Ms. Marvel #23 Review

Writer: G. Willow Wilson / Artist: Diego Olortegui, Ian Herring / Marvel Comics

Top of the arc!
Hello Kamala Korps members, we’re back again with a new arc, Northeast Corridor.

Wilson welcomes a new artist, Diego Olortegui, best known around Marvel for his work on Slapstick!, along with the return of the ever-reliable Ian Herring on colors. So the pages look familiar at first glance, but the details are shifted. For longtime readers, I may take a little getting used to. However, Olortegui’s grasp of Ms. Marvel’s powerset, her growing/shrinking/bendyness, is so strong it won’t bother you once you’re used to it. He does a great job of manipulating the back and foreground so she moves seamlessly from normal sized to large to gigantic and back. Nice work, Olortegui!

Plotwise, Ms. Marvel has vanquished another adversary and is ready to settle back down into being the local superhero in Jersey City. Well, except for a creeping self-doubt that she has failed her friends and the fear that they will fail her. You know, typical high school stuff. But her teen angst is doubled by this:

Yeah, Bruno ain’t coming back to Jersey City. He’s settling down in Wakanda to do science. Let’s be honest, I haven’t been to Jersey City, but I’d pick Wakanda every time. What’s our girl going to do now? Run into her non-cousin Kareem, who’s in town as an exchange student. You’ll remember Kareem from issue #12, the issue after Civil War II where Kamala spends a month with her family in Karachi, Pakistan.

Exchange students in fiction always turn things upside down in high school, and Kareem is on track to do just that. The straight female students are smitten (Zoe could care less) and Kamala, well being semi-responsible for him is just one more thing for her to stress about. But oh, there’s also a thing to solve! A runaway train! This is classic tragicomedy, as the runaway train, while a real danger, is not as it appears, giving the mysterious Red Dagger (also from Issue #12…) a chance to turn up and help with the rescue.

Hold up, Red Dagger was in Karachi, so was Kareem, HEY! Yep, it is like that. Teen superhero team-up! This is gonna be fun.

8 Slow Moving Trains out of 10

Reading Ms. Marvel? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.

Are you following Black Nerd Problems on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or Google+?

Tags:

  • L.E.H. Light

    Editor/Reviewer

    Editor, Writer, Critic, Baker. Outspoken Mother. Lifelong fan of sci fi/fantasy books in all their variety. Knows a lot about very few things. She/Her/They.

  • Show Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

comment *

  • name *

  • email *

  • website *