Ms. Marvel, Season 1, Episode 1: Generation Why
That was certainly different! To be honest, I didn't even realize that Ms. Marvel was out because I was under the impression that Disney+ was alternating between Marvel and Star Wars project, so I thought that we were going to have the first season of Obi-Wan Kenobi finish before we get Ms. Marvel.
And... and I've been aware of Ms. Marvel for quite a while now. As part of Marvel's "All-New, All-Different" soft-reboot-rebrand thing, Kamala Khan has probably been the one 'legacy' character that was universally accepted by almost everyone. There were a lot of characters that debuted alongside her, but I think most people agreed that Kamala Khan not only benefited from being a great jumping-on point for new readers, she was also sufficiently different enough from her hero Captain Marvel that it's not just "X-hero, but [insert ethnicity]". It really does help that the early issues of Ms. Marvel's 2014 comic-book run was genuinely fun, too.
And her first episode is... it's authentic, at least? It doesn't really quite have the same bombastic feel as Moon Knight's first episode, but that's not really fair because they're not really in the same genre. Ms. Marvel takes its time to introduce us to geeky Kamala Khan, who lives in a very conservative Muslim family with strict parents, barely has any friends at school (the Peter Parker parallels are definitely there) and struggles because she's way too much of a daydreamer who fantasizes about more creative stuff instead of being stuck in the humdrum of schoolwork and college applications and the like. It's something that most people can relate with, albeit delightfully seeped in the Pakistani-Muslim culture that is core to the character's identity.
Kamala is introduced to us retelling the events of Avengers: Endgame through her own YouTube channel, and we get to see that she's a massive dork and fangirl of Captain Marvel, she writes ten-part fanfiction (only ten parts? Amateur!) and has secretly been harbouring a grand plan of... winning the Captain Marvel cosplay competition in AvengerCon.
...and for the most part of this first episode, it's pretty... pretty slow, really. There are some super-powered action in the last five or ten minutes or so because Kamala's grandmother's bangle ends up giving her superpower, but otherwise the episode is content to just focus on Kamala and her supporting cast -- her strict mother Muneeba, her less-strict father Yusuf, her brother Aamir, her best friend Bruno -- plus spending scenes just exploring the family dynamics and the somewhat-suffocating culture around her. As anyone who's lived as part of an ethnic diaspora would know, yeah, this really is what the younger generation feels. Lump it in with Kamala herself being kind of a social outcast at school, having to deal with alpha-bitch-and-closet-Captain-Marvel-fangirl Zoe Zimmer, as well as her well-meaning but demanding teachers, we do really set up a pretty well-done introduction to Kamala and her supporting cast.
A good chunk of this episode is basically just everyone around Kamala telling her to focus on herself and her future, like a good little girl that her parents raised her up to be. And I feel like the show (and the comic it's based on) does a wonderful job at showing just how well-meaning Kamala's parents are, yet how much Kamala feels constricted living with them. Of course, her one deed of rebellion -- running away from home to join the world's first-ever AvengersCon -- ends up giving her far more than she bargained for as she went from a mere cosplayer to... to discovering that the random bangle she found in her attic actually granted her superpowers.
Kamala causes her own crisis and resolves it pretty quickly when her powers activated and caused some large props to break free, almost injuring her classmate Zoe in the process, and she and Bruno proceed to skeedadle from the convention. While her mother gives Kamala an amazingly well-acted dressing down, Kamala realizes that she has access to potentially 'cosmic' powers.
(There's also a mid-credits scene where we get Agent Cleary from Spider-Man: No Way Home, representing the organization Damage Control, who is going to investigate this new emergence of superpowers)
And... and from a comic-book-geek standpoint, they admittedly change a lot of details about Kamala Khan's actual powers. She creates Green Lantern energy constructs now instead of having Mr. Fantastic/Plastic Man stretchy-powers, and instead of being an Inhuman, she gets her power from a mysterious bangle. I... I honestly do genuinely think that the 'Inhuman' side of Kamala's story really isn't super-relevant to her story? It's like that argument on whether Spider-Man's webs comes from web-cartridges or organically created by the spider-bite. It doesn't really bother me in that sense, I guess, and as someone who's read her comics before, Kamala's appeal has always been her character instead of her powers.
