Kamala Khan is on the rise.
By Jesse Schedeen
Ms. Marvel #1 is a textbook example of how to relaunch a series that didn’t need a relaunch in the first place. This new volume retains pretty much everything that made the original appealing. At the same time, it takes advantage of the eight month gap following Secret Wars to shake up Kamala’s status quo and give her new challenges to wrangle. Fans can rest easy know this is the same book they know and love.
As this first issue shows, in many ways Kamala’s lot in life has significantly improved since we last saw her fighting a doomed battle to protect Jersey City from cosmic annihilation. She’s gone from underdog hero to toast of the town. She’s even an Avenger. But that shift in fortunes brings with it a whole new set of problems, both personal and professional.
Writer G. Willow Wilson expertly blends the outlandish and mundane aspects of Kamala’s life into one satisfying whole of a story. Now that she’s an established superhero, her problems center more around finding time to balance all the parts of her life – school, Avenger-ing and whatever shred of her social life still remains. The biggest threat to her existence isn’t a costumed villain, but gentrification. The resulting blend of larger-than-life Marvel elements with a very ordinary, intimate look at an awkward teenager’s life is the source of this book’s charm.
Wilson’s script reflects the time jump in a very fitting way. It’s only been a matter of weeks since the previous volume ended, so it’s not as if Kamala’s antics have been absent from the stands. With that in mind, Kamala is placed in the same position as the reader, coming to grips with a world that has changed profoundly while she was too busy dealing with her costumed career to notice. That’s where Bruno comes in. This issue builds from the Bruno/Kamala material in the previous series finale, showing how Bruno has moved on romantically and left Kamala to question her life choices. If anything, Bruno reads like a more active and independent member of the book’s cast now, and that’s a very good thing.
Takeshi Miyazawa kicks off the new series in style. His expressive, manga-influenced style suits Kamala’s wacky world very well. Miyazawa is able to juggle the mundane and the silly, often within the same panel. Together, Miyazawa and Adrian Alphona have been able to hone this book’s distinctive style and mold it into something wholly unique among Marvel’s lineup. Alphona himself steps in to render the final ten pages or so of this issue. The transition is almost seamless, which is actually a bit of a problem. Alphona’s flashback segment is essentially a backup story, but the way the main story abruptly transitions into it causes some unnecessary confusion. Despite that, this sequence is a heartwarming and goofy way to cap off a strong start to the new series.
While much about Kamala Khan’s life has changed in the months since Secret Wars, the quality of her comic hasn’t. This series deftly picks up where the previous volume left off, building new challenges for its star heroine while doing even more to flesh out her world and the people who inhabit it.
