With this show, we continue to witness how the events of “Avengers: Endgame” effect the world afterwards. In this case, we follow the character of Kamala Khan, a girl who idolizes Captain Marvel. After sneaking out to go to a comic con, she accidentally discovers dormant superpowers within her and decides to become a superhero. However, not everyone is welcome to the change; as Damage Control chases after her arrest while another villainess attempts to take advantage of Kamala’s powers for her own purposes. By the end, while this show tried to expand on the multiverse and the MCU, all it did was continue to show the MCU’s decline in quality.
Pro/Con #1: The Characters
Yet for all its faults, “Ms. Marvel” has a pretty decent range of characters that I can’t help but appreciate. For instance, there’s the titular protagonist of Kamala Khan, who does a great job portraying a young and impressionable “hero-wannabe.” In the first five minutes of this show, she makes a cheaply made video explaining the events of Endgame, calling Thanos a jerk and “all because of magical stones,” which definitely sounds like something a high schooler would say. Then we see her fangirling about Captain Marvel, making the other Avengers seem incompetent and helpless without her help. While this may upset fans to hear how Captain America or Iron Man never got any credit for Thanos’ defeat, it only represents the mindsets of said fans, because we all have that one hero who we put on a pedestal above all the others, no matter their power scaling. Moving on, I must also address the family dynamic in this show. I was very annoyed and upset at first with how strict Kamala’s parents were in the beginning, especially her mother. However, as the story progressed, I appreciated how they began to loosen up and let her be her own person. This would all culminate in the finale where she reveals to her whole family that she is a superhero, but even though they’ve loosened up by now, you’d still expect them to at least get a little upset. Instead, they accept her for it and her dad even gives her a heartwarming talk about how proud he is of her. It’s not only pleasantly surprising, but you can just feel how relieving this must be for Kamala, so she won’t have to feel ashamed of keeping this secret or even having these powers. Finally, there are two more characters I’d like to shine the spotlight on: Bruno and Kamran. Bruno serves as Kamala’s best friend, but he also does a great job being her “guy in the chair” as he helps her with her powers, and supporting her in everything she does in spite of his personal feelings for her. Kamran, on the other hand, is Kamala’s love interest but also the son of one of the villains in this show. I love to see how the guy is torn between loyalty to his mom and doing the right thing, ultimately leading to Kamala giving him the help that he really needed.
In spite of such heartwarming qualities, some characters possess traits that either make them forgettable or just plain annoying. For instance, and this is more of a personal thing for me, but I absolutely hated how they portrayed Ms. Marvel’s powers. In the comics, she can basically stretch and shapeshift like Mr. Fantastic (obviously not on the same scale though). In this show, she also can extend her limbs . . . but only as crystalline light constructs. She can even make light platforms or fire light projectiles as if she were a Green Lantern, which just looks very awkward and uninspired to me. I understand they’re trying to make her look more like Captain Marvel, but the way Ms. Marvel does it just makes it look like the creators tried too hard to match her powers while also trying to match it to the comics. Further, instead of making her an Inhuman like her comic book depiction, they decided to make her a mutant instead. What makes this absurd and annoying to me is the fact that they’re just using this as an excuse to bring mutants into the MCU, but it instead comes across as them throwing in a barely built up piece of the lore for the sake of storytelling. Plus, even though Inhumans also weren’t really established up until now, it personally irritates me that they strayed from the source material and made her even less accurate to it. Aside from that, another thing that I hate is a common theme I’ve noticed in many multiverse saga projects: the villains! Again, the villains in this show are not only boring and forgettable, but it seems like the show couldn’t make up its mind on who the villain was supposed to be. First, it’s Sadie Deever, the head of Damage Control. She has the single-minded pursuit of arresting Kamala for the chaos she caused when she discovered her powers at the comic con, even going so far as to invade private muslim gatherings and arrest people left and right. However, we take an abrupt break from that and focus on Kamala’s meeting of Najma, Kamran’s mother. At first, she seems nice and wants to return to her home dimension, but then we find out she wants to use Kamala’s powers to expand that dimension onto Earth and take over. But after Kamala’s bizarre time travel incident (due to Najma accidentally damaging and triggering Kamala’s bangle), she decides to sacrifice herself to close it and then dies with one of the most infamous examples of bad CGI in recent Marvel projects. After that, we resume the fight with Deever and then Kareem almost turns evil as well. Even though Kamala helped him, it still felt very tedious and irritating that the villain of this show practically changed three times. Worse, none of them are really memorable or even sympathetic, compared to past villains like Loki or Thanos.
