The best buds continue to deal with one oversized ‘gator.
Creative Staff:
Story: G. Willow Wilson
Art: Jake Wyatt
What They Say:
Kamala may be fan-girling out when her favorite, (okay maybe Top Five), super hero shows up for some help, but that won’t stop her from protecting her hometown. Who is the Inventor, and what does he want with Kamala and all her friends? Maybe Wolverine can be of some help.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The dreaded guest appearance played out much as I suspected it would in the previous issue as we got Wolverine getting caught up in Kamala’s mission. Setting her down under Jersey City to find the Inventor and deal with the problems he’s been causing went in some odd directions, especially when it was revealed that he’s essentially a giant mutated cockatiel, and having her cross paths with a depowered Wolverine just made it all the more cringe inducing a times. While I grew up reading a lot of Wolverine back when he was first becoming popular, the overuse of the character in the years since has culled the majority of my interest in him and having him in this state – and that awful costume – just made it hard to read from just that alone. Pairing him up with another teenage girl for a bit just reminded me of how much better it was written twenty-plus years ago with Kitty.
With the two of them working together now to escape what the Inventor has set upon them, we get the bulk of the book dealing with the action aspects. The first half largely covers their fight against the Megagator, which certainly has its fun moments as Kamala does her best to work with Wolverine to deal with it and learn something from him while also trying to show him that she’s capable enough to handle things. Wolverine himself is having a hard time dealing with things without his healing factor and he comes across as pretty de-powered physically in general, and even in terms of attitude and presence. It’s like he’s a shadow of himself. There’s a further fight of sorts that plays out towards the end with Kamala taking some pain for Wolverine in order to get out of the trap and that helps to cement their friendship a bit since Wolverine can see something special in her.
There are some good areas to be had in the book that don’t involve the fighting thankfully. The first is a great two page spread that shows the pair making their escape through the tunnels to the surface. That involves a lot of dialogue about masks, parents and what she’s hiding from them while trying to figure herself out at the same time. He’s able to offer some sage advice on it from years of experience that does come across in the way of a mentor that she’d been looking for. The other good part comes towards the end as Wolverine fills in Cap about Kamala, which in turn has him letting Medusa know in New Attilan. While Wolverine wants to keep Kamala from knowing what she really is, expecting bigger things from her without the influence of the Inhumans, Medusa is going to keep an eye on her in a rather fun and interesting way as we see Lockjaw come into focus.
In Summary:
Guest appearances, even when well done, can be rough on new series since they change the dynamic of what we were getting. Ms. Marvel certainly suffers from that with the addition of Wolverine for awhile, even with the positive things he does bring to the table. It’s an easy connection to the Inhumans that’s brought into focus, which will be exploited in a fun way to come, and we get Wolverine staking her out in a way that will raise eyebrows for other heroes that are likely to come across her. The book left me underwhelmed after how the first five drew me in, even with its quirks, and Jacob Wyatt didn’t grab me too much with his style compared to what we started off with either. It didn’t help that he had to deal with Wolverine’s awful outfit either.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 20th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
