Pakistani-American Muneeba built a family with her husband Yusuf Khan in Jersey City, New Jersey. When their teenage daughter Kamala started keeping secrets, Muneeba attempted to be there for her daughter as best she could.
New Opportunities
Following the Partition of India in 1947, Muneeba’s family moved to Karachi, Pakistan. She grew up with a mother who spouted crazy and fantastical stories about how she escaped Partition, and embarrassed, she sought a change.
When she was seventeen, Muneeba ran off to see Bon Jovi. Muneeba eventually met a like-minded man, Yusuf Khan. They got married but her mother, Sana, didn’t attend the wedding. Muneeba and Yusuf desired new opportunities that America offered, so they moved to Jersey City, New Jersey. Though it was a struggle with Yusuf working long hours and taking care of their infant son, Aamir, Muneeba felt the most alone she had ever felt, until she found their mosque, made friends with Ruby and Humaira, and found love within her family.
A Mother’s Love
Muneeba loves her children with all her heart. She opts to protect her children and sometimes leans on shame and guilt as a way to keep them from making mistakes, but continues to offer help, trust and understanding to them.
Muneeba, though not technically savvy, learned how to track her daughter’s phone through an application on her phone.
Enemies of Her Family
The Department of Damage Control (D.O.D.C.) threatened her daughter and her friends with excessive force. Muneeba rushed to protect them.
Family First
Close to her family, Muneeba led the charge in planning her son’s wedding, and hosted events surrounding it. She trusted the wisdom of her eldest son, Aamir, and while she had been hesitant to trust her daughter’s judgment, she ultimately came around.
She welcomed Kamala’s best friend Bruno Carrelli into the family as one of her own, and showed her love for him by giving him food.
Mother Knows Best
When Kamala failed her driver’s test, Muneeba at first, questioned the examiner. Though she eventually expressed disappointment in her daughter. Muneeba had hoped that Kamala would pass her driver’s test so she could better help her with Aamir’s wedding planning.
When Kamala opened a package from Muneeba’s mother, she pulled out a glittering bangle and asked if it was her grandmother’s. Muneeba stopped in her tracks and grabbed it from her, calling it junk. She promptly asked Aamir to take it and the box to the attic. She ushered her daughter out the door to run errands for Aamir’s wedding.
While shopping, Kamala tried on many bangles but her mother brought her back to the reality of their errands. While shopping for the wedding, part of the errands included Kamala trying on her outfit for the wedding. A fellow shopper and friend of Muneeba’s regaled her with tales of a friend’s daughter who skipped out on her engagement to find herself, to which the women shook their heads in disappointment while Kamala interjected that it was a good thing.
After Kamala asked her parents if she could attend AvengersCon, Muneeba worried that she’d wear a tight outfit and didn’t seem interested in letting her go, but after Aamir spoke with her about it, Muneeba allowed it but with conditions, that her father take her and she wear a Hulk costume guaranteed to cover her body better. Her father soon entered the room with a matching Hulk outfit, and Kamala refused to go and expressed embarrassment. Her mother in turn refused to let her go.
The night of AvengersCon, Muneeba discovered that Kamala had snuck out to go. She waited in her room until her daughter returned, and once she did, Muneeba felt betrayed. Muneeba asked her if she wanted to be good like they raised her or someone who’s got their head stuck in the clouds.
At the Eid festival, a boy fell from the top of the Islamic Masjid of Jersey City but dangled precariously from the mosque’s minaret. Soon, the masked “Night Light” hero of AvengersCon appeared and saved the boy.
Muneeba then hosted the mehndi ceremony for her future daughter-in-law, Tyesha Hillman. Muneeba’s guests consoled her when they heard her mother, Sana, wasn’t coming to the wedding. The topic of their masked neighbor came up, Night Light, and Muneeba was quick to call out the shame Night Light’s mother must be feeling.
At Aamir and Tyesha’s wedding, Muneeba enjoyed herself and danced during the festivities. However, the fire alarm went off in the building and Kamala disappeared when everyone evacuated. Muneeba and Yusuf soon heard rumors that Kamala had pulled the alarm. When Kamala returned home, Muneeba pressed her daughter for answers, but received none.
After receiving an urgent invitation to visit her mother, Sana, in Karachi, Muneeba and Kamala traveled to Pakistan to see her. While in Karachi, Muneeba could see her mother was aging and invited her to live with their family in America. Sana thought that she had run away from her when she went to America, but Muneeba shared her perspective, that her childhood was upsetting having been shunned by neighbors because her mother clinged to fantastic theories of how she escaped Partition.
When her daughter hadn’t returned for several hours from being out and about in Karachi, she became fraught with worry. Her nephew suggested that she track Kamala’s phone. She and Sana ran to Kamala’s side to witness Kamala in action as “Night Light” and couldn’t believe her eyes. She found Kamala’s necklace on the ground broken and picked it up. Muneeba, her mother, and Kamala later bonded over old photos of Muneeba’s young self. Using Kamala’s broken necklace as inspiration, Muneeba made a costume for her daughter that she thought better represented her rather than see her continue wearing her Captain Marvel cosplay costume.
Muneeba and Kamala returned home to Jersey City. When Kamala revealed her alter-ego “Night Light” to her family, they already knew since Muneeba told Yusuf and it made its way through the family grapevine. When they got word that Bruno’s home had been blasted to smithereens by Damage Control, Muneeba gifted Kamala her new costume. Kamala wore it when she headed out to find Bruno.
Muneeba tracked Kamala’s phone’s location to her high school, and sent Aamir to help her and her friends. As soon as Muneeba and Yusuf got word through social media that Kamala and her friends were under siege by Damage Control, they rushed to the school. Upon arriving, the whole community was there as well, but were barricaded from interfering in Damage Control’s operation.
When Kamala’s friend Kamran, who displayed similar powers to her own, emerged from the school and began defending himself, Kamala joined him and protected them both from Damage Control. Though his powers were out of control and when he threw one of Damage Control’s vehicles, it almost hit Muneeba and the crowd but Kamala stopped it with her embiggening ability. She also protected the crowd from Kamran, who couldn’t control his emotions nor his powers. When Damage Control’s leader and her agents attempted to rush Kamala, Muneeba and the others broke the barrier and standing in front of their hero, they protected her from further assault, allowing her to escape.
