Ms. Marvel #8 (Marvel)

writer: G. Willow Wilson
artist: Adrian Alphona

via Comic Vine

The first part of the "Generation Why" arc continues the Inventor arc, introduces the Inhumans dog Lockjaw as Kamala's new pet, and helps further explain what G. Willow Wilson hopes to accomplish with the series.  It also sees the return of regular artist Adrian Alphona.

The Inventor is the default villain at this point, the problem our hero is still trying to figure out.  At this point Ms. Marvel is learning everything he's been doing, starting to clean up the mess, and is working toward the inevitable final confrontation.  For this issue, it's probably the least interesting aspect.

Moving on, Lockjaw's debut puts yet another element into the ongoing narrative.  Usually a move like this is done because someone's getting anxious for people to discover the series and they've started looking for gimmicks.  In this case, it's a kind of subtle tie-in to Kamala's heroic origins (as figured out by Wolverine last issue, a by-product of the recent Inhumanity event) without advancing the series arc too quickly.  The friendly dog is a gentle reminder, is all, a placeholder.  It's also a chance for Kamala to interact with her family in matters other than faith.  That's important, too.  Every kid wants a pet.  Comics sometimes forget that.

By the time Kamala shows up for class late in the issue, she has to explain away a few things.  Her teacher tries to prove that she's a bad student, but Kamala quickly turns the tables on her with this insightful comment:

"Well...giving up on the next generation is like giving up on the future, right?  And...and sometimes the next generation has to deal with all the problems the last generation left for it to fix, and that means getting up really early in the morning --"

It amounts to a mission statement for the series.  Some of it's pretty obvious, standard talking points, but Wilson also puts Ms. Marvel's context firmly in the very argument you always see but never see played out.  Quite literally, she's going to be dealing with problems (the ongoing Inhumans saga) that her predecessors have never figured out, and forging her own future, and by extension a new generation of heroes.

These days, new characters never seem to last.  If they stick around at all, they end up in a group and therefore don't really amount to much, compared to the legacies of characters created decades ago.  The last time there was a significant expansion of the superhero landscape was in the '60s, the whole reason we still, well, marvel at the Marvel Age.  Image came close in the '90s, but it's fair to say that no character from that time has become a true icon (Spawn, Savage Dragon, and Witchblade come close, but they still have yet to prove they can exist in contexts other than how they were originally presented).

Sometimes someone comes along and makes a clear effort to do something new.  Often, that's done in relationship to some established character.  That's what Wilson has done, but she's also made an effort to distinguish her efforts.  She's trying to make the character relevant as a kid growing up, and as someone entering the greater superhero community.

So far so good.