Ms. Marvel #1 (Marvel)

via Comic Book DB

writer: G. Willow Wilson
artist: Adrian Alphona

The mantle, as it were, of Ms. Marvel has been passed around more often than any other comic book character.  Certainly among relatively minor ones.  So when this series was originally announced, my only reaction was, "Great!  Another Ms. Marvel!"  (*insert sarcasm sign*)

But the series was given a lot of hype, because this wouldn't be just another Ms. Marvel, but one of the many the-latest-incarnation-is-an-ethnic-variation! updates that are the safe version of diversity in comics.  This Ms. Marvel would actually be...Arab American.

Even that wasn't nearly enough to interest me.  It was a little surprising that it took comics so long to tackle the Middle East.  Over at DC, Black Adam was retrofitted to fit that type in the years after 9/11 thanks to Geoff Johns.  I'm not complaining about that one at all.  A total creative revival that has had limitless dividends. Grant Morrison touched on the topic in New X-Men.  Johns recently revisited the idea with the latest human Green Lantern, Simon Baz.

So all in all, Marvel's effort was a bit Johnny-DC-Come-Lately.  And in an incredibly safe capacity.  I mean, would anyone have cared at all about a new Ms. Marvel otherwise?

Except at some point I became aware of the writer attached to the project.  G. Willow Wilson.  There could not have been a better choice.  Wilson converted to Islam and has been relating her insights in her writing for years, to my mind still most successfully in the pages of Air, though her novel Alif the Unseen is a perhaps more visible effort.

Although I've been a big fan of Wilson since discovering her in Air, she otherwise maintains a fairly low profile.  After Air was cancelled, she disappeared for a while, resurfacing in the resurrected Mystic but otherwise appearing to be as completely unappreciated as the quiet reception of Air suggested.

So to see her with a project like this was both unexpected and gratifying.  Turned my perspective completely around.  Was my faith justified?

I've now read the first three issues of the series.  So yes, yes it has.  This debut issue introduces Kamala Khan, who like all of Wilson's lead characters is at a crossroads in her life, footing in separate worlds and finding them hard to reconcile, when a drastic change in her life forces her to confront ideas she's only been toying with.  In this instance, a mysterious transformation into the new Ms. Marvel.

Kamala has friends and family that push her in these disparate directions.  She also happens to like comic books and has her own opinions of superheroes (there's a fantastic sequence in the issue depicting them, which is one of the few instances of Wilson actively presenting her view of them, and is itself wildly refreshing even in an era that seems to want to present superheroes every way possible).

This is an origin issue.  It's the first of a five-part arc, and so if you want to experience what Kamala is actually like as Ms. Marvel, you have to wait until the next installment.  (Once you've read the first two issues, you'll really have a proper sense of what it'll be like.)

The cover is a pastiche on the cover of the 1996 debut issue for Peter David's Supergirl:

David's version of that other frequently rebooted character was also all about grounding a traditional superhero into a more recognizably human setting, but with strong identity issues and an unusual approach to the differences between being a person and a superhero at the same time.  Similar (and I read that series for a while, probably some of the best PAD material I've read), but Wilson's approach is more assured, more grounded in material we've seen from the writer before (although, yes, I suppose it could be said that Supergirl probably resembled the Incredible Hulk).

Having now read the new Ms. Marvel, I can confidently endorse it.  Not just because I'm already a fan of Wilson.  But because it's Wilson firing on all cylinders, and making a truly unique superhero comic in a landscape full of such attempts.