Who are the Clandestines? Ms. Marvel's new supervillain group, explained

Kamala Khan’s origin story just got a whole lot more confusing with the plot twist dropped in Episode 3 of Ms. Marvel.

Aptly titled “Destined,” the Big Bad of the series have finally been unveiled, and it’s a supernatural crew that once used to include Kamala’s (Iman Vellani) great-grandmother, Aisha (Mehwish Hayat).

After rescuing Kamala from the Department of Damage Control, Kamran’s (Rish Shah) centuries-old mother, Najma (Nimra Bucha), explains that Najma and Aisha’s families are actually beings from the Noor dimension. They’ve gone by different names during their long stay on Earth, including Clandestines and djinns.

Najma doesn’t offer much explanation about how they wound up on Earth, but she and the Clandestine have been hiding in plain sight among humans until a primordial power can take them back to their dimension. When Najma and Aisha found the mysterious bangles, they believed they contained enough cosmic capacity to be their ride back to Noor. But their excavation was interrupted, Aisha had to flee, and now here we are.

As the MCU becomes bloated with more characters from Marvel’s massive roster, it can be difficult to keep track of all of the Phase 4 additions. Have we met The Clandestine before?

Who are Clan Destine in the comics?

There’s no MCU precedent for Clandestines or djinns, but there is a Clan Destine in the comics. Ms. Marvel is riffing off them, but don’t read it as a full translation of the source material.

Clan Destine is the supernatural progeny of Adam of Destine, an English knight born in 1168, and Elalyth, an eons old djinn. Adam was saved by Elalyth, who rendered him immortal and invulnerable after he suffered a fatal blow. Many children followed over the centuries.

Each member of Clan Destine has some sort of superhuman ability. Rory and Pandora, for example, are twins with the ability to manipulate gravity and light, but only when in close proximity to each other.

Their centuries-long adventures have seen them stumble into all sorts of historic moments, like Adam venturing into Asia between 1210 and 1370 to hang around Marco Polo and Genghis Khan. One of the Destine’s sons, Walter, was stationed in Delhi and fought in the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, one of the first widespread rebellions against British colonial rule in India. That’s about the extent of the relationship between Kamala’s ancestral homeland and the comics’ Clan Destine.

How are Clan Destine related to Ms. Marvel?

Ms. Marvel never encountered Clan Destine in the comics, although the family did run across various X-Men, the Punisher and Daredevil, and Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. Curiously, Clan Destine has also had run-ins with the Inhumans — the race of altered humans Kamala Khan belongs to in the comics — and the Ennead who were at the forefront of Disney+’s Moon Knight.

Ms. Marvel’s Clandestine squad seems to be only loosely inspired by Clan Destine. The show’s decision to directly link the family to the Djinn, which feature in both the Marvel comics and real theology, give Marvel a fountain of material they could borrow from rather than having to worry about sticking to convoluted comic book stories.

Pouring over Marvel Comics for future Ms. Marvel plot points is therefore likely to be a futile chore, but we won’t hold it against you if you’re reading them anyway while you wait for the next Ms. Marvel episode.

Ms. Marvel Episodes 1 to 3 are available to stream now on Disney+.