Pro/Con #2: The Story
Love or hate this show, there are some qualities to this story that I believe should be appreciated. For instance, there’s the simple fact that we’re entering the next generation of heroes in the MCU. After the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” the Avengers themselves are largely broken up. Many heroes are either dead, off doing their own thing, or retired; so it’s kind of satisfying to see a transition into how we progress from there. Even better, we get to see it purely from the perspective of Ms. Marvel. While “Hawkeye” helped introduce the next generation with Kate Bishop, “Ms. Marvel” doesn’t have any big-name characters that could steal the spotlight. Therefore, we can focus solely on Kamala as she works her way up to becoming a full-fledged superhero. In the beginning of the story, we see Kamala as this reckless and energetic teenager, obsessing over Captain Marvel and sneaking off to comic cons against her parents’ wishes. However, that all changes after her powers go nuts at the event, accidentally endangering (and consequently saving) people’s lives. Not only is Damage Control hunting her down because of her heroic actions, but now she’s filled with a desire to learn more about the bangle and her powers. I personally love this development because these elements would force Kamala to start growing up, much like later events would as well. For instance, as she meets Kamran and his family, she would quickly find out how torn she is. Kamran’s mother tries to force Kamala to use her powers for her own gains, so she has to fight back. But at the same time, Kamran is struggling between loyalty to his mother and Kamala, so she has to figure out how to help him without further adding to the turmoil within his family. As if that weren’t enough for a sixteen-year old to handle, she also goes back in time to help her ancestors and then return to the present to fight Damage Control again. That’s why it’s all the more satisfying to watch Kamala keep fighting through it all, rising up against every odd stacked against her, and defend her community while giving Kamran the help he needed.
However, while it was nice to see Kamala’s character journey, the execution of the overall story was sloppy to say the least. Watching shows like “Ms. Marvel” really makes me wonder if, either the people behind this had any plan for the story to begin with, or if they just played it all by ear. I mean the story starts simple enough: angsty teen with controlling parents, sneaks out to party, discovers she has powers, now a government organization is after her. Simple as that. However, things get unnecessarily complicated after Kamala meets Kamran and his mother. While the lore explanation was helpful, things start to get more convoluted because, on top of keeping up with the Damage Control plot, now we have to follow this subplot as well. But it only gets worse from here, because now we have time travel? During a fight between Kamala and the Red Daggers and Kamran’s mother and her group, somehow by stabbing the bangle, it sends her back to 1942 India? How does that even work? Plus, even though it plays a key role by allowing Kamala to guide her grandmother to the rest of her family, it still feels too random to just throw in the middle of an already confusing plot. Plus, it doesn’t even make sense. Did her bangle send her back, or the portal Kamran’s mom opened, or a combination of the two? How does it even fit with the progression of the story? Because all it appears to do is help along a moment in Kamala’s family history, but serves no other purpose. Somehow, it still gets worse because Kamran’s mother quickly realizes that she’s wrong and tries to undo her mistake, leading to one of the worst CGI moments ever in her death scene. First, she crystalizes and then we see parts of her skeleton, and watch it crumble to pieces. Watching that death makes me think of something that would be included in a “Spy Kids” or “Shark Boy and Lava Girl” movie, because the CGI quality was that low. Overall, the story was all over the place, the pacing in some episodes felt choppy or rushed, and somehow we’re regressing on the quality of CGI (especially when you think of the early “Pirates Of the Caribbean” and “Transformers” films, which were made roughly a decade ago).
