Viewer Log: Ms. Marvel ep 1

Let's go down to Jersey. No groaning. 

Let’s talk about Ms. Marvel. She’s one of the few Marvel characters that I know of the goes against the decade rule. It you’re new here, that is my personal observation that 90% of comic content doesn’t get adapted until it’s existed for at least ten years. Spunky, nerdy, optimistic, and powerful, she’s been a fan favorite basically since her run began. Her show was kind of inevitable. The show choses to adapt certain elements of the comics, Kamala’s Muslim heritage and how being first generation Pakistani-American affects her world view, her family, and her fangirl energy. But they chose to MCU-ify her powers and change up the origin of her abilities. So, if you’re hoping for the stretchy Inhuman Kamala Khan, I’m afraid you’ll have to look for other adaptations. Enough set up, let’s get to it.

 

Episode 1: Generation Why

 

Ms. Marvel has really neat title cards.

We open with a reimaging of the final Battle of the Infinity Wars in the doodled art style of Kamala Khan. She learned about the details of this event through Scott Lang, who I guess has a podcast series. Huh. Kamala is clearly Captain Marvel’s biggest fan, defending her idol’s choice to leave Earth to do the superhero thing in the greater galaxy after Thanos’ defeat. At the end of her video, Kamala reveals that she’s going to cosplay as Captain Marvel at Avenger Con, the first convention in the MCU celebrating their very real heroes. Kamala is called down from her editing by her mother to get ready for her driver’s test. She comes down and we meet the Khans. There’s her brother Aamir, a very religious young man praying over his food so long that their father, Yusuf, jokes he’ll starve to death if he doesn’t eat soon. There’s also Muneeba, Kamala’s mother, who insists on Kamala check her mirrors every 15 seconds. The Khan men give Kamala tips, Dad saying to make sure the instructor sees her turn her head and Aamir telling her to pray before she starts the car as she needs the help, as she heads out for the test.

 

They make mistakes but solid parenting from these
two overall.

Kamala fails her test spectacularly, as she puts the car in reverse and backs right into the instructor’s car. Whoops. Her parents try to go to bat for her, but they can’t get the instructor to give her a pass. Not shocked. As they drive off, Muneeba gives us a slight info dump, claiming that Kamala’s whole life outlook is her fault, as Muneeba comes from a “long line off fantasizing, unrealistic daydreamers.” As Kamala daydreams about Capt. Marvel. Point proven.

 

We jump to Kamala in school, where she’s greeted by her friend Bruno who brought her a slushie as a “sorry you failed” gift. Bruno thinks they won’t be able to make it to Avenger Con, but Kamala refuses to give up. They’re met by their other Nakia, whom Bruno pays 10 bucks as he’d bet her Kamala would pass the drivers test, and head to class. She runs into popular girl Zoe. Kamala complements her jacket, and Zoe complements Kamala’s necklace, which has Kamala’s name in Arabic as the charm thing. This’ll be important later. Kamala suggests asking Zoe for a ride, but Nakia reminds her that Zoe has been insufferable since she got internet famous. Kamala is called into Mr. Wilson, the school guidance counselor’s office. He’s that “hip guidance counselor that thinks he gets kids but kind of creeps them out” guy. We learn Kamala has had a rough few weeks in school, the highlights being a dodge ball to the head, a chemistry lab explosion and being caught doodling in class. Kamala starts drifting but Mr. Wilson pulls her back in, telling her that Junior year should be about really thinking about her ‘future.’ She starts zoning out again, and Mr. Wilson tells her to go home after school and sing the lyrics to Mulan’s Reflection to herself. Oy this guy.

 

Kamala rides her bike to the Circle Q with Bruno. She complains about the failure of her plan to use the excuse of running wedding errands for her brother to slip away to enjoy Avenger Con for a few hours to Bruno. He says there’s aways next year, but Kamala points out that there will never be another “first” Avenger Con again. He suggests they switch to a backup plan as he gets back to painting her costume. The backup plan? Just ask her mom. Kamala isn’t super confident in that plan. The suit looks good, though so she isn’t giving up.

