rider). He has a very animated, very glossy style that is heavily manga influenced, and actually seems to be a better fit for Ms. Marvel than it is for Ghost Rider.

In “Battleworld,” Kamala Khan and her dad work with Bruno at a Circle Q concession stand located in the “Killasieum” where Robbie and the other Ghost Racers compete. When the pair share a few panels of action against a rogue monster, they look deep into one another’s eyes and publicly display their feelings for one another, something that keeps both Bruno and Robbie’s girlfriend in a state of high anxiety.

On the surface, it looks surprising they'd greenlight this. But I won't be surprised if this is as far as it'll go, because they don't want to offend Muslims with a love affair between a Muslim girl and an infidel.

And that would prove just how political correctness ruins creative freedom. Even though the premise they're using for the Khan character is poor enough already as it is.

Labels: crossoverloading, islam and jihad, marvel comics, politics