Art by Ro Stein and Ted Brandt
In March 2020, environmental activist Ailana Kabua visited Coles Academic High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. Teens throughout the region were invited to hear her speak as part of the Concerned Future Scientists of America program, with Miles Morales and Lunella Lafayette among those joining Cole student Kamala Kahn for the proceedings.
“I can’t believe she came here all the way from the Marshall Islands to be our keynote,” Lafayette gushes when she first spots Kabua. “She’s my hero. Did you hear that speech she gave on Earth Day last year? It went viral.”
Despite being only sixteen years old, Ailana Kabua has traveled the world to raise awareness of the environmental dangers facing the planet. “I have heard many in the media discussing this summit as though it were cute,” she tells the audience at Coles Academic High School. “Because we are young. No political power or lobbying money. But they fail to realize we are fighting for our very lives. In my country, we have lived with the seas for generations. But now the oceans may destroy the islands altogether.”
Coles Academic High School doesn’t exist in the real world, located instead in the Jersey City of the Marvel Comics Universe. Kamala Khan – the teenage Ms. Marvel – is the school’s most famous student, and also serves as leader of the superhero team the Champions, which includes Miles Morales – aka Spider-Man – among its members. While Ailana Kabua is likewise fictional, she does have a factual counterpart in Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist who is the same age and equally famous for her calls for climate change mitigation.
“The climate and ecological crisis is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced,” Thunberg writes in the introduction to The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions, a collection of essays published in 2023. “It will no doubt be the issue that will define and shape our future everyday life like no other.” She then adds, “It is my genuine belief that the only way we will be able to avoid the worst consequences of this emerging existential crisis is if we create a critical mass of people who demand the changes required. For that to happen, we need to rapidly spread awareness, because the general public still lacks much of the basic knowledge that is necessary to understand the dire situation we are in. My wish is to be part of the effort to change that.”
The same could be said of the Champions. Ailana Kabua’s visit to Cole Academic High School wasn’t the first time that the superhero team – who, in addition to Kamala Khan and Miles Morales, includes Amadeus Cho (the Hulk), Sam Alexander (Nova), and Viv Vision – have expressed concern about the environment. In Champions: Monsters Unleashed, for instance, the group traveled to California in support of conservation organizations protesting the construction of an oil pipeline.
“We’re coming to you live from the scene of what is becoming an increasingly intense protest here at the Playa del Angeles National Forest,” a television news reporter tells viewers. “The national forest sits between Roxxon’s west coast headquarters and their newest deepwater drilling platform off the coast. Last month Roxxon was approved to run a pipeline through the forest by the state government, against vigorous protests from conservation groups. Since the state approved the pipeline, protesters have been arriving at the forest in droves, vowing to keep Roxxon workers out of the land protected.”
As the Champions watch the broadcast, Miles Morales asks his teammates, “Is it our job to take on the state government of California? Roxxon isn’t actually doing anything illegal.” That assessment changes when the news reporter mentions that the corporation has hired a team of super-powered contractors named the Freelancers – who are basically evil versions of the Champions – to “monitor the situation.” It isn’t long afterwards that the superhero team heads to the Playa del Angeles National Forest to protect the protesters from the Freelancers.
While preserving the natural environment is the primary goal of the real-world conservation movement, protecting enclaves like Playa del Angeles also plays a role in mitigating climate change. As Karl-Heinz Erb and Simone Gingrich explain in The Climate Book, forests absorb carbon dioxide that would otherwise linger in the atmosphere. When harvested, the carbon captured by the trees – which is twice the amount that can be stored in the atmosphere – inevitably gets released and accelerates the greenhouse effect. As a result, Erb and Gingrich argue that any deforestation needs to be offset by the replenishing of forests elsewhere on the planet.
In early 2018, the Champions added two new members to their ranks, Riri Williams and Nadia van Dyne. Van Dyne is the teenage daughter of former Ant-Man Hank Pym and goes by the superhero moniker the Wasp, just like her stepmother Janet van Dyne. Nadia also heads G.I.R.L. – Genius In Action Research Labs – a group of fellow female teenage scientists.
“The G.I.R.L. gang and I have been monitoring ice levels in the Arctic to try and understand how climate change is affecting extreme weather patterns,” she explains in Champions #19. “One of the recording beacons has gone offline, so I’d like to double-check the location in person and replace it.”
The rest of the Champions accompany the Wasp and soon arrive in Nunavut, Northern Canada, where they find the supervillain Master of the World. “I’m repairing Arctic Sea ice to halt global climate change,” he tells them. “Glaciers in this region have lost 37 percent of their mass in the past nine months, a rate far beyond seasonal melting and refreezing. As major ice formations like this crumble and permafrost thaws, the world’s temperature rises, creating new and more violent weather patterns. My servants build high-tech scaffolds, grow glacial lattice formations, and then reattach them to repair the damage that has been done.”
“Okay, so you’re fixing glaciers and rebalancing the Earth’s temperature, and that’s – forgive the pun – pretty cool,” Amadeus Cho replies. “But you call yourself ‘Master of the World’ and you’re big time evil, so what’s the catch?” In response, the supervillain confesses that he has plans to conquer Earth at some point in the distant future and “the only way I can do that is to make sure there is a planet for me to rule.”
In The Climate Book, Ricarda Winkelmann writes, “Over the past few decades, both ice sheets and their surrounding ice shelves – which are like floating tongues of ice jutting into the sea – have been losing mass at a rapidly accelerated rate. In total, 12.8 trillion tonnes of ice were lost between 1994 and 2017. To put this into perspective, 1 trillion tonnes of ice can be envisaged as an ice cube measuring 10 cubic kilometres, taller than Mount Everest. In the future, ice sheets are expected to become the largest source of sea-level rise. Because of their massive size, even modest losses from them can significantly increase the risk of flooding in coastal communities, with severe consequences for society, the economy and the environment.”
In the Marvel Comics Universe, the Master of the Universe is trying to prevent such an outcome. When Nadia van Dyne explains that his method is not currently feasible, the supervillain counters that he is using technology from an advanced alien race as opposed human science. Realizing that the Master of the Universe may be the only one capable of preventing climate change – coupled with his stated intention of someday conquer Earth – causes an existential crisis for the young Champions.
In the end, it is revealed that the Master of the World is using the mystical energy of Sila, the great spirit of the indigenous Inuit people, as a battery for his technology and the Champions ultimately side against him. Like within the real world, preventing climate change in the Marvel Universe is complicated.
“Right now, we are in desperate need of hope,” Greta Thunberg writes in The Climate Book. “But hope is not pretending that everything will be fine. It is not about sticking your head in the sand or listening to fairy tales about non-existent technological solutions…. It cannot be gained passively, through standing by and waiting for someone else to do something. Hope is taking action.”
In many ways, the words reflect those of Ms. Marvel when the Champions were first formed in 2016, which also served as a rallying call for those in the real world to become champions as well. “We’re in a war for a better tomorrow,” she said. “Join us. Help us win the hard way – the right way – not with hate, not with retribution, but with wisdom and hope. Help us become Champions.”
The fate of the entire planet may depend upon it.
Anthony Letizia