content warnings: racism, islamophobia, violence
representation: pakistani muslim protagonist, pakistani muslim side characters


“There’s this ayah from the Quran that my dad always quotes when he sees something bad on TV. A fire or a flood or a bombing. ‘Whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed all of mankind — and whoever saves one person, it is as if he has saved all of mankind.’”


I would die for Kamala Khan. Part of me wants to just leave my review at that but I'll say say more shit.

This first volume of Ms. Marvel is about Pakistani Muslim teen, Kamala, who ends up getting strange powers. Inspired by her hero Carol Danvers (AKA Captain Marvel, known formerly as Ms. Marvel) she decides to start superheroing.

As far as a first volume goes the plot is pretty solid. It's mostly just Kamala getting her powers, realising what that means, and deciding to become a hero. The way she gets her powers is incredibly dumb, but on a scale of how dumb a superheroes power origin is it's actually not that bad.

There are two big things in this that make it really shine: Kamala herself and her religion. Kamala is a teenage girl with overprotective parents that she loves but feels suffocated by. She's a delightful character who just wants to do good in the world and I'm such a sucker for those type of characters.

The exploration of Kamala's relationship with her faith was so interesting. Her parents have quite traditional views and a lot of their parenting choices come down to their religion. I also loved that her religion played a part in the way she conducts herself as a hero, as displayed by the above quote.

I feel like this wasn't too coherent?? But I'll repeat: I love Kamala Khan, I would die for her in a second, and if she doesn't have her own movie in five years then I'm suing Marvel-Disney.