Ms. Marvel, the 1960s-era comic book heroine who inspired a generation of teenage girls as a crime-fighting former U.S. Air Force officer in an impossibly tight costume, is making a comeback. But in the iconic character’s next incarnation, she will look very different. The role of the previously blonde, blue-eyed Ms. Marvel will be filled by a Muslim teen, Kamala Khan.

Khan, a 16-year-old high school student who lives in Jersey City with her Pakistani immigrant parents, can grow and shrink parts of her body and shape shift into other forms, The Associated Press reported.

But her real power might reside in helping teach the American public about what it means to grow up as a Muslim girl in the United States, activists said. Khan is the first Muslim lead character in a Marvel comic series.

"She is going to be a window into the American Muslim experience," said Fatemeh Fakhraie, the founder of Muslimah Media Watch, a forum on Muslim women’s representation in popular culture.

Fakhraie said the new superhero "normalizes this idea of the American experience as Muslim," adding that "A lot of us are bumping up against that the idea that a lot of America is white, while that isn't what America is, we're not all white and Christian."

Previously, Marvel's Muslim characters played minor roles, and included Dust, who can transform into sand and needed saving by Wolverine from a slave trafficking scam in Afghanistan.