Friday, June 02, 2023

Random Back Issues #106 - Ms. Marvel #11

Right, sorry. "Avian-American," perhaps? "Genetically modified artificial resurrection"?

Last time we looked at Ms. Marvel, Kamala was still trying to figure out her powers and learning that swimsuit costumes ride up in uncomfortable places. She's got all that under control now, which is good, as it's the big confrontation with The Inventor. Who, as you see above, is Thomas Edison cloned into the body of a cockatiel. I don't understand the thought process behind it, but it's hard to argue with the results.

He's been abducting runaway kids and using them as an energy source, reasoning the youngest generation aren't good for anything else. But during an attack on Kamala's school, he grabbed a few students, including her best friend Nakia. Plus, he's got a big robot to fight Kamala and the kids that used to work for him until she convinced them to switch sides.

Recognizing there's too much for her to handle at once, Kamala calls her other best friend and sidekick Bruno and gets him to call the cops. Any port in a storm. Meanwhile, rather than "embiggen" and try to smash the robot, Kamala goes small, crawling in among the gears (and the capybaras? The tail is awful short for rats) until she finds a wire that lets her control the robot.

Great! Problem solved. Or not, because the Inventor figured out electromagnetic pulses disrupt her abilities and she starts to grow. Inside a confined metal box that is not going to grow with her. This is how you end up with the kind of claustrophobia where you create massive hurricanes when Doctor Doom makes you into a living metal statue.

Fortunately, one of the kids went and retrieved Lockjaw, offered to Kamala as an ally by Medusa (back when Marvel was still trying to make the Inhumans matter), and the big dog tears open part of the bot and hauls Kamala (and a bunch of wires, and a bunch of capybaras) out by her ankle.

The cops show up, the Inventor climbs his disabled weapon to pontificate, it collapses, and that's it for the cuckoo bird. Time for post-fight sandwiches! Also, the Inventor's creator is hauled off, vowing to show who the real genius is, and one of the cops advises Ms. Marvel to be careful, because now bigger threats than this will be aware of her. In Jersey? Bigger threats like what? Toxic waste? Traffic snarl-ups? Multiversal incursions the Avengers are powerless to prevent because Jonathan Hickman sez so? Pfft, what are the chances any of that stuff could happen?

[7th longbox, 110th comic, Ms. Marvel (vol. 3) #11, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Adrian Alphona (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)]

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