Ms. Marvel (2015) #12

Previously in Ms. Marvel #11

Ms. Marvel #12 - “The Road to War” | Writer: G. Willow Wilson | Artist: Mirka Andolfo | Color Artist: Ian Herring | Lettering: VC’s Joe Caramagna | Cover Artist: Cameron Stewart

This issue was simply delightful. Just like the audience, Kamala needed a break from the fighting, hurt feelings, betrayal, and disappointment caused by the Civil War II storyline. If you’ve been following along, you know Kamala has more than her fair share of loss in this event. Besides being estranged from her mentor, Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel, she’s also on bad terms with her best friend, Bruno.

It seems like the perfect time for her to get away, gather her thoughts and feelings, and figure out her next steps, and she chooses to do this by spending a month in Karachi with her extended family. Before she gets there, there’s one agonizing page as she spots Bruno boarding his flight to Wakanda; the look he gives her is heartbreaking.

Anyone who’s ever spent the summer away visiting family (for me, it was leaving New York City to visit relatives in North Carolina or Georgia) knows the mixed emotions that brings. You’re excited to get away, have new adventures, and see old family and friends, but you’re bound to get homesick as well. Kamala also has the added stress of feeling like an outsider in a place where she came to find herself. Her remark that her grandmother seasoned the food to “white people levels” so she could handle it made me cackle.

Despite being on vacation, Kamala’s call to help others and do the right thing leads her to don an impromptu uniform to stop a group of criminals blowing up water tankers to force people to purchase from them at a higher cost.

In doing so, she ruins one of the trucks and runs afoul of the local superhero, The Red Dagger (who just so happens to be a boarder in her family’s building). Kamala learns what she’s missing is context and the history of the current situation. The bandits are seen as heroes to some residences without access to water; you can’t just go around damaging the trucks when trying to help.

Eventually, Kamala realizes the answers she seeks, what’s missing inside of her is just that: something inside of her. She won’t find it in any specific place. She’ll have to dig it out from within. And seeing as how Jersey City needs her, home is just as good a place to do it as any.