Throughout the years many misconceptions have risen up in the modern comic book industry and most notably in the superhero comic book community. Misconceptions that are much more issued by the comic book publishers themselves rather then the common fan. Many of these have been addressed in forum post after forum post, tweet after tweet, angry letter after angry letter. From the idea that marriages ruin or destroy a superhero's appeal to the notion that superheroes are not allowed to have happy social lives. But one of the biggest and most prevailing arguments is for how superhero comic book publishers treat both their female audience and their female characters.
Notably Marvel and DC comics have been accused both in the past and in the present of mishandling their best female characters and of just how poorly they can present them selves to female readers. It almost seems like the concept of having female readers is entirely lost to them until they are reminded by the press or the occasional outraged fan. Both of the big two companies are guilty of treating their female demographic like crap in the last few years, Marvel for instance had that large gap of time when they had absolutely no female centric books and when they did have one they almost never promoted it. And DC comics in the last two years has pretty much tried everything to make sure they have the smallest female audience in the history of comic books, from Starfire and her let me have sex with everything attitude to the time they wanted Gail Simone off of Batgirl to the time they wanted a fan to draw Harley Quinn trying to kill herself.
However when it comes to which one is really trying to make amends for their past mistakes, Marvel seems to be trying damn hard to appeal to both their regular 18 - 45 single male demographic and the budding amount of interested female readers who already are or want to start reading comic books. Marvel comics is set to release not one, not two, not three but five ongoing series starring female superheroes in an effort to appeal to the female marketplace and interest younger girls in the medium.
Elektra, She-Hulk and a renumbered Captain Marvel series will all be kicking off later in the year and their first female centric series already started last month with Black Widow #1 (which is a comic that i recommend, especially for any fans of the current Hawkeye series). Now all these series are based on already well established heroes, each already has their own fan base ready and willing to jump on board for their adventures. However amongst these other four series only one book is starting off with a completely new hero set for her own adventure. She is Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel, and if her first issue is any indication, I am thinking I'm going to like Kamala quite a lot.
Kamala is a sixteen year old Muslim girl living in New Jersey. She's a typical high school teenager, she likes to hang out with her friends Nakia and Bruno and is usually the victim of misunderstanding and ridicule by her classmates because of her beliefs. She wants to hang around with all the other kids in her school but because misunderstanding about her and her beliefs, she is constantly the butt of jokes and cast as an outsider. One day a strange fog blankets most of New York and New Jersey, awakening strange powers in certain people, and luckily Kamala turns out to be one such individual. Will she accept her new found power and responsibility? You will just have to read it to find out.
Now that description of the plot may sound cheesy, but really it's only that way because I don't really have a great way of describing the main plot without spoiling most of it. That's because it's pretty much a set up issue. It sets up Kamala's friends, family, school life, hobbies (which will probably win more then a few people over) and her frustrations with who she is. Now set up issues are not bad in theory. A good set up issue can establish a whole boat load of information in one issue without really having to resort to any kind of padding while also making the issue entertaining to read. Though on the flip side, a bad set up issue could do all or none of these things but also make the entire premise sound boring. Set up is all fine and good but if the book isn't interesting to read then not many people are going to be back for the next issue.
Luckily Ms. Marvel doesn't just pull off the feat of having a good set up issue but it is probably one of the best set up issues I've seen in a long time. Kamala's world is very real and interesting, she's not a perfect someone or a complete loser, she's more in the middle. Often more the butt of jokes due to her faith then any kind of social standing. She has popular friends, but due to her faith and hobbies she isn't really allowed to follow them to any kind of party held by other popular kids. Her family life isn't horrible or perfect or anything like that, it's very average. She has a strict father, a house wife mother, and an odd very religious brother. This could have been easily taken too far and her and her family could have been made out to be the most over the top Muslim family going "Look at me! Isn't this unlike anything you usually see in superhero comics. We're so modern and with the in crowd!". But in the hands of writer G. Willow Wilson, she makes the family and life of Kamala so relatable, that you get sucked into her plight as she argues with her father or sneaks out to go to a party.
In fact probably the biggest reason Ms. Marvel works so well is due to G. Willow Wilson. Herself a Muslim, Wilson understands many of the awkwardness and strangeness that can come from being a part of something that others don't understand. She does a fantastic job of making many of the jerk characters in the book not really come off as such but come off more as people who just don't understand what she is a part of. She also makes Kamala very interesting and relatable too. She's smart but not a genius. She is a good person but is as prone to bad decisions as any of us. She loves superheroes but isn't over obsessive. She really is a very natural likable sixteen year old girl, it's just that she happens to be Muslim. And that's another thing that Wilson manages to write in very well, the fact that she is a Muslim. This isn't just Kamala being a Muslim in name only and then never referring to it again. No it's brought up many times as both a benefit to her and a detriment to her and how she views being a part of the Muslim community. I like that it explores these very mixed feelings that a teenage girl might have when all she wants to do is be a normal kid but is a part of this thing that many don't feel is normal. Her feelings not overbearing, it's not shoved in your face and it doesn't become annoying. It's very subtle likable writing that fit's this character perfectly.
The art by Adrian Alphona is spectacular. I've been a fan of Alphonas ever since his spectacular run on The Runaways with Brian K. Vaughn and to me, he has yet to lose that wonderful talent of his. I absolutely love the way he draws people and poses, how so many people have so many distinctive faces. How the characters each have their own hair style and how he manages to add in tiny funny/sad details like Kamala's sad slouch walk away from the party. Or the tiny snow cap that the bird is wearing in Kamala's vision. His art is beautiful, and I would be re missed if I didn't also mention the colorer Ian Herring. He really makes the colors of the characters clothes and hair pop out and create a very welcoming looking color palette to go with the gorgeous art.
I do have a few complaints. While I enjoy the writing, this issue does have a few moments when it stumbles with the pacing. There's a lot of information they are trying to fit into this issue, but it's still only a 20 page comic and it can feel very rushed at times. So sometimes one panel will display one character with a certain mood and then in the very next panel a character will suddenly have a drastic mood shift. Or when Kamala goes to the party, she gets there and then leaves in the span of one page. It's just a little odd for a book that does such a good job building up it's world and characters to have to speed up at points in the book. And even though I love the art, Alphona can resort to the good ole stick faces one to many times and it stops being funny pretty fast.
But these are both just quibbles to what is an over all very solid first issue. It's rare to see a big company like Marvel put so much behind a character that has yet to prove herself, but they seem to be hoping that she will be their next big super heroine. And I hope she is too. I hope Kamala Khan is to Ms. Marvel as Jaime Reyes was to Blue Beetle. A person who is handed a big responsibility and takes on that responsibility with both hands and is asking all of us to come along for the ride. I can't wait for issue two and the further adventures of this awesome new character.
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