This isn’t my beautiful superhero life.
Creative Staff:
Story: G. Willow Wilson
Art: Adrian Alphona
What They Say:
Kamala Khan’s very ordinary life has suddenly become extraordinary. Is she ready to wield these strange and immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to handle?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening issue of Ms. Marvel gave us a very solid footing for our lead character of Kamala Khan and that was hugely welcome. Understanding who she is, the issues in her life, the friends (or lack of friends) that she has all explores what it means to be Kamala. There was enough that was unique to her and her heritage but also a good deal of it transcends race, religion and gender that it’s very easy to connect with her problems while coming to understand the other ones that she has. Spending so much time on it was a plus because it really made her accessible before things went decidedly weird for her life. That weird was the mysterious mist that started floating throughout the city, which it turns out is the gas from the Terrigen Bomb that had gone off as part of the sprawling Inhumanity storyline (that I have not read).
With Kamala having broken out of her shell, literally, and discovering that she’s a version of the old Ms. Marvel in looks and design, the shock is certainly there and that pretty much dominates this issue as she copes with what her body is going through. Being one of those that not only has the gene in her that unlocks powers but also being one that survived the transformation, she’s certainly in a relatively small group. But understanding what she’s going through is not something that happens here because she’s a panicked teenager who now has her dream come to life and is discovering that the reality is vastly different. With a kind of initial sickness that works through her in waves, we see her body adapting with what her mind is thinking and there’s some neat moments as her costume changes as well to variants that we’ve seen before, adding to the fangirl aspect of her personality that was established before.
Kamala gets to spend some time exploring her powers, not in any sort of controlled fashion of course, and we see through the costume changes and alterations that she can shrink herself down to a small size, her clothes are very malleable and there’s even a moment where she can make her hand huge and basically scoop the bottom of a river. There’s no external attack aspect here, though obviously things she can do with her shapeshifting abilities will be useful, but it’s good to see that she doesn’t just start losing control in a way that damages people or things. We also get that early test of what it means to be a hero in the good that she does. While struggling with what she went through, she ends up coming across Zoey and Josh from school where he’s pretty drunk and she’s unhappy in general and that causes her to fall into the river. With a life threatened because of Zoey panicking, Kamala has to do the right thing. Though we saw her basically being bullied by the both of them at the party, and through most of her life as well I suspect, she doesn’t hesitate in the slightest to save Zoey and push Josh out of the way so he doesn’t cause more problems. Her internal dialogue doesn’t really deviate either as words from her father recited from the Quaran is her version of the great power/great responsibility line and it works very well for motivating her.
There’s a lot of uncertainty in Kamala’s life at the moment and definitely panic on her own as she tries to just get back home after all that happened, which isn’t an easy thing since the fear of what will be said considering her appearance. Sneaking back into the house doesn’t go well as she’s quickly discovered, but this in itself offers another very good look at her family life. With her powers changing her appearance in the nick of time, the focus is more on her disobeying her parents, the wishywashiness of her brother and having her mother call her father out on his bringing the family here to begin with, which has caused her daughter to act in such unwelcome ways. There’s a family that has strong bonds here, but you can also see the strain that exists from their being in Jersey City and changing from what they knew before.
In Summary:
Kamala’s life is definitely all over the map at this point and rightly so since she’s one of the first hit by the Terrigen Bomb and doesn’t realize what happened. The nature of its impact on her is still somewhat unclear because there’s no real consistency to it yet, and it has that odd feeling to it because she’s reworking various Captain Marvel costumes on herself, which is coming from the layers of her mind as her body adapts to it. There’s a lot to like in seeing how she takes on becoming a hero without really realizing that’s what she’s doing because she’s simply doing the right thing, just with powers. That takes up a good chunk of the book but we’re not ignoring the family life either because that’s just as critical as the foundation for Kamala that will help guide her into adulthood. That gets some welcome time here and we get a good representation of a family under stress from different angles and how they cope with it – or don’t as the case may be since that’s just as natural as well. Definitely a solid follow-up issue that again leaves you wanting to see more of who Kamala will be.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: March 19th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99