Sana Amanat

Sana Amanat
Amanat presenting President Barack Obama a copy of Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 in the Blue Room of the White House during a reception for Women's History Month.
Born1982
New Jersey, United States
NationalityAmerican

Sana Amanat is an American comic book editor and the Director of Content and Character Development at Marvel.[1][2][3] She is a Pakistani-American Muslim.[2] She worked on comics like Captain Marvel, Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel.[1] Ms. Marvel is the first Muslim-American superhero.[4][2] Amanat runs the annual Women of Marvel panel at Comic Con.[1] She does work to make Marvel characters more diverse.[1] She had a TED talk about diversity in comic books.[4]

Early life

[change | change source]

Amanat grew up in New Jersey.[2] Her parents immigrated to the United States from Pakistan.[2] She lived in the suburbs.[2] There were not many other Muslim families in her town.[2] She felt different from other people.[2] The comic X-Men had lots of different kinds of people in it.[2] Reading X-Men made her feel more normal.[2]

Amanat went to Barnard College.[5] She studied political science.[5] She wanted to be a journalist.[5] The Barnard class of 2019 awarded Amanat the Barnard Medal of Distinction.[6]

Career

[change | change source]

Amanat worked at a magazine.[6] Amanat started editing comic books in 2007.[1] She edited comic books for a small, independent publishing company called Virgin Comics.[1][5] Mackenzie Cadenhead was her mentor.[4][1][5] Amanat joined Marvel in 2009.[1]

Amanat co-created the character of Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim-American Superhero.[1] She worked with Steve Wacker, G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona to create Ms. Marvel.[1] The first volume has been printed seven times.[1][7] That is a lot of times for one volume of comics.[1]

Major editing credits

[change | change source]
  • Hawkeye
  • Ms. Marvel
  • Captain Marvel
  • Miles Morales

Character development

[change | change source]

In 2015, Amanat became Marvel's Director of Content and Character Development.[8] When she introduced President Barack Obama at a Women's History Month celebration in 2016, she noted that "being different is being American."[9] Amanat helps Marvel create more characters of different genders, races, religions, and other identities.[1] She knows that most people who work in comics are white men.[1][7] Most superheroes are also white men.[1][7] Amanat wants to help everyone imagine more kinds of superheroes.[1] She helped create the Women of Marvel platform.[3] As a result of Amanat's work, there are about twenty female superheroes in the Marvel universe.[1] She wants people from many backgrounds to work at Marvel.[1] For example, she got Ta-Nehisi Coates to work with Marvel.[1] He helped write the new Black Panther series.[1] She was executive producer on Marvel Rising.[3]

Awards and recognition

[change | change source]
  • Marie Claire’s New Guard of America’s 50 most influential women (2016)[3]
  • Vogue’s American Women special (2018) [3]
  • White House's Women's History Month celebration (2016), introduced President Obama. Obama called Sana a “real life super hero.”[3][9]

Personal life

[change | change source]

Amanat has been a Young Leaders Committee board member for Seeds of Peace.

References

[change | change source]
  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 Abad-Santos, Alex (2015-11-19). "Meet Sana Amanat, the Shonda Rhimes of Marvel comics". Vox. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 "Be The Hero: Get to Know Sana Amanat's Story". Archived 2021-12-16 at the Wayback Machine We Are Wakanda. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Sana Amanat". See Jane. 2018-09-20. Archived from the original on 2022-03-01. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Learn Sana Amanat's Name Now — The Future Of Marvel Might Just Be In Her Hands". Bustle. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 OKWODU, JANELLE (2018-03-09). "Sana Amanat Is Changing the World of Comic Books From the Inside Out". Vogue. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Citation for Sana Amanat '04 | Barnard College". barnard.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Abad-Santos, Alex (2020-01-07). "How Ms. Marvel became Marvel's most important superhero". Vox. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  8. ↑ MacDonald, Heidi (2015-02-06). "Syndicated Comics". The Beat. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Brown, Tracy (2016-03-17). "President Obama meets Ms. Marvel". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-03-01.