For several months now, rumors of a very obscure family of characters from the Marvel Comics being adapted to serve as the villains of the Ms. Marvel streaming series have swirled. The Clan Destine, created in 1994 by Alan Davis, weren’t villains in the comics, but they also weren’t very well-known, allowing for Marvel Studios to rework them pretty much however they saw fit. While Marvel Studios has yet to confirm their appearance in the series (they truly ARE the villains, however), it’s possible that one of the actors has left enough of trail to connect some dots.
In late April, actor Ali Alsaleh took to Instagram to celebrate the fact that he no longer had to hide his role in Ms. Marvel.
Alsaleh is a newcomer and a bit of an unknown, with only 11 credits to his name on IMDB and nothing comparable to Ms. Marvel among them. And it’s that same IMDB listing that gives us enough of a clue to at least connect him to the reimagined role of Adam of Destine.
Alsaleh’s IMDB profile shows him playing a character named “Aadam” over the course of 4 episodes, 2-5, of the streaming series. A quick Google search shows that Aadam is a popular, modern Muslim name that is, as you might, guess, a twist on the name Adam. And it’s an Adam who was gifted immortality by a Djinn named Elalyth who served as the patriarch of the Clan Destine in Alan Davis’ comics.
Elalyth and Adam’s story began in 1168 AD when Elalyth saved Adam from an accident that should have killed him. From that point forward, Adam seemed invulnerable, even as he fought battle after battle in the Crusades. In 1189 AD, while facing off against a Persian sorcerer, however, Adam was mortally wounded while destroying a powerful gem helped by the sorcerer. That gem held Elalyth, who once again healed Adam and granted him immortality. Adam and the Djinn married and had a plethora of children over the centuries, some of whom still live on to this day.
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to rewrite Adam’s story into one that would fit Aadam’s origins in the series. We’ve only briefly glimpsed the MCU version of the Clan Destine in the series and rumors have long tied them to Djinn magic. If Alsaleh is truly playing the MCU version of the Clan Destine’s Adam, it’s likely that many of the characters we’ve glimpsed are his progeny and will have a vast array of powers, much like his children in the comics. It’ll be interesting to see how much of Aadam and the Clan Destine’s backstory gets told, but with Alsaleh set to show up in two-thirds of the episodes, we could get something similar that sets him up as a legendary Muslim warrior of the Crusades.
With the press starting to screen the series next week, we probably won’t have long to wait to find out if we’ve properly connected these dots. Ms. Marvel begins streaming on Disney Plus on June 8th..