I haven't watched ahead and I might sound a bit like an apologist, but I do wonder if the change to the source of her powers coming from her bangles is going to tie in to the fact that there is a great focus on Kamala's own heritage as she struggles with it, getting visibly irritated at the micro-aggressions when people mispronounce her name, but also getting pissed off when more traditional aspects of it -- like aunties gossiping about how dare a woman would rather travel the world instead of getting married... but at some points also accidentally yelling at how 'humiliating' it is -- a messy web of small things throughout the episode that also overlap a lot with her overprotective parents.
And I think more than any other Disney+ show except maybe Falcon and the Winter Soldier, this episode does a pretty great job at showing what the world of the MCU is like after Endgame. Merchandise about the Avengers and the Guardians, YouTube channels speculating on whether Thor is secretly a gamer or not, cosplayers (some vastly misrepresenting who they are supposed to be), Scott Lang making a podcast, speculation by the masses about who this mysterious 'cosmic hero' Captain Marvel that shows up, fights in a war and disappears... all very fun stuff, and the general convention vibe feels a lot more authentic and to-the-point for a superhero show compared to Hawkeye's LARP sequence.
Anyway, it's a pretty strong episode. It's very slow, though, and I can understand that people who come in expecting a more bombastic first episode like Moon Knight or Hawkeye might be a bit more disappointed since Ms. Marvel is a bit more by-the-books as far as superhero origins go. But they do a lot of great, stylish things like integrating Bruno and Kamala's texting into the neon lights and road signs in the background, and... I don't know, I just really do enjoy the idea of a fangirl as a main character, I guess? I really do enjoy the awkward-parents-trying-to-be-hip phase of Kamala's parents trying their best to hang out with Kamala with their Big-Hulk-Little-Hulk cringe act. Although I will admit that I kind of zoned out during the actual process of Kamala and Bruno escaping from home to go to AvengersCon. It is a slow but definitely well-done opening act for the show.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- So many continuity nods to other superheroes -- mainly those in the MCU movies. Kamala gives us an abridged and very Captain-Marvel-biased depiction of the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, and "AvengersCon" gives us cosplayers and artwork of basically everyone who showed up in Endgame.
- Among the artwork in AvengersCon, there's a drawing of Captain America with emphasis on his butt, a nod to the "America's Ass" joke from Endgame.
- A running gag in his debut movie, in a documentary about Star-Lord, his codename is parsed as "Star-Boy", referencing how no one ever remembers his codename in the two Guardians movies.
- Kamala's Youtube video notes cheekily about a topic on how "Thor is secretly a gamer", which he actually is in Avengers: Endgame.
- Also among Kamala's video, a cockatiel is prominently seen. This, plus a neon sign saying "Edison Electronics" when Kamala is up on the roof, refers to Kamala's first villain in her comic run -- The Inventor, an imperfect bird-man clone of Thomas Edison... who I'm pretty sure isn't going to be adapted into this season.
- AvengersCon is held in Camp Lehigh, a prominent location in Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I guess they rebuilt it after Hydra blew it up.
- The whole idea of Kamala's powers activating in a convention is a reference in the recent PS4 Avengers game, which heavily features Kamala Khan as well.
- The mid-credits scene character is Agent Cleary, first seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a member of Damage Control.
- In the closing credits, one of the 'Trust a Bro' vans from Hawkeye show up.
- Kamala covering her butt with a sash is a nod on how the comic-book version of Carol Danvers prominently has a sash around her waist, something she only wore in her brief Endgame appearance.
- Zoe's cosplay, while clearly inaccurate to the MCU's Captain Marvel, is a mixture of various Carol Danvers looks in the comics -- she has the blue-and-red colours of the modern look that the MCU version borrows from, but her bare legs is taken from Carol's time as Ms. Marvel.
- "Generation Why" is the title of an issue of Kamala's original 2015 comic run.
- A reference to Kamala falling into the Hudson River is a reference to how Kamala's first superhero act is to rescue Zoe from drowning in that river.
- Gabe Wilson, Kamala's guidance counselor, is named after Kamala's real-life co-creator G. Willow Wilson. The plaque outside of the high school feature other writers and artists from the comics.
No comments:
Post a Comment