On the last day of New York Comic Con, Sana Amanat begins the annual Women of Marvel panel with what is now a yearly tradition.

“How many of you want to make comics? Women, men, everybody — stand up right now,” she says. Young girls dressed as superheroes — there’s Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Thor, and even a Loki — shoot up. Many women and men, both teens and adults, join them. Some are more nervous than others, but eventually they get to their feet.

The future artists and writers look around the room and smile, awkwardly. The joy in the room starts to swell. They grin at each other; they grin at Amanat. And even though I’m still in my seat, I start grinning, too, as if I’ve won something. Everyone applauds. But before the next generation of comic book creators sit down, they look toward Amanat.

She’s what they want to be.

As a woman and a Pakistani American, Amanat has made it her mission to redefine what is possible for women and people of color in an industry dominated by white men. Through her work as an editor on comic books like Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel, she has helped reimagine what superheroes can be. Last year, the first issue ofMs. Marvel — a series and character that Amanat co-created with editor Steve Wacker, writer G. Willow Wilson, and artist Adrian Alphona — went into its seventh printing, a level of success that’s extremely rare. Earlier this year, Amanat was introduced to National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates — that initial introduction would later develop into a successful deal orchestrated by editor Will Moss, Marvel’s VP of Publishing Tom Brevoort, and Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso to bring Coates to Marvel and write the new Black Panther comic book series.

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