MS. MARVEL: THE NEW MUTANT

Well, we called it... Ms. Marvel is now a mutant. And also, still an Inhuman...

When we recently reviewed "Fallen Angel," a comic about the death of Ms. Marvel, we speculated that they would try to align the character with what was introduced in the TV show "Ms. Marvel," starring the Canadian Iman Vellani...

Well, not only did what we predicted happen, but they even outstepped us by getting the star of the "Ms. Marvel" TV show as one of the writers of the new comic, with the help of Sabir Pirzada!

So, how is it?

Honestly, for a first try, it is not all bad. But it does suffer from some issues, mainly in terms of logic. Some are due, I guess, to the inexperience of the author, but some are also due to the constraints currently imposed on the X-Men world.

The comic begins with a dream, featuring the titular Ms. Marvel, of course, and the old iteration of Carol Danvers, wearing her original Ms. Marvel costume, on a massive stage, surrounded by members of the Champions (Ms. Marvel's old team), the Avengers, and the X-Men. For some reason, an embiggened version of her hand seems to try and kill her while the aforementioned spectators fight to get her attention. And while Ms. Marvel struggles to stay alive, the former Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) asks her which team she should be with... and if she does not, threatens that all will take a 'piece" of her...

Confused and lost, she eventually falls into some sort of gelatinous egg, only to emerge in space, facing a blend of Doctor Strange/Silver Surfer, which turns into the realization that this was just a recurring odd dream she has been having since her Krakoan resurrection (which we predicted)...

She wakes up with a start and heads out to a new school campus in New York with her friend Bruno. We then find out that Emma Frost wiped the minds of everyone about her death, so they do not remember her disappearing at all a few months ago. Convenient.

Ditching Bruno, Kamala (Ms. Marvel) now heads out to the sewers to meet with the X-Men fighting the corporation Ochris, which basically single-handedly restarted the anti-mutant hysteria and is the focus of the crossover event "Fall of X." We find out this way that Kamala is infiltrating her campus for the mutants as some nefarious Ochris laboratory is apparently underground on that campus...

Kamala tells Bruno that she died, despite the advice of Emma Frost. She also tells him she is a mutant now. And also still an Inhuman. Apparently, she could get resurrected because she has the X-Gene, which somehow has no issues with the Inhuman gene, despite previous stories in the past telling us that the Terrigen mist was toxic for most mutants and technically should have killed Kamala, instead of unleashing her powers. Speaking of powers, she technically has no mutant powers as her X-Gene never manifested but is apparently sufficient for Krakoa to resurrect her. All very convenient...

Then, of course, there is a Chitauri alien that appears to have been experimented on that has escaped from the very underground lab Kamala is there to investigate, so she gears up with her brand new X-Men costume (decent design) and fights the creature.

There is a time bomb on the Chitauri, and Ms. Marvel tries to save her fellow students before the bomb explodes, but because she now wears the X-Men costume, everyone now thinks she is a menace and tries to kill them, despite her best efforts...

Which begs the question: why on Earth, if she is on the campus to spy and investigate, would she choose to use an X-Men costume, which would definitely put the spotlight on her given the current social issues? Especially since no one remembers she is dead, she could have been good old Inhuman Ms. Marvel and not attract any undue attention from the people she is spying on, not to mention have a better time doing superheroics... But, hey!

So it is not a catastrophic first step into comics, but it could use a little more rigour. It is interesting enough to warrant the reading of the next issue. Hopefully, the weaker points improve.

The interior art by Carlos Gomez, except for the dream sequence illustrated by Adam Gorham, is pretty decent. The dream sequence quality itself is a bit underwhelming and limited in terms of decors, but it only lasts a few pages, so no biggie.

But I guess the comic sort of accomplished what it needed to do: bring the comic book back up to the story line of the TV series and movies...


Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1