Kamala Khan... who are you? (Spoiler Free review for Ms. Marvel)

     Hey friends, it has been a really long time since I wrote anything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I was sort of overwhelmed by how many movies and TV shows there have been, as well as how long I wrote for the Avengers: Age of Ultron review. It was a lot to process and a lot to write about that topic, but I'm trying a new thing this week, where I'm going to spoil as little as I can about "Ms. Marvel," mostly because the show just came out and I don't want to ruin the show for anyone else. This is going to be a positive review, I want to say that right off the top because I really don't see many people talking about this show and I think it deserves some respect! I've been a fan of Ms. Marvel and Kamala Khan for a decent amount of time, though I have only known about the character for a little while. Full disclosure, my first exposure to Kamala was in a Lego Marvel (Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 maybe?) game I think, but I got to know the character better and fell in love with her while playing the Marvel's Avengers game from Square Enix. If you're not familiar with the game, Kamala is the main character, and she goes on a Muppets-esque road trip to reunite the Avengers and take down A.I.M. through her heartfelt support and dedication to her favorite heroes, she not only brings the Avengers together and brings them to victory against impossible odds, she becomes an Avenger herself. That is not what the show is about at all, but she is just as endearing and heartfelt in this show if not even more than in the game. Let's just get right into it with a basic character synopsis, shall we?

What is a show without character?

    As you would expect, Kamala Khan is the star of the show here, and she is constantly delightful. Very fast paced, very fun and imaginative, so much so that her energy affects the show in a big way. I was worried about how Kamala would appear after Kate Bishop was given something of a "fangirl" component whenever she was introduced in Hawkeye, but she was mostly just a fan of Hawkeye herself,  and that led her to devote her whole life to training with a bow and arrow. Kamala is a really fun character, a super fan of superheroes in general, especially Captain Marvel, and as such she's started a youtube channel where she's constantly making videos about fanfiction she has written, or why she thinks Thor is a gamer. I love her line in the first episode where she's talking about Captain Marvel and says "She just came out of nowhere and blew them all away." That just really speaks to Kamala as a whole, she truly wants to make a mark on the world and blow everyone away. The editing effects are many times much larger than life, done to show that the girl herself often has her head in the clouds, and the whole background will change around her as she's envisioning what is going to happen when she's making a plan, when she's texting friends, or just daydreaming in general. One of my favorite bits happens in the first episode, and she and her friend, Bruno, are discussing how she can make her Captain Marvel cosplay special and the graffiti on the walls are moving and acting out what the ideas are that are being discussed. It's such a cool scene and a lot of fun to look at. Bruno is just a sweet friend who happens to be a genius. You know, we all had that friend, don't lie to yourself and say that you didn't! Bruno is a really interesting character because he is basically a surrogate for the audience, and it gives a reason for Kamala's Pakistani family to explain different traditions of the Muslim faith, and he gets involved with them from time to time as well, there's another character who is even more of a surrogate, but I'll get to her soon. Kamala's Parents start out as little more than stereotypes of the "overprotective Indian parent," but they transition into really loving and sweet characters by the end of the show. Abu starts out more supportive than her mother, but I was really interested to see how her mom ended up being, as she never showed up during the story of the Avengers game. The same goes for her brother and his fiance, who becomes his wife during the course of the show. I liked them a lot, and the brother's fiance acts as an even better audience surrogate as she actually asks things about the family and prompts them to tell some important family stories, some which Kamala's mother would rather just forget about. There are a lot of great characters here, and I'm going to cut myself off before I deviate into spoiler territory, but I will give a shout out to Kamala's friend, Nakia, for name dropping Super Smash Bros. even though she doesn't like the game. That got a genuine cheer out of me, as Super Smash Bros. now exists inside the MCU, and I love knowing that fact.

The changes in power...

    So, the elephant in the room. Kamala has completely different powers in the show from the ones that she is best known for. In the comics, Kamala has very similar powers to Mr. Fantastic, the leader of Fantastic 4, she is all about super stretchy arms and legs, and she can polymorph her different body parts to be bigger and smaller at will. Kamala in the show has the ability to make hardlight projections, somewhat similar to the powers of DC's Green Lantern characters. That's how her powers look like in a cosmetic sense, anyway. After watching the show, obviously Kamala's powers work in a very different way, mostly still just acting as an extension of her body, though sometimes her crystaline powers can create platforms or shields. I have to be honest when I say that I was pretty upset at first when I saw the first trailer, and specifically just how she wasn't stretchy. I assume this comes from the inclusion of the Fantastic 4 into the MCU, who, as I stated before, has a stretchy guy as the leader of the team. I can see that they wouldn't want to have two characters with similar powers, especially if the Fantastic 4 are coming really soon, as some people are expecting. Ultimately, I ended up not caring that much about the power changes, as they still ended up hitting the same points as her normal powers. Kamala as a character is much more important, her personality is what makes her interesting and special to Marvel universe, and again, they completely nailed that aspect of the show.

I actually learned something from this?

    This is a weird thing to talk about, and it may reveal that I'm more ignorant than I thought I was, but I legitimately learned a lot of things about the culture of these different groups of people. They talked a lot about the partition of India, separating it into two countries, India and Pakistan. I'm sure that I learned about it in school, but I didn't remember hearing hardly anything about it. I especially didn't remember that it was such a bloody and deadly situation for people trying to escape to the proper side of the partition, with the Hindu people in India and the Muslim population in Pakistan (and ultimately another break would come later). It's wild that there's an event like this that just isn't really talked about that much here, because it doesn't effect us directly. As Kamala's family comes from Pakistan, there's an important story that's told about how her Grandmother was escaping on a train with her parents when she was a little girl. It was just really fascinating to hear about that,  I thought. This goes for the normal traditions of the Muslim faith as well. I have never learned all that much about them other than just in religious studies courses that I've taken over the years, but there was a wedding scene in this show, and it was really interesting to see this form of wedding opposed to the christian weddings that are in basically every other movie, show, and other media form. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with those, but I do think it is interesting to see some other cultures represented in media than the one that I was raised in. I think it is a really cool move, and it made me even more invested in the show than I already was. I'm also just really happy for all of the people who have these sorts of traditions that are being celebrated in the mainstream, some of them for the first time. I'm sure it means a lot to the community, though I certainly can't speak to that.

    "Ms. Marvel" is a fantastic show for a lot of reasons, and I just haven't seen many people talking about it online for whatever reason. I hope I can peak your interest to give the show a try today. It's all on Disney Plus, so you could definitely binge it now, if that's what you like to do. Truly, even more than it being a fun show, it's a show for the people out there who feel like they can't make a difference in the world, because they're just too small or there's nothing special about them. Kamala is a character who is told over and over again about what she needs to do and what she should never do, but with the help of her friends and a superpowered family heirloom, she is able to face any obstacle. Anyone can save the world, if they put their mind to the challenge, and I thank the cast and crew of Ms. Marvel for teaching that lesson.

    Thanks so much for reading my post, friends. Like I said, I've been really excited for this show ever since it was announced, and I'm so glad that it turned out the way that it did. I can't wait until this character and her friends show up in later Marvel projects, as I feel like this is some of the best supporting character development that Marvel has done so far. I know I didn't touch any on the plots here, but I didn't want to spoil anything for you, just in case you feel so inspired to watch the show! I hope you're all having a great week! Until next time, I'm a Self-Proclaimed Ms. Marvel fan, and I'll talk to you again soon!