Creative Staff:
Story: G. Willow Wilson
Art: Adrian Alphona
What They Say:
The All-New Ms. Marvel has already gained international fame. But in Kamala’s case, star-power comes with a whole lot of… awkwardness. Find out why the most exciting new Marvel hero is also the most loveable!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We’ve gotten a lot established about Kamala, her school and social life and her family life in the first two issues, more so than a lot of characters seem to get after a years worth of issues. In the middle of it all we also got the Terrigen bomb that went off and the mist that started changing a lot of people with the right DNA to be affected by it. That resulted in Kamala’s idolization of heros to get her to shapeshift herself into a young Ms. Marvel and to do a little good with it. The downside is that after saving Zoey, Zoey is all on the TV now talking about it. Which is raising plenty of questions that will eventually catch the eye of the more established heroes to figure out what’s going on. For Kamala, it’s easy to just panic about the whole situation and to just try and do some web searches to see if anyone else is going through what she’s going through. Talk about some keyword alerts…
She’s definitely going through a lot and we see that in a pretty strong way through her actions and her dialogue, internal and external, after all that happened. She’s frustrated with Bruno, she’s trying to get Nakia to understand what she’s going through in a very circumspect way and she’s mentally running through the issues that are in her head when it comes to her parents after the blowup of her sneaking back into the house. To make matters worse, she’s just trying to get out of the house for a bit and the only place she can really go is the Islamic youth services weekend meeting, which has its own issues that she brings up. There’s some decent cultural exploration here that’s done in a non-preachy way while showing the disconnect in how the youth view religion and its trappings while still wanting to be respectful and involved, to find their own way. It’s a frustration I’ve seen with kids that I know in their own religion so there’s a pretty good bit of resonance here that G. Willow Wilson captures.
A lot of this issue covers these things and it’s interesting to see the page dynamic at work here where it’s so focused on the teenage struggles that if you took out the superhero stuff, you might not even notice. Which I can imagine frustrating some readers. But at the same time, I can see it being a hugely engaging factor for a lot of others. It’s so character driven as we see the struggles she goes through as a teenager, with the appropriate nods to what sets her apart from your more traditional all white cast of characters from decades before, that you have a much stronger connection to her. Having picked up several first issues of books recently from Marvel to try and find a path to rediscovering the company, Ms. Marvel really stands out in this regard. Kamala is so well realized that it doesn’t need the token action sequence, though needed in a different way because it’s exploring her understanding of her powers. It’s also well tied to her understanding herself, to form her identity and who she wants to be, in a costume and out of a costume. And that makes for some fantastic reading.
In Summary:
With third part of the opening five part story, the creative team here has provided for one of the more well realized characters to be developed at Marvel in what I suspect is a long, long time. While rebuilding or providing twists of new characters is always interesting and long time fans enjoy that, the difficulty of starting from scratch has its own challenges. With this third issue, again being minimal on the action and heroics overall, we’re reminded of what it is to make a character that could stand the test of time. If Kamala was introduced in the 60’s, I suspect she could be just as iconic as others from that generation. There’s a whole lot to like here and I’m definitely curious to see where it’s all going in terms of powers, who her enemies will become and what sort of connections to the larger world she’ll have. But I’m far more interested in who Kamala will be and want to see that journey that she’ll hopefully be taking for several years to come.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 16th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