Pro/Con #3: The Ending
If there’s one thing I can appreciate about this (gosh awful) series, it’s how they wrapped up certain plot points. For example, there’s the whole thing with Agent Deever of Damage Control. Throughout this whole show, she’s been nothing but an absolute pain in the butt, and I absolutely hated seeing her and the rest of her squad just barge in and mistreat the innocent denizens of Kamala’s community. That’s why, when she arrogantly invaded the high school where Kamala and her friends were hiding, I was hoping (but also expecting) everything to blow up in her face. Ultimately, my patience was rewarded as we see her not only get in trouble with her boss, but also get fired for her reckless actions. If that isn’t sweet justice, then I don’t know what is. Moving on though, I also have to address the heart-to-heart between Kamala and her dad. As mentioned previously, it must’ve been quite the relief for Kamala to have her family be cool with how she’s a powerful superhero now. Even so, it can’t be understated how all the emotions just hit home with each word exchanged. Just hearing the passion in her dad’s voice as he goes on about how Kamala’s birth was a miracle, even calling her perfect (which was what “Kamala” meant in their language), simply tugs on your heartstrings. Further, calling her Ms. Marvel not only shows how he views his daughter, but there’s something about such a title coming from a parent—the one who raised and loved you, the one you trust the most—that truly means something in your heart. Finally, the last part of this finale that I want to talk about is the post-credits scene. The main thing that sticks out to me is the fact that Kamala got yeeted into her closet, but then Captain Marvel walks out instead of Kamala. Like, what just happened? How did that just happen? What the heck is going on, here? So many questions popped into my mind the minute that post-credits scene ended. It made me somewhat eager for “The Marvels,” if nothing else, but to get some answers. Said answers were more or less satisfying when I watched the movie, but that’s an article for another time.
On the other side of the coin, though, this finale was absolute garbage and it was very hard to sit through. While it was good to finally get back to the conflict with Damage Control, keep in mind that we just got off of the whole “Clandestines vs Red Daggers” fight. Said fight, or at least the circumstances that would lead to said fight, already and very abruptly interrupted the Damage Control subplot. Therefore, it was difficult to transition back into previously established stories when we’ve taken a significant break from them, only to once again be quickly rushed back into it after said break. In my opinion, if they were gonna pit Kamala against a villain group, they should’ve stuck with one or the other to make the story less convoluted. Aside from that, another thing I struggle to get past is how we’re rushed through what should’ve been a longer, more thorough discussion. What I mean is when Kamala revealed to her family that she’s a superhero, and how they surprisingly accept it as fast and as well as they did. However, in spite of how close the family is, I feel like there should’ve been more conflict after learning such a jaw-dropping secret. I mean, if you found out that a family member—much less your own child—is sneaking off and putting herself in danger to fight bad guys, wouldn’t you at least feel scared or angry? Wouldn’t you scream at them? Obviously not saying that this is the first response you should do, but it would be the most rational reaction, right? Instead, Kamala’s family mainly roll with it. They don’t reprimand her, they don’t argue with her, they just accept it and praise her for her deeds. Again, while that is heartwarming, I feel like that level of acceptance would’ve had more meaning if they at least had a longer and thorough discussion about it. Yet somehow, this isn’t even as senseless as the end-credits scene. Even though it was pretty intriguing, it was just as confusing. After all, in spite of Kamala basing her superhero identity off of Captain Marvel, it was still extremely random to have her just appear so suddenly with no context. Not only is it random, but I personally believe there could’ve been a better way to bring Captain Marvel into Kamala’s “world” than just having her teleport in here like that. For instance, maybe Carol could’ve introduced herself and explained why she sought Kamala out, or maybe she could’ve said that she was tracking the energy of Kamala’s bangle or something. It would’ve at least made more sense if they had taken this route, or at least gave a little context surrounding that bizarre swap.
Conclusion
Overall, this show was absolute garbage for me. While it has a few redeeming qualities, I still wouldn’t really recommend it for any newcomers to the Marvel franchise. But this only comes to show the decline of Marvel ever since “Avengers: Endgame,” as we’re presented with mountains of rushed plots and mediocre storytelling. Perhaps if they focused on keeping their stories concise, their characters properly developed, and a little less emphasis on political or real-world ties, Ms. Marvel could’ve been received a lot differently.
