I’ve heard good things about the Ms. Marvel comics and so I read the first four volumes of the collected comics. Kamala Khan is a wonderful character who cares deeply and has a lot of humor and creativity, as well as being just plain adorable. I also like the water color style of the comic art.
Author: G. Willow Wilson (Author), Adrian Alphona (Artist)
Title: Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal
Publication Info: Marvel (2014)
Summary/Review:
Rating: ***1/2
Kamala Khan is a teenager from Jersey City who writes fan fiction about her favorite superheroes (who in this universe really exist, not just in comic books), struggles with the strict upbringing of her immigrant Pakistani parents, and engaging with the wider American world as a Muslim girl. On a night when Kamala sneaks out to go to a party, a mysterious fog envelopes the city and Kamala finds herself with the powers to morph her body and gain significant strength. She adopts the persona of her hero Captain America – aka Carol Danvers – and begins protecting Jersey City from weird attacks and invaders. This collection of the first five issues is not overly weighed down by origin story tropes as it depicts Kamala clumsily learning to use her powers while maintaining her ordinary life.
Author: G. Willow Wilson (Author), Jacob Wyatt (Illustrator), Adrian Alphona (Illustrator)
Title: Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why
Publication Info: Marvel (2015)
Summary/Review: ****
The second collection features Ms. Marvel coming face to face with her first archival, The Collector, a hybrid of a bird and a clone of Thomas Edison (a delightfully-weird villain). Wolverine becomes Ms. Marvel’s mentor for a time and Kamala has to balance fangirling over one of her heroes with the reality that she is in better physical shape to handle their adventure. She’s later paired up with Lockjaw, a large bulldog with teleportation powers. The story of the Inventor kidnapping teenagers to use them for their energy cleverly plays on the stereotyping and disposability of Generation Y in our capitalist system.
Author: G. Willow Wilson (Author), Takeshi Miyazawa (Illustrator), Elmo Bondoc (Illustrator)
Title: Ms. Marvel Vol. 3: Crushed
Publication Info: Marvel (2015)
Summary/Review:
This collection includes another crossover story with a comical story about Loki ending up at Kamala’s school dance. There’s also a crossover with S.H.I.E.L.D. as she teams up to save the school from alien infested cafeteria food. The bigger story is that Kamala falls in love with a boy named Kamran, son of her parents friends, who not only shares a Muslim heritage and geeky interests with Kamala, but also has Inhuman powers. It seems too good to be true, right?
Rating: ****
Author: G. Willow Wilson (Author), Adrian Alphona (Illustrator)
Title: Ms. Marvel Vol. 4: Last Days
Publication Info: Marvel (2015)
Summary/Review:
This is part of a larger Marvel story arc called “Last Days of the Universe” in which the big story is happening in Manhattan. Kamala has to set up protection for Jersey City on her own while also trying to rescue her brother. Then her biggest hero Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers arrives and they are able to spend some time working together. It’s a bittersweet crossover as Danvers has little time to spare and Kamala has to recognize that there may be no tomorrow and reconcile with her family and friends. My favorite part is when the people in the shelter Kamala sets up in her school decide that they will deal with the end of the universe in a purely New Jersey manner, with a dance party.
There’s also an issue of Spider-Man in which Ms. Marvel makes an appearance, which has nothing to do with the rest of this book, but it makes sense since Kamala Khan and Peter Parker have a lot in common.
Rating: ****
Favorite Passages:
“The young are seen as a political burden, a public nuisance. They are not considered worth educating or protecting. They are called parasites, leeches, brats, spawn–
If you used the to describe any minority but children, it would quite understandably be considered hate speech.
We are simply taking this loathing to its logical conclusion.” – The Inventor
“Friendship is not a zone, you idiot! Friendship is something real and good and anybody who doesn’t understand that needs a dictionary.” – Bruno
“It’s always the same.
There’s always that one group of people who think that they have special permission to terrorize anybody who disagrees with them.
And then everyone who looks like them suffers.’
Author: G. Willow Wilson
Artists: Takeshi Miyazawa, Adrian Alphona, Nico Leon
Color Artist: Ian Herring
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Cover Art: Cliff Chiang & David Lopez
Title: Ms. Marvel Vol. 5: Super Famous
Publication Info: New York, NY : Marvel Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 2016
Summary/Review:
Living the dream of saving the world with the Avengers takes it’s toll on Kamala Khan as she fails to keep up with her school work and her friendship with Bruno. Meanwhile, the most evil supervillain comes to Jersey City bringing gentrification, and using Ms. Marvel’s image to promote redevelopment. Ms. Marvel must save her city and find a way to balance her priorities.
Rating: ****
Author: G. Willow Wilson
Artists: Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa, Mirka Andolfo
Color Artist: Ian Herring with Irma Kniivila
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Cover Art: Cameron Stewart
Title: Ms. Marvel Vol. 6: Civil War II
Publication Info: New York, NY : Marvel Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 2016
Summary/Review:
In the midst of a conflict between Captain Marvel and Iron Man, Kamala Khan begins to realize that she must assert herself and stand apart from both of her mentors. The main plot focuses on Captain Marvel tasking Ms. Marvel with training fellow young Inhumans with predictive powers to fight crime before it happens, something with obvious ethical conflicts. This collection also reveals Kamala’s family’s past going back to the Partition of India and Pakistan, and ends with Kamala visiting family in Pakistan, and meeting a local superhero.
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 