Making Amends: A Review of Ms. Marvel, Vol. 11, "Destined"

written by Saladin Ahmed
penciled by Minkyu Jung
inked by Juan Vlasco
colored by Ian Herring

It seems somehow wrong that I regularly review comic books as a hobby, and yet have neglected to review so much as single collected edition of the adventures of Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, the publisher's very popular Pakistani-American superhero, whose adventures I have been following quite diligently since 2015. However belatedly, I intend to right that particular wrong with this review. It's just a pity, though, that the volume I am finally reviewing happens to be the first one not written by Kamala Khan's co-creator G. Willow Wilson.

In essence, Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel and her family are kidnapped by aliens, who believe her to be a great being destined to free them from her oppressors. Of course, things are not quite what they seem and Kamala has to take a stand when she learns the truth. Also, one of her family members has a terrible secret which, when revealed, will shake Ms. Marvel to her very core.

I'll be honest; of the eleven volumes of Ms. Marvel that I've read over the years, I have to say this is among the weaker ones. Ahmed gets a lot of the core aspects of Kamala Khan right, like her kindness and brashness, but he does her no favors by dropping her into a story that can only be described as hackneyed, including the "twist" which is telegraphed from the word "go." I've seen very little of Ahmed's work, such as his Amazing Spider-Man annual from last year (which I quite liked) and his first volume of "Miles Morales" which I found to be just O.K. This ranks well below both of them in terms of creativity and storytelling craft, though I do think he has a gift for snappy dialogue. The art by Minkyu Jung is decent but a far cry from the renderings of the series' best, like co-creator Adrian Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa.

Still, Ahmed does pick up the various threads that Wilson left hanging and opens up one heck of a thread of his own, so it'll be interesting to see where he takes the character and her cast from here. Still, I had kind of hoped for a better first effort from this writer, whose work I genuinely liked.

6.5/10