The
latest volume of Ms. Marvel is obviously part of something larger going on in
the Marvel comics universe. Even though
I don’t know much about the overarching story besides the few hints other
characters drop in lines here and there, there’s more than enough to get the
general idea and be interested in how Kamala fits into it.
Kamala is
still starstruck over the fact that she’s working with actual Avengers,
especially the hero to whom she owes her superhero moniker, Carol Danvers. When an Inhuman is discovered with a
remarkable ability to determine the probability of crimes before they occur
(basically, Minority Report with
math,) Captain Marvel picks Kamala to head a task force field-testing this
“predictive justice,” incarcerating would-be criminals before they have a
chance to cause harm. While Kamala is
initially drawn in to the idea of stopping crimes before they happen, she soon
begins to see the dark potential for overreach within the program. Her evolving feelings stand to put her at
odds with her hero, and her involvement in the whole thing puts her at risk of
losing a lot more.
Even
though this volume hinges on two pretty familiar plotlines – superheroes on the
same side coming to physical and emotional blows over ideological differences,
the problematic nature of arresting someone for a crime they have yet to commit
– both aspects of it work quite well for me.
Whatever’s going down elsewhere in related comics, it’s interesting to
see it from Kamala’s vantage point as someone who’s connected but still kind of
in awe of these people. Through her
eyes, Captain Marvel and Iron Man being on the outs is like seeing the
Avengers’ “mom and dad” falling out. And
as for Kamala’s part in the proceedings, I like that it develops gradually,
that she starts on one side and gets caught up in it before realizing that it’s
not everything she thought it was. What
happens here affects her on an interpersonal level, both among her superhero
colleagues/idols and her close friends, as while as a personal one. It really shakes her, what she thinks of
herself and what she believes her purpose is as a hero.
Others
stories, like the aforementioned Minority
Report, have gotten into the thorniness of predictive justice before, but I
really like how the volume ties it in with themes of profiling, police abuses,
and mass incarceration. Kamala gets into
a terrific discussion with Tyesha on the subject, and just in general, it looks
at criminals/potential criminals from a very humanized perspective and points
to how branding someone a criminal before they’ve done anything wrong can
create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Really smart stuff.
Finally,
there’s a fantastic narrative device here that gets a little into Kamala’s
past, both her own and that of her family.
This is a heady story that messes a lot with Kamala’s head and has her
exploring her origins and her place in the world. The glimpses we get of young Kamala, Kamala’s
mother, and Kamala’s great-grandmother (there are other ancestors involved, but
the focal points are always the women) are a really beautiful way to delve into
this, and it all culminates in a great section in which Kamala explores what it
means for her to “go home.”
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