Make Mine Marvel: Looking Back at “Ms. Marvel”

Marvel Unlimited, Marvel’s digital comics subscription service, is once again offering all fans free access to some of Marvel’s most iconic stories from recent years, including now-classic Marvel Comics events and critically acclaimed runs featuring the Avengers, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and more.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to take a look back at these classic stories and maybe help you decide whether or not you would like to check them out. Our next series introduces a new hero and teaches her the lesson that she doesn’t need to try to be a new version of an old hero, she just needs to be herself.

Ms. Marvel

Kamala Khan is a young girl in Jersey City and – aside from her videogame prowess and love of all things Avengers – she’s pretty much your average high schooler. That is, until she isn’t. A mysterious mist descends on the city, seemingly affecting everyone it touches. Only, it affects Kamala a bit differently.

After a vision of Captain Marvel and the Avengers, she awakens with a weird feeling and some very strange new abilities. For one, she looks just like Captain Marvel in her old costume. And for another, she’s seemingly growing and shrinking at random.

After she witnesses an incident involving one of her classmates though, she springs into action, saving the girl’s life. From that moment, she realizes these new abilities of hers allow her to help people. She just needs to learn exactly how they work first.

Marvel offers a lot of different heroes to choose from, with a lot of different personalities that lead to very different stories. You want someone stoic and patriotic? Read Captain America. You want someone who doesn’t care about authority and does what he wants? Read Wolverine. You want tacos? Read Deadpool. If you want to see a teenager who geeks out over all things superhero and otherwise has no idea what she’s doing, you read Kamala Khan.

Marvel does a great job of creating characters that are loveable and relatable and Kamala perfectly fits that bill. She might not be what you would like to think you would be if you suddenly obtained super powers, but let’s face it, she’s exactly who we all would be if we suddenly obtained super powers.

Ms. Marvel is probably not the series you want to jump into if you’re looking for your typical superhero story. There’s no big villain threatening life as we know it, no impending alien invasion and definitely no superhero mentor teaching the young new hero everything they know. Instead, this is a fun introduction to a very entertaining new character.

And it may be one that is of interest to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A Ms. Marvel series was announced at the D23 Expo last year and is planned for Disney+. MCU fans who aren’t willing to wait for the new series can get acquainted with this fantastic character by reading this comic series ahead of time.

You can read “Ms. Marvel” for free now. And be sure to check back as we look back the rest of these classic Marvel Comics stories over the next several weeks.

Mike Mack
Mack is the Editorial Director for Marvel and ESPN content and he has covered comic cons, theme park events, video game showcases and other fun events. He is a fan of theme parks, sports, movies, Marvel Comics and is a self-proclaimed "nerd."