THE “POWER” OF KING T’CHALLA AND YOUNG KAMALA KHAN: identity and subjectivity of contemporary youth.
Ethnic-racial relation; Comics; identity; Youth; Convergence culture
Super-heroes permeate the imaginary of contemporary youth. They are capable of reaching various media with their stories and moral principles. The universe of super-heroes created by large publishers, like Marvel Comics, is rich in its cultural diversity. By presenting to the public Black heroes, Muslim, Native American, Chinese, Japanese, etc., they end up raising youth awareness about such realities in contact with these cultures. When we notice the influence power of these works over young people, comes the possibility of analyzing super-heroes like the Black Panther (T’Challa) and Miss Marvel (Kamala Khan), a black king and a young Muslim in constant conflict with the American principles concerning their ethnics. We can then seek to comprehend how those previous knowledges, born from the stories of these characters, can be used to enrich and hone the youth’s awareness process about cultural diversity.