Ms. Marvel 1, Loki: Agent of Asgard 1

Ms. Marvel 1
G. W. Wilson (w) and Alphona (a) and Herring (c)

Kamala Khan is a Muslim-American Pakistani from Jersey City who can't help but feel a little tied down by her family and her religion and culture. While she adheres to her culture and loves her family, she feels it's keeping her from her would-be normal life. In the spirit of rebellion and frustration, she sneaks out of her room to go to a party on the waterfront with a bunch of other high schoolers (led by blonde, attractive popular girl and purportedly fake-nice "concern troll" Zoe Zimmer). She's handed a cup of orange juice (not realizing it's spiked with vodka) and takes a sip, immediately spitting it back out but quickly realizing she's not really in the right place for her. As she leaves the party, irritated by Zimmer and others like her as well as by her friend Bruno's attempts to protect her, the Terrigen Mists sweep through the city and she's suddenly wrapped up in a cocoon. While inside, Iron Man, Captain America, and Captain Marvel come to her and begin speaking Urdu to her. They talk with her about her problems and she reveals that, if she had her ultimate wish, she'd be "beautiful and awesome and butt-kicking and less complicated," like Captain Marvel but preferring the old Ms. Marvel costume. Captain Marvel reveals to her that she's about to get her wish but that it's not going to work the way she thinks it will. She awakens to find herself trapped in the cocoon and punches her way out, shocked to find herself garbed as Ms. Marvel with long, blonde hair.

Very interesting introduction to Kamala Khan, the most talked about new superhero in quite some time (even as I write this "Ms. Marvel" is the top trend on Twitter). The book faces something of an uphill battle as writer G. Willow Wilson has to not only introduce the readers to Kamala, but to establish a lot about Kamala's culture and family. With plenty of other new characters, it's enough to throw them into their origin story and show us a couple of one-liners or fights or something else because we can basically assume they grew up in a certain environment. Here, Kamala's upbringing is core to who she is and, while that's true for everyone, it's an upbringing with which plenty of readers aren't familiar. In that way, the first handful of pages move a tiny bit slowly as there's a lot of set-up and a lot of dialogue but it all serves a really important point and it doesn't drag in the way you'd almost expect it to, which is to the book's credit. We come away from the first five or six pages with a pretty good idea of who Kamala is and what her status is as a teenager in school. The characters are all, in fact, pretty well-defined pretty quickly and it clears the way to focus on the story for the rest of the issue. It's rare to have a book that defines its brand new character so quickly but this one is certainly hitting that mark. The art, too, is a great fit for the book and the art style and colors give it a somewhat softer feel than most books of today. There's a lot to really like about this first issue and I'd trust it only goes up from here. Looking forward to what this book has in store and, for all the hype around this issue, I think it's living up to its billing.

Loki: Agent of Asgard 1
Ewing (w) and Garbett (a) and Woodard (c)

Loki, in his new body, is under the employ (if you can call it that) of the All-Mother to act as an agent of Asgard (hence the name of his new series). His newest mission? To break into Avengers tower and purge Thor of some sort of spirit inhabiting him that is making him base and bullying, turning him into...well, his younger self. Loki gets into Avengers Tower and has soon drawn the attention of every Avenger in the place (the movie team). His silver tongue and his misdirection, though, get him out of a jam long enough to go to the Avengers database and erase his file from its memory, vowing that he is not the same Loki who has attacked the Avengers so often in the past. The Avengers find him there and Thor attacks but Loki manages to stab him through the back with Sigurd's sword, a sword infused with magic that will make you suffer the truths you've ignored. In this case, it means that Thor has to look inward and realize there is, in fact, something in there with him, and it is expelled, Loki catching it in a cup of his own design. He and Thor talk it out a little while later (before Loki breaks out of holding) and Loki returns to Asgard to deliver the news and the cup to the All-Mother. As Loki leaves, the All-Mother opens the cup to find the old Loki, the original Marvel Universe Loki, inside, wishing to discuss the future.

I will say that I was a bit hesitant about this book. I didn't know Al Ewing before he came to Marvel but I liked his couple of issues on AVENGERS ASSEMBLE and then haven't quite liked his run so far on MIGHTY AVENGERS, leaving me more recently with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, a taste that thought maybe he was trying a bit too hard. Here, though, he's created a really interesting first issue that includes a lot of things that I'm eager to see more of. On the one hand, he seems to have restored a modicum of Loki's Gillen-reimagined character. I loved JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY and YOUNG AVENGERS but JIM ended with the old Loki in Kid Loki's body with Kid Loki's newfound innocence in the world. YOUNG AVENGERS was a little tough to get a read on Loki, who fought himself throughout and left the reader a little unsure what Loki would be coming into this book. This one deals a lot with stories and roles. Loki, in his very first appearance in the Marvel Universe, took on the role of god of evil, warping it enough from god of mischief to a burning evil. For Asgardians, the role they take is as important as any other decision they might make and Loki, then, was locked into this evil role until his death. And so he died and now here he is with a chance to set things right. He's still Loki, he's still the god of mischief, but he has the choice to not fall into the god of evil role. Of course, that will likely be made more difficult with the OG Loki lurking around but it's a great start to this book. As anyone who read my DEADPOOL KILLUSTRATED reviews or who has picked up on the fact that I quite like Neil Gaiman will probably realize, I'm a fan of the idea that the power of stories is great (also that I review comics for FUN - or profit, if anyone wants to hire me to do this). So I like the turn this series is taking to make Loki and Asgard mythical in the storied sense, especially on the heels of a book like JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY which focused very much on that idea. I hope this book continues in that manner, it should be a good run.