Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1-4

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1-4

Originally released in 2023

Written by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada

Art by Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham

Ms. Marvel has traditionally been an Inhuman, having been created at a point when Marvel was trying to downplay the X-Men and push the Inhumans as much as possible because they had the movie rights to the latter but not the former. Once that was sorted out, Ms. Marvel was made into a mutant in the MCU, and the comics followed suit in a controversial storyline. (She was abruptly killed off in Zeb Wells's Spider-Man run, a comic that she was barely in, before being brought back to life almost immediately)

Kamala Khan is going through an identity crisis - she doesn't really know who she is or where she belongs.  This is normal for a lot of young people, but in her case, she's not sure whether she's a mutant or an Inhuman, or a Champion or an Avenger. She's been having the same dream about that premise for weeks, pretty much since she was revived and found out that she has a dormant mutant gene. Piling on top of this is the problem that anti-mutant sentiment seems to be at an all-time high thanks to the manipulations of Orchis, a coalition of racist scientists who are working with Sentinels.

As the public doesn't know that she's a mutant, Kamala is tasked with spying on Orchis while participating in a college summer program that they're running. (She's still in high school at this point) We get a brief look at her family at the start, and Kamal's family and friend group remains a highlight of her comics.  In a time where the idea of an ordinary supporting cast largely feels like it's being phased out, Kamala's family and friends are refreshing, even if there's the frustrating plot point of Emma Frost mind-wiping them to forget about Kamala's secret identity along with her death when they had learned about her being a superhero and grown to accept it.

Kamala meets with the X-Men's underground resistance, which includes Kitty Pryde. Kitty has taken a dark turn in the aftermath of Krakoa, being much more serious and calling herself Kate Pryde.  That's what she called herself in the future timeline of Days Of Future Past, so that doesn't seem like a good sign.  Kamala has to find some kind of underground research base that Orchis set up beneath the college. (Though it's Empire State University, so I don't know why they keep calling it "college")

Orchis's influence can be felt all over Empire State University. There's a plainly visible "Anti-Mutant Club" that's being promoted, which seems like the sort of open racism that generally wouldn't be allowed.  Her best friend Bruno was also mind-wiped when it came to Kamala's death, so she hastily tells him about her being a mutant. (She does this in a food court on campus, which seems like a really bad idea - you'd think that Orchis would have surveillance everywhere)

When the campus comes under attack, Kamala springs into action, debuting a new suit for Ms. Marvel.  I'm not really a fan; it feels like it strips away or minimizes anything unique about Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers' old logo is shrunk and moved to her left shoulder; she doesn't have the bangle on her wrist) in favour of emphasizing how she's a member of the X-Men, making her feel like less of a solo hero and more like a part of a group. (Something similar happened to Gwenpool, where she retconned herself into being an X-Men and went from series lead to background extra as a result - I don't want the same thing to happen to Kamala)

Orchis has been experimenting on Chitauri, the aliens who were used in the first Avengers movie.  One of them escapes, dying shortly afterwards, but when it self-destructs and Kamala tries to get a crowd of students out of the way, they think she's attacking them.  Iman Vellani portrays Kamala in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and she's one of those cases where (much like Christopher Reeve as Superman or J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson) she basically embodies the character, and her writing in this perfectly suits Kamala.

When she tries to communicate with the X-Men, Kamala is attacked by a group of Orchis's drones; with Iron Man's help, she fights them off, though a microscopic drone attaches to her head in an attempt at influencing her dreams, which are already jumbled as it is.  Tony takes Kamala to meet with his wife, Emma Frost, where she tries to get advice for what to do.

That night, she tries to get to the bottom of whatever part of her subconscious is causing her to have the same dream every night for the past ten weeks. Orchis's drone acts as a psychic bomb, infiltrating her dreams to try and make her accept it so it will detonate, frying the synapses of everyone who's telepathically connected to her.

Orchis's dream virus (for the lack of a better term) tries to make it seem like she's accepting her mutation, when in reality, she would be accepting and activating their psychic bomb.  She rejects it, as her powers don't make a difference when it comes to why she uses them, and she wakes up only to find a Sentinel outside of her window, which has detected a mutant. (the Sentinel in question is a Stark Sentinel - I have to question why Tony thought that developing Sentinels would ever be a good idea, but maybe that happened in Avengers vs. X-Men)

Through science, stretching, and Bruno convincing students to think for themselves and help others rather than parroting whatever Orchis tells them, Kamala manages to defeat the Sentinel.  In the aftermath of the attack, at least one of my issues with Ms. Marvel's costume gets addressed - she gets the bangle back.  Kamala ends the series by reflecting on her fears and nightmares, and concluding that it doesn't matter what she's labeled as long as she stays true to herself.  What she is isn't as important as who she is.

This was a fun mini-series with a good message.  I was concerned that Ms. Marvel's Inhuman ties would be ignored or overwritten by connecting her to mutants, but the series did well with making that uncertainty into a plot point and showing that Kamala's Inhuman abilities are still important to her.  Since becoming a mutant, Ms. Marvel hasn't had much focus, being limited to four issue mini-series and a team book focusing on mutants in the New York area (even though she's primarily based in New Jersey), though hopefully she gets an ongoing series of her own soon; she's too good of a character to be stuck on the sidelines.