4 issue Test #23 - Ms. Marvel

Here's another odd variant cover, since I had no blank one to use

Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel is another attempt to bring more diversity to Marvel’s line-up. She is a Pakistani-American and she is of Islamic faith. It is not often you see either of these traits represented in Superheroes. Simon Baz aka Green Lantern (yes, another one) is really the only other character of similar origins that I am aware of from the big two.

Of course, Kamala Khan was not the first to bear the name of Ms. Marvel, in fact she was the fourth but the person of note is Carol Danvers, who I mentioned in my Earth’s Mightiest Heroes review (take a look on the hub page) although I mistakenly named her as Miss Marvel rather than Ms. Marvel, apologies for that, cannot be assed to go and correct them.

But whilst she shares the name of Carol Danvers' former alter-ego (she became the full Captain Marvel) her powers are completely different, she’s more a shape-shifter type but I believe she can’t change into someone else, it’s more about growth and shrinkage of various parts of her own body.

We’ve met Ms. Marvel before. She plays the role of the carer for property damage (and has some awful dialogue) in All New All Different Avengers and she was a guest star way back in S.H.I.E.L.D. #2. The main title has earned massive critical praise in the past, can that continue here? Well, let’s finally dig into Ms. Marvel #1-4 and find out.

Gotta admit, this cover is generic

We open with Ms. Marvel fighting a giant rat with the Avengers, she’s talking about how awesome it is but how there’s quite a bit of hard work involved too. Tony Stark drops her off at her house, he was supposed to help her with her physics homework but he’s due elsewhere. Between school, being an Avenger and some other stuff she has a problem of plenty

School was repaired after ‘the inventors’ damaged it thanks to a Stark Industries Grant and they’re keeping Loki’s lightning golems (guys, I didn’t read the previous volumes of this book, so… I could use a heads up here, also remember when Tony Stark was poor, no? Me neither) anyway, Zoe approaches her with Nakia, they discuss skipping Gym. Kamala asks where Bruno is, he’s with Mike as he has been for the last month and a half.

This is complete news to Kamala, and she soon finds out that Mike is a girl and she’s with Bruno in a romantic sense. Kamala’s crushed, thinking of a moment they had on a roof (again, no flashback for new readers or anything, just move on) so they’re sitting next to each other in class (as someone who knows Maths pretty damn well, I couldn’t understand what was on the board because the handwriting’s so illegible) anyway, Kamala and Bruno talk with Kamala not happy that she was the last to know but the teacher tells them to leave their drama outside the class.

After class Kamala storms off. Kamala had told him it wasn’t going to work between them and he should try to be happy without him, Kamala just didn’t expect it this soon (8 months, 8 MONTHS!) Their conversation stops when they discover a billboard with Ms. Marvel’s face on it. She did not have a say in this. They’re given a flyer for the Hope Yards Development, whose billboard that belongs to. They claim that since Ms. Marvel is an America Icon, she belongs to everyone (I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works) Nakia is the first to see Ms. Marvel as selling out because of this. Kamala tries to fight her corner but Nakia just thinks she’s naïve.

Kamala heads off, saying she has to meet her brother in 5 minutes, it’s true that she does but she’s looking for answers first. She knocks on the door of Hope Yards, wondering how such a big area became cleared out overnight. The door is locked so she shrinks under it, I’ll have a point about this later. She finds plans indicating that they want to take over the entire city. A grocery store owner who was sold out of his place tries to complain to some guards but they attack him, Ms Marvel takes them down but some security drones attack. They head into the store-owner’s truck and drive away, but once out of range of the security drones, they’re blocked by a protest against the development.

Ms. Marvel shrinks down because they’re using her image in the protests, calling her a sell-out. She eventually comes across Bruno and they cut into an alleyway. Events that lead him to meeting Mike started in this very alleyway. He was in the alley, muttering to himself when he sees Ms. Marvel chasing a giant frog. As collateral damage begins to spike he’s nearly squashed by a bus but Mike pulls him out of the way.

They start out enjoying bubble tea together (I never really got bubble tea) and they find they have a fair amount in common and they started hanging out daily. They went to meet each other’s families, with reasonable results but it’s Nonna who brings up the problem of telling her that he’s been in love with Kamala since the second grade.

Eventually he admits it to her and she works pretty quickly that it’s Kamala he’s been in love with, he wants to make this work between them and as Ms Marvel is still fighting the giant frog the head off to Thanksgiving dinner together.