 

Kamala heads home, discussing cosplay ideas with Bruno. In her living room, her mother drops a box sent to them from Pakistan from Muneeba’s mother, Sana. Kamala looks in the box and finds a fancy looking bangle amongst the junk. Muneeba seems to dislike the bangle specifically, taking it and telling Aamir to put the box in the attic. Muneeba clearly not realizing that she just guaranteed that Kamala will go after that bangle again at some point. Kamala and Muneeba go out doing errands for the wedding. After a montage of other errands, we stop at Kamala getting fitted for a dress while her mom and the local “aunties” gossip. Muneeba and a local Aunty are both highly judgmental of a local girl that broke off an engagement to backpack across Europe. Kamala tries to point out that its nice that the other girl is seeing the world, but the older women give her a look and she goes back to getting fitted.

 

Back at the house, Bruno helps Yusuf set up a custom digital assistant/security camera system dubbed Zuzu. He designed it to understand both English and Urdu. As the Khan women come home, Bruno tries to leave quickly but Muneeba goes to get him some food to take home. Bruno insists Kamala just ask her mother as he’s ushered out. Once alone, Kamala does ask her parents, downplaying her interest in it and upping Bruno’s to make them cool with it. Her parents are against it, thinking that a convention is a big party. Kamala mentions that she’d be going in her Captain Marvel cosplay and that sets her mother off. Muneeba, I get being uncomfortable with your daughter in like the two-piece swimsuit with gloves and boots version of Captain Marvel’s suit, but the MCU version is basically a flight suit. Not really revealing at all. Aamir comes in and Kamala points out that her brother would get to go if he asked and storms off in frustration.

 

As someone with a big age gap between them and
their siblings (11 and 9 years, respectfully) it's nice seeing
that kind of relationship (loving but with quirks) on screen.

That night, Aamir brings her tea and they sibling bond. Aamir applauds her boldness, even if her plan wasn’t super well thought out, and offers to talk to their parents. Kamala takes the tea and thanks her brother for being willing to help her. He asks if he should turn out the lives when he leaves just in case she’s still afraid of the djinn, to which Kamala rolls her eyes. Kamala texts Bruno the bad news, as he goes up to work on something in his room.

 

The next day, Kamala tries on her cosplay, and yeah, it’s the least suggestive women’s suit in comic history is all I’m saying. She still considers adding a sash around her waist to further de-sexualize her costume when her parents knock. She throws on a robe and lets them in. Muneeba reveals that they spoke with Aamir and that they decided that they’d let her go with conditions. The conditions being she goes with her dad for 2 hours, and that her costume will be a matching Hulk costume with her dad. Yusuf comes in full costume. Kamala clearly hates the idea, as it’ll be extremely embarrassing. She pushes back on the idea a little too hard, clearly hurting her dad’s feelings. Her mom gives her the ultimatum that she either goes with her dad or not at all. We’ll get back to this. Kamala calls Bruno and lets him know that everything sucks. They go up to the roof of the Circle Q and lets him know what happened. She is feeling trapped and frustrated. She realizes that cosplaying as a hero is weird and that it’s not a thing that brown girls from Jersey do. Bruno disagrees, saying she’ll save the world if she wants to and shows her the light up gloves that he built for her. Mood lifted, they play box for a bit.

 

At school the next day, Kamala gets hit in the face with a ball again. At home, Yusuf is fighting with the Zuzu. I guess giving your friend’s dad a prototype device has some drawbacks. Yusuf tells Kamala that they need Bruno to fix Zuzu, giving her an idea. Kamala comes with a complex plan. It boils down to sneak out of her room, use the Zuzu as a security camera to tell her if her parents try to go in and for her to use the speaker function to yell “I’m changing” or other go away parent’s line, have fun at the con for 60 minutes, win the cosplay competition and sneak back into her room. She makes a lot of flourishes to it because Kamala Khan. Bruno has the note that she still needs to finish her costume or what is the point. The contest guidelines say that she should bring a little bit of “her” to the costume, and he suggests maybe adding something Pakistani to it. That night, during a storm, Kamala goes to the attic and gets the bangle from earlier.

