Sana Amanat

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]

Sana Amanat
Barack Obama and Sana Amanat at 2016 WHM.jpg
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

Early life

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

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

  • Hawkeye
  • Ms. Marvel
  • Captain Marvel
  • Miles Morales

Character development

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

  • 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

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

References

  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. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 "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.