You Should Love… is a new feature here on The Discriminating Fangirl! We love lots of things, and we’re going to talk about why we love them and why you should love them, too. First up is the new Ms Marvel featuring Kamala Khan!
This past Wednesday saw me actually going out and buying new comics. It’s like it’s 2002 all over again, guys. I haven’t been a regular comic book purchaser/reader in many years, though I have been picking them up randomly and reading digital editions since Hawkeye started up.
But guys. Guys. Marvel is putting out a title featuring a teenage Muslim girl, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, who is a superhero geek. Who was created by two Muslim women.
And on top of that, she’s the lead character in the title. There are already Muslim characters in the Marvel universe, like Monet St Croix and Sooraya Qadir, but none of them have been the title character.
There are still problems with Marvel’s comics and their portrayal of women (and the fact that Greg Land can still get a damn job tracing porn in major titles), but it’s refreshing to see that they’re making strides toward both increasing their diversity of characters as well as bringing out more female-fronted comic books.
Ms Marvel #1 is fantastic. Kamala is a likable, believable teenage girl caught between her parents’ more traditional Pakistani culture and the American culture in which she’s grown up. She wants to do things that her white friends (or “friends,” in the case of concern troll Zoe) do, like go to parties with boys, but her parents won’t allow it.
Kamala is just… relatable, even if you’re not a Muslim, Pakistani-American teenage girl. She’s trying to find her place in the world, and like most teenagers (at least teenagers like I was, heh), what she thinks she wants isn’t really all that great. In the first issue, she’s struggling to fit in with both the teenage scene in Jersey and into her own family.
After sneaking out of the house to go to a bomb of a party, she ends up in a Terrigen mist attack and has a “vision” of Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Iron Man. Who happen to be singing in Urdu.
The art has a beautiful, painterly quality, and I really appreciate that no one is overly sexualized. I’ll refrain from talking about the end of the comic, since I want you to read it and spoiling you wouldn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s entertaining, funny, easily readable, and gorgeous. If you’re just dipping your toes into comic book reading, Ms Marvel is a great place to start.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite panels from #1:
Kamala is a fanfic writer, aw yiss.
Ms Marvel is written by G. Willow Wilson. The art is by Adrian Alphona and coloring is by Ian Herring. You can buy a digital copy through Comixology or pick it up at your local comics shop.
Please, go buy it! Purchasing comic books is the best way to show your support for a comic you like. It shows the publisher that people are interested in that title and what they’re doing with it, and if you like Kamala, buying Ms Marvel will tell Marvel to keep it around!
So, have you picked up Ms Marvel? What did you think? Do you love it as much as we do?
If there’s something that you think we should love, drop us a line! We welcome suggestions and contributions to this feature.