 

The next day, Kamala’s plan rapidly starts falling apart as all plans do. Bruno was late to meet her and as she exits out the window, she breaks the branch she was going to use to climb back in. They get to the later bus, but Kamala loses her bike as the doors close before she can pull it back in. They make it to the Con though. They have fun at a bunch of events, check out the memorial to Iron Man and Black Widow, get some merch, that sort of thing. Kamala gets an alert on her phone, and she sees her parents being flirty, which is a nice karmic punishment for sneaking out.

 

I wish wearing accessories changed my eye color...

The costume contest gets called. Before Kamala goes to get ready, she sees Zoe is there in her own Captain Marvel costume. And it isn’t even accurate. For shame. Kamala suits up but forgets the special gloves in the bathroom. Whoops. She realizes that she left the gloves as the final call is being issued. Bruno tells her to forget it and the two struggle to get the bangle open. She gets it open at the last second. She snaps it on and is covered in a blue purple energy for a second that causes her eyes to glow. She sees herself falling backwards and into what looks like another dimension, with a spooky crowd staring at her. Kamala snaps out of the trance, but doesn’t have time to process that as she gets on stage. The flashing lights of cameras disorientate her, and she accidentally triggers her powers for the first time, creating random clouds of hard light constructs. She hits a Giant Man statue, breaking the head off and causing a small bit of destruction. The head rolls and breaks the wires holding a giant Mjolnir. The hammer swings, hitting Zoe. She hadn’t seen it coming as she’d been gushing about Kamala’s costume to her. She gets thrown around, and dropped, but Kamala is able to make a hard light hand construct to save her at the last moment.

 

She and Bruno run, making it back to the Khan house. Kamala gets back to her room, with a little step up from a platform she makes. Bruno promises to not tell anyone and rides off. Kamala gets inside and finds Muneeba waiting. Muneeba chastises her daughter for sneaking out and being rebellious. Muneeba tells Kamala to start focusing on herself. Does she want to be good, like she was raise to be, or a cosmic, head in the clouds person. Kamala flops into her bead and makes her skin glow with the energy before saying “cosmic.”

 

They had potential.

In a post-credit scene, we’re shown Agents of the Department of Damage Control see a video of Kamala using her powers. The head agent saying they should bring her in.

 

I think this was a solid introductory episode. We got a good sense of who Kamala is, what her family and friends are like, and the general issues a teenage first generation Pakistani-American is dealing with. Iman Vellani really captures Kamala’s energy, her love of heroes and her difficulties relating to her family, her mother especially. I like that both of her parents are a degree of overprotective. It’d have been easy to make Yusef significantly more open minded than his wife, a sort of good cop/bad cop parenting set up, but instead he seems just slightly less overprotective. The bit where they tried to pitch the big and little Hulk idea to Kamala was especially well done. It showed that they were flexible enough to try to give Kamala some freedom, but still fundamentally misunderstanding the situation. Treating your kid’s hobbies as something inherently childish is not the best idea. And I must point out that a whole lot of family angst could have been avoided if Muneeba had asked to see her daughter’s costume before assuming it was going to be slutty. It made her speech at the end feel slightly hypocritical, as Muneeba refused to believe her daughter would make choices she approved of regarding how she dressed without supervision. If you don’t give your kids a chance to show you they make good choices, you’re going to give them a complex. I liked how they worked in Kamala saving Zoe as her first heroic act with her powers in the show. That was true in the comics as well, but she’d saved Zoe from drowning. I will admit, I like the effect of her powers. Some folks were upset when it was revealed that she’d have powers different from her usual just stretching powers, I wasn’t one. The purple and blue energy she throws around just looks neat. Also loved the editing in this one, they represent texts in this episode via signs and other objects in the environment around them. It looks neat, but sadly they don’t do it throughout the show.  So yeah, good start to the show. Next time, episode 2. 

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