An underpowered Wolverine is obviously a girls best friend. Upvote that!
Creative Staff:
Story: G. Willow Wilson
Art: Jake Wyatt
What They Say:
On the run from the Inventor, Kamala needs all the help she can get. Did someone say Wolverine?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While Ms. Marvel has delighted me for the most part, it’s foray into dealing with the Inventor has been less than pleasing since it just feels kind of weirdly forced in a way. The best moments of the book tends to focus on Kamala either dealing with friends or family as well as when she tries to get a handle on her powers. Over the first five issues, she’s largely been able to focus on that without any guest stars, at least outside of a couple of dream-like angelic interpretations of a few noteworthies. That was a real plus as it let Kamala define the tone of the series and what she wanted to be in it. With this issue, we get the inevitable Wolverine guest-star moment, though unlike ones of the past, it’s a very watered down Wolverine since he doesn’t have his healing factor, which kind of makes Kamala frown a bit.
Kamala’s been setting herself on the path to do right for a bit now, to use her powers for good, which has landed her a decent superhero name and costume. But she also gets a bit of a lecture here from the Sheikh, which she’s been dreading since he’s not exactly been all that great in dealing with her so far. Of course, she’s a bit of a semi-typical mildly rebellious teenager, so it’s no surprise that she doesn’t want to get the lecture. What’s interesting though is that he seems to have a better idea about what she’s doing, though never saying outright that he does, and offers up some rather sage advice on how to balance things going forward for her. Similar to other youthful heroes, the work/life balance is always the hardest thing to deal with, especially with family and friends that don’t know what’s going on with the secret identity.
With a bit of wind to her sails now, Kamala is gung-ho to head into the sewers to find and deal with the Inventor so he doesn’t cause any more trouble. His lair is rather amusing in a Florida swamp kind of way underneath Jersey City, but the Inventor himself is difficult to really get behind as he’s a mutant cockatiel that has a kind of super Sherlock Holmes style about him. The two actually spend time talking to figure each other out a bit, but it goes badly when Wolverine arrivals and starts hacking and slashing stuff, which puts them on the run after a bit of confusion. Kamala is adorable in meeting one of her idols and he’s as gruff as you’d expect him to be towards her. But they do manage to work together for a bit while figuring out what each of them is doing there and dealing with some of the minor threats down there, threats that are a bit stronger since his healing factor has disappeared. It’s cute, but it really has a very different tone from previous issues that doesn’t work well at all.
In Summary:
Guest star arcs tend to be downers for me since it changes the dynamic for the most part as they don’t really fit with the overall narrative. Wilson does some decent stuff here in trying to tie Wolverine into it, but it’s just not all that interesting as I’d rather see Kamala being Kamala and handling things in her own way. We do get that from time to time here before he shows up, so that’s a saving grace to be sure. I also like the youthful naivety of Kamala in meeting one of her idols and bringing in some current social media phrases to try and make it feel timely. It works well and makes for a weird sort of relationship, but that’s pretty much how most guest star issues are like. It also doesn’t help that the inclusion of the Inventor just casts a really weird and uninteresting pall over the arc.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: July 16th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