Well, you know how much I love relevant covers, although are the hearts really needed?

Kamala breaks into the Hope Yards Development office again, believing there’s no way a development corporation with security drones has nothing to hide. She’s caught on security camera but does manage to find some purple stuff from the Sunny D commercials. She takes one of the samples and leaves with the security drones in pursuit. She manages to escape but not without injury. Bruno agrees to analyse the purple stuff and they see that Ms. Marvel’s ‘brand deal’ with Hope Yards has gathered media attention. Nakia makes a statement saying that if Ms. Marvel is attempting to profit off this, she has to go.

Kamala begins to panic, she needs to make a public statement but that might be what they want, they need to formulate a plan and that means finding out what the purple stuff is. Kamala asks him to get it done quickly, he agrees but mentions he does have other things. He tells Kamala Mike wants to talk to her, Kamala brushes this off as she has bad guys to fight.

She comes home and finds her mother. She’s not happy about Ms. Marvel being in a public scandal. She tells her to take some time off and let things slow down, she can’t be who she is without some public support. She tells her to remember "you can’t choose to be a hero! You can only choose to do what a hero would do!" which essentially means ignoring your previous advice

Kamala leaves for school but she’s stopped by her brother, Aamir, he wanted to talk to a girl, but he needs another girl as his chaperone. Her house is on the way so this meeting takes place now, they find her being harassed by some Hope Yards security morons. Hope Yards is beginning to fill up, although many of its residents now have purple eyes. Noticing several of her friends commending Hope Yards convinces Kamala that this is only going to get worse. She brushes off her brother as he and his soon-to-be wife walk away.

Kamala calls Bruno who tells her the purple stuff contains some kind of nano-tech. He spots 3 guys in suits coming towards him and gives her a cryptic clue, she needs to speak to her girlfriend, she holds the keys to his heart. Knowing he’s likely in trouble she follows a fleet of Hope Yards vans to their headquarters. One of the guards knocks her out on approach.

She wakes up in their headquarters and meets Dr Faustus of the Hope Yards Development and Relocation Association, or HYDRA, who reveals that Bruno is now under their control.

Nice enough cover

Miss Marvel is angry that this has happened, even more so when they reveal using her image was a deliberate attempt to discredit her and make her less of a threat. She grows and begins glowing taking down most of the goons, even after that they reveal that their mind control agent can be airborne, until she’s weakened by Bruno. She shrinks quickly, becoming almost invisible them, a benefit with her time training with the Avengers.

She grows tall and grabs Bruno but he manages to free himself. Seeing no other option, she escapes. They decide not to go after her, they have what she wants. She heads to Mike’s place and tells her what had happened and the cryptic clue he gave her. Mike quickly realises what it means, pulling a flash drive that was hung around her neck, close to her chest.

Bruno syncs all his data to a private cloud service. She has the passkey to that service. They break into the high school, with her computer (is there a location beacon or something that necessitates this?) and she breaks the door down with her foot, rather than, I don’t know shrinking under it and unlocking the door from the inside. Anyway, as Mike logs into the network, she explains to Ms Marvel how this flash drive has his whole DNA sequence on there, an attempt to be romantic. Ms Marvel realises that she really does love him.

Kamala comes up in conversation. Ms. Marvel tries to reassure her of her own points of view and they eventually get in. Bruno has designed some sort of protein which is an antidote to the nano-tech. They come up with a plan which involves using the 3-D Printer to create the proteins. I’m not sure about 3-D printers but I’m pretty sure they can’t do that.

The next morning HYDRA are announcing at a rally their redevelopment of the rest of the city. Ms. Marvel and Mike interrupt and start spraying the crowd with the antidote. Dr Faustus grabs Ms. Marvel and electrocutes her with his hand. Bruno is freed from the nano-tech much to Mike’s elation. They pour the remaining antidote over Mr Faustus, knocking him out

Nakia and a bunch of protesters say they want an explanation as to why she got involved, she said she did not give permission which is met with scepticism from the crowd. It was kinda convenient this happened only after it was revealed that this was an actual plan to destroy the city…

Nakia, cue the clip

It was Ms. Marvel who revealed it, and stopped it. Just saying… Anyway, Ms. Marvel isn’t happy, she hoped things would just go back to normal but that’s not likely, she walks along with her friends (I swear this gives away her secret and/or gives villains people to target) more than being outright secretive.

