Ms. Marvel

Look out world, Kamala Khan is back and officially an Avenger! Yup, the dream to end all dreams has happened for Kamala. She's toe to toe with the best of the best, but will being one of Earth's mightiest heros be everything she imagined? Is being a celebrity hero as wonderful as Kamala has hoped? Plus: WHO IS THAT WITH BRUNO??

Ms. Marvel is Back! Not only is Ms. Marvel back but now she is an Avenger! I absolutely love the Kamala Kahn version of Ms. Marvel. Nothing against Carol Danvers but Kamala is that cute little sister type that you can’t help but love and connect with, did mention that she can kick some serious butt too? This new story by G. Willow Wilson is great so far. Currently the series is at issue #4 which is the start of a new storyline called “Army of one” so if you missed the first 3 issues then now is a great time to get to your local comic book shop and jump on board.

Just a heads up that I am about to spoil at least a little bit of the first 3 issues so if you haven’t read them then trust me that they are completely worth your time and turn back now otherwise get ready because I am about to sing some praises.

This book is immediately relatable for just about every single person that picks it up because the real focus is on how overwhelming life can get. Kamala is now a member of the Avengers which you can imagine takes up a lot of time, and she is in high school, and she has a crazy family, and she has a love interest in her best friend Bruno and it is all just becoming a little too much and she finds herself on auto pilot more often than not. unfortunately for our hero she takes a breather long enough to realize that while she has been off fighting crime and thwarting evil with the Avengers, Bruno found himself a girlfriend named Mike. Mike is a really cool character and is kind of ground breaking in the comic book world. Mike is slightly overweight, has blue hair, and her parents are a lesbian couple and I love all of this about her because it is all either over looked or talked about very casually which I think shows great progress in the comic books world. Kamala however, not such a fan, but only because she feels like she is losing Bruno not for any other reason. So right off the bat Kamala is starting to feel overwhelmed, she was so busy with the avengers and school that she didn’t even notice her love interest slipping away. I don’t know of anyone that can’t relate to that feeling of being overwhelmed in all aspects of your life. When I was in college I was taking classes full time, working two part time jobs, I was in the National Guard, and I was in ROTC, I thought my pillow and I would have to go into couples therapy we were so estranged. So right away reading Kamala’s story I could feel the weight on her shoulders (well sort of, I can only dream of being an Avenger).

Since Kamala is so busy because she is off being a superhero she has come in to quite a bit of notoriety as Ms. Marvel which is great except that it appears a new real estate developer is taking advantage of that notoriety and plastered her face all over a billboard without her permission. I can hear you now “But Josh why is that so bad, all publicity is good publicity” well it turns out when the real estate developer is gentrifying the neighborhood that you love and is running small businesses and low-income families out of town by using nano tech to take over people’s minds…its bad publicity. Now it’s up to Ms. Marvel to get to the bottom of what’s happening while figuring out how to juggle everything in her life and cope with Bruno having a new girlfriend. Why aren’t your keys in your hand yet? you’re supposed to be rushing out to get your copy of Ms. Marvel, ok fine I will sing more praises.

The art in Ms. Marvel is on point for the light hearted and somewhat adolescent story that it is telling. I absolutely love that they draw Kamala so small since her super power (given to her by a cloud of terrigen mists, which is proving more and more important in the Marvel Universes) is to “embiggen” . More importantly I enjoy that they draw her this way because she just feels like she could be your little sister, the kind of little sister you want to protect but that’s where her duplicity lies because she doesn’t need protecting. I also love the emotion that is drawn into the characters. There is one scene where Mike learns that Bruno has feelings for Kamala and you can see it in her face and in her body language that she is intimidated by Kamala but she is confident in herself. I really like Mike and I hope that her character continues to develop because I think she is capable of reaching a lot of kids out there and in issue #3 we do see Mike help Ms. Marvel save Bruno despite being absolutely terrified so I think we will get the chance to see her develop as a “hero” in her own right.

Overall I think this is a comic book worth picking up. I think most people will enjoy it but it is very much a lighthearted progressive story aimed at the adolescent market. However, I’m a 28 year old man and I still love the story so I think just about anyone can enjoy it. It truly is a fun story that is relatable to all, leaves you with a smile and itching for another issue.