written by Devin Grayson, Ryan North and G. Willow Wilson
drawn by Georges Duarte, Ramon Bachs, Irene Strychalski and Roberto diSalvo
If I understand this correctly the "Marvel Rising" miniseries is essentially a promotion for an upcoming animated series featuring Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl in leading roles. That would explain the overtly cartoony illustrations and the relatively kid-friendly storytelling approach.
In this story, Doreen works part-time teaching a class on game programming to help high school kids get into STEM, at the very same school where Kamala studies. Also studying at this school is Ember Quade, a gaming prodigy whose life in the real world is somewhat less than ideal, as she is always being moved from one state, and consequently one school to another. As a result, she is often bullied, especially by boys who can't take losing to a girl and only has one friend, whom she's only ever met online. She also has a secret: having been exposed to the Terrigen Mists that were released all over the world a while back, she also has super powers. When the bullying becomes too much for Ember to bear, she summons, albeit unwittingly, video game monsters that Kamala and Doreen have to fight, and when her mysterious online friend invites her for a meetup, things really start to get out of control, and Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl end up needing a bit of help, and fortunately, they get it from America Chavez and Inferno, aka Dante Pertuz. When Ember's mystery friend, however, turns out to be a deadly, longtime bad guy with a penchant for death traps, even the four of them might not be enough to save Ember.
I'm normally not a fan of these TV tie-in/promotional comics because Marvel usually enlists D-list talent to work on them, but it pleases me to note that this miniseries is an exception, at least far as the art is concerned. With an art team like Duarte, Bachs, Strychalski and diSalvo, this book is all win in the art department, though Duarte does the heavy lifting. It's all entirely consistent with the tone that writer Devin Grayson, who gets a helping hand from Unbeatable Squirrel Girl writer Ryan North and Ms. Marvel writer G. Willow Wilson, has set.
Speaking of the story, though, I have a few issues. For one thing, as much as I liked the back-and-forth between Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl and the other characters, I'm pretty sure this story could have been told just as effectively in a 40-page one-shot, or, if one wanted to stretch it a bit, a two-part series with 30 pages each. Either way, 100 pages (and I'm not even counting the Free Comic Book Day prequel) were way too much for a story that was not only inconsequential in the grand scheme but fairly standard, without any significant twists or turns. As cash grabs go, this was a pretty shameless one. One could practically just take out "Marvel Rising: Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl" and the story would still manage to make sense. That's how much filler there was here.
For me, the bigger sin here was the wasted opportunity to address what is arguably the scourge of pop culture of the last few years, namely gamergate, which is easily one of the most hateful things to happen to a fan community. Grayson touches on it briefly as she shows Ember being bullied by boys after she's beaten them in an online game, which sets her on her journey to super villainy, but never mentions it again, choosing instead to have Ember spout of some hackneyed "I don't need your help" dialogue. I get that this is basically aimed at kids (though it is rated "T" for teens) and that there were probably marching orders to avoid topics that were too controversial, but given that gamergate is a controversy that involves the abuse of women, I would have hoped that Grayson, one of the few prominent female writers at Marvel, would have given this topic more than just passing mention. If anything, the fact that she mentioned it at all, only to fill up the rest of the story with fluff, did the people who have genuinely been affected by this phenomenon a disservice.
So all told, this series has got very good artwork, a so-so, overextended story, and a sadly squandered opportunity to address a very topical issue. I don't really see myself coming back for a regular series, assuming one is in the pipeline, but this was at least worth checking out, if only for the art.
6/10
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