Is it necessary to have that black caption box telling us a new story is starting, couldn't that have been written I dunno beneath the barcode or something

On a Sunday afternoon Jamir and Tyesha announce their plans to marry. Neither of Jamir’s parents are initially pleased, they were hoping Jamir would marry a Pakistani woman and worried about them supporting themselves. Tyesha says she’d be happy to live in this house until Jamir finishes college. Once they’re set up, they can find their own place. This pretty much alleviates their concerns (another mouth to feed = win??) Kamala’s elated about the pairs marriage, less so about their being another person in the house. She gets a call from Iron Man

A shipment of Neurotoxin has been stolen from Jersey City port, since it’s her area, she’ll be first into handle it, her physics homework didn’t go so well. As stuff begins to pile on Kamala she gets a call from Cap and her father rants that she only got a C- on her midterm math exam. She heads out as Ms. Marvel and spots the thieves she attacks but they’re using unexpected weaponry and they’re working for Dr Faustus, who’s really p*ssed off about Ms Marvel ruining his plan. She gets stunned and has to call in support. Cap worries that she’s too young.

The next morning at school, she’s supposed to present a report for social studies. She makes a report about the Black Market economy but her ideas are laughed at and her teacher tells her to leave, thinking she isn’t taking this seriously. (Erm, this is the Mavrel Universe, right?) Mike asks her to lunch, thinking she could use a break, but she’s meeting Bruno in the science lab. He’s managed to replicate the lightning golems using the 3D printer (and an actual polymer) he says with some tweaking he can make them look like anything, and that gives Kamala an idea.

Bruno dismisses this as a really bad idea as she has created 2 copies of herself to try and get through what she needs to do, they can only speak 2 sentences and neither of them relevant. Kamala manages to get them to say a few key phrases. She heads out, ready to pick them up tomorrow as she tells Cap she’s ready for duty. The next morning, as Zoe says she’s going Vegan because of cow farts or something, they greet Kamala who is likely a Loki duplicate given her attire and phrase volume. Bruno enters the lab and finds Kamala duplicates all over the room running rampant.

So that was Ms. Marvel #1-4, did it work out

I think this is almost up with Starfire and Archie in terms of quality of reading, sure the supporting cast are not as well fleshed out as in those books and there are a few issues with it being new reader friendly but the most important thing I can say about this book is that it’s a fun read through and through.

I like the idea of 3-part story arcs too, it moves at a measured, but not irritatingly slow place, giving enough time for the characters to shine whilst not holding back too much on the action.

It’s noticeable to me that Kamala is very much an every-woman despite her heritage. She has problems as both and a super hero and does not always make the right choices. Her handling of Bruno having a new girlfriend was kinda mean but she’s young and what’s important is that she did apologise and she’s growing from it, even kinda becoming friends with Mike (there might’ve been something between #3 and 4)

Her next life mistake in #4 is really down to how she handles pressure. The idea of creating something to help appeals to her, and of course it’s going to have consequence, the Lightning Golems were created by the God of Mischief. But they make her situation relatable enough that we perfectly understand why she’s doing what she’s doing and empathise with her.

The idea of people being enraged because of a billboard that she did not request an appearance is a great concept for a young superhero who is very watchful of what people think of her, particularly when one of her own friends steps out in defiance. Whilst I think the people’s questions of why they didn’t entirely believe her at the end were idiotic, but I do get where the idea was for that and I can’t complain too much.

Mike and Bruno do not share many scenes together in the present, but both of them individually come off as likeable characters, in Bruno's case much more so than in All New All Different Avengers. I totally understand them as a couple.

Aamir and Tyesha… that one needs more time to firmly come about, I don’t know if this romance was kindling before the reboot but I really want to see their relationship. It was a nice time to show the prejudices within an Islamic family

The biggest issue is with well, everyone outside of Kamala, Bruno and Mike, they are not well fleshed out and honestly, a few of their names I had to look up for myself during the summary. It’s also not especially new reader friendly to start off with, but once the heavy drama is dealt with in issue 1, it stops becoming much of an issue

Ratings

#1 7/10

#2 8.5/10

#3 8.5/10

#4 8/10

Overall 8/10

Recommendation: I’m pleased to report this title is one worth picking up, and I will be continuing to read this title with full willingness for a change. 

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Images used in this review are from Ratchet and Clank and Ms. Marvel and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.