Ms. Marvel, Vol. 6: Civil War II by G. Willow WilsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This volume of Ms. Marvel is apparently G. Willow Wilson being dragged kicking and screaming into Marvel's misbegotten Civil War II. Everything I've heard about this "event" makes me more disinclined to read it. Having said that, Wilson manages to wrangle the beast into some semblance of coherency, by sticking as much as she could to her own characters and storyline. These include the issues bookending the Civil War sections, with Kamala meeting Spiderman Miles Morales at a Jersey City science fair (complete with kooky Marvel-universe physics) and Kamala returning to Pakistan to visit her family, regroup and figure out what she wants to do with her life. She makes some bad decisions in this volume by (temporarily) siding with Captain Marvel Carol Danvers and her misguided foray into "predictive justice," and the fallout for those decisions will presumably be the series' focus going forward.
This is a bit of a mess, and it's not really Wilson's fault, which is why I have given it four stars. She explores the moral question of Civil War II by bringing down to a very personal level for Kamala, and mostly succeeds. The basic conflict of Kamala's life--her family and personal identity versus her superhero identity--has never been more evident. There are several small, poignant character touches that save the story, and the closing issue in Pakistan is very good. I wish we could see Kamala visit Pakistan more often. (And meet up with the local superhero the Red Dagger, who I'm fairly confident is Kamala's "friend-in-law" Kareem.) The volume ends with Kamala returning to Jersey City with a renewed determination to protect her city and its people, and an acknowledgment of the awesome, crushing responsibility she must shoulder. Hopefully we will leave Civil War II behind in the next volume, and if we do, things have been set up for some impressive storylines in the future.
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