Ms. Marvel-Season One: This Should Have Been A Very Short Special Instead

• Created by Bisha K. Ali
• June 8, 2022 to July 13, 2022
• Based on the character created by Sana Amanat, G. Willow Wilson, and Adrian Alphona
• Disney+

Main Cast

• Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel-Iman Vellani
• Bruno Carrelli-Matt Lintz 
• Nakia Bahadir-Yasmeen Fletcher
• Muneeba Khan-Zenobia Shroff
• Yusuf Khan-Mohan Kapur 
• Aamir Khan-Saagar Shaikh
• Zoe Zimmer-Laurel Marsden
• Najaf-Azhar Usman
• Kamran-Rish Shah
• P. Cleary-Arian Moayed
• Sadie Deever-Alysia Reiner
• Sheikh Abdullah-Laith Nakli
• Najma-Nimra Bucha
• Tyesha Hillman-Travina Springer
• Fariha-Adaku Ononogbo
• Sana-Samina Ahmad
• Young Sana-Zion Usman
• Hasan-Fawad Khan
• Aisha-Mehwish Hayat
• Waleed-Farhan Akhtar
• Kareem/Red Dagger-Aramis Knight

A 16-year-old fangirl of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel gains powers of her own.

I went into this movie with no vested interest in the character of Ms. Marvel from the comics. At least the current iteration. Or the previous iteration for that matter. So changes to character’s origin or whatever did not matter to me at all. I know a lot of comics fans have complained about the power change but because of my lack of familiarity that really didn’t bother me too much. I get it as I can empathize based on the handling of the character of Moon Knight on Disney+. I was looking for a good story as I always do.

I was not thrilled at all by Ms. Marvel. Bored even. There were points while marathoning this I completely lost track that the series was playing and it became inconsequential background noise. When I was conscious of it playing I found so much wrong I became a bit concerned I was getting petty and just nitpicking as one crappy element compounded another. I was left trying to figure out if anybody was actually in charge during production. Or maybe rather than too many instances of “No” all that the creatives heard was “Yes” which is just as bad.

Anybody who has read my review of the film Captain Marvel understands that I was not enamored with that movie. One of the things I brought up was how characters sat around and talked about how awesome Carol Danvers was in one aspect or another but rarely if ever was it shown. This does that for Carol Danvers and she shows up just in the very close of the series.

Ms. Marvel opens with an animated montage of hero worship involving Carol Danvers by the title character Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). Kamala worships Carol Danvers based on…? Seriously what exactly? Based on the films to date her exploits in the 90s were not publicized and beyond Endgame which she got essentially punched out of as I recall she has done nothing that the general public would be aware of. So why does Kamala have this obsessive level of idolatry?

I know Captain Marvel was being pushed as the new face of the MCU and that is what largely plays into things here, but we have virtually nothing anywhere to justify Kamala’s feelings. Is she so deprived of heroes or internal validation that she will seek the shallowest sliver wherever she can find it? And what does that say about her mental health?

Another sin this series has is not a lot happens. Ever. I’m not even talking about it from an action perspective. There’s just a lot of talking and not much else. And it’s talking for the sake of talking rather than have talking that advances the story. Action and dialogue and what not need to be used judiciously and not to stretch things out

That is what is occurring here. They padded a thin idea. What could/should have been a one off special on Disney+ gets dragged out into a multi-episode series that uses six episodes to do not very much other than to show how Kamala is just like everybody else in her everyday life. That’s not necessarily bad, but none of that propels the main character’s narrative forward and after the first episode or two it’s largely unnecessary. We already get that she has a normal life!

In order to get more mileage out of a thin idea they give Kamala a great deal of go nowhere personal drama long with not one but TWO threats. Two unconnected threats. We get the Clandestines who are a group of Djinn trying to return to their home dimension and the Department of Damage Control that mostly come and go from the story until the last episode when they pull out all the stops having acted rather insignificantly in general over things. Damage Control is looking for Night Light (Kamala) whom they view as a danger and that is what is the focus of the show’s ending.

Remove one and you only have enough story for maybe a 90 minute film. Toss in two and you might be able to stretch it out tonight to 2 1/2 hours. But the problem is this two or 2 1/2 hour possible film gets a lot of padding filled with unnecessary backstory or general gabbing that doesn’t advance the series at all.

This is a series with a message and one they beat the viewer over the head with. There’s a moment with Kamala when she is starting to have troubles with the government and the Department of Damage Control and she says that it would be nice to have a hero that fights for us. Didn’t the Avengers fight for everybody? Did fighting to return half of all life and prevent a mad extraterrestrial from using magic rocks to affect all reality not count as fighting for all of us?

The government is unnecessarily focusing on Muslims or minorities in general as terrorists or criminals. If this is a commentary on the American government’s actions post 9/11 then 9/11 would had to have happened at some point in the MCU before Iron Man but I do not think that is a reality for the characters meaning the commentary falls a little flat since the characters or story cannot directly comment on or allude to anything without setting up something comparable. And they don’t.

Thus it makes the agents of the Department of Damage Control and by extension the US government are bigoted and jerks for the purpose of being bigoted and jerks. They are Islamophobic and focus on Muslims and brown people (that’s the phrase that gets used heavily) exclusively. Is this some kind of broad generalization on the part of those behind the show because there is no in story reason I caught reason other than “just because.” Then again as I said this was boring and I may have just tuned out.

Speaking of Damage Control, they are framed as far worse (and maybe more dangerous ultimately) than Najma (Nimra Bucha) and the other Clandestines who are the group of Djinn trying to return to their home Noor dimension after being exiled to Earth. Kamala has a bangle (what a terrible name for an important object) that the Clandestines will use to open a portal back to their home dimension and if they do that they will destroy Earth or reality or whatever so many other Marvel movies and shows have that faces destruction.

They know this will happen and do not care. So how does that make them nicer(?) than Damage Control? Universal extinction versus general bigotry. Because Najma decides at the last minute to not do it and sacrifices herself to close the portal she opened. Huh? That makes everything she did just fine?

In the final episode Damage control shows up with some serious numbers and firepower yet get taken out more often than not by Home Alone style traps. Kevin McCallister could have and would have done the same as Kamala and pals did. And when Kamala does use her powers these armed individuals often do nothing but wait to get knocked aside. And all those people showing up to act as human shields feels completely unearned.

The acting of Ms. Marvel is not bad. It is just the material that they have to work with was not good. It was terrible or just lazy depending on the episode. The characters are shallow and undeveloped with the younger ones embodying the annoying aspects of modern youth culture to the point they get unlikeable. An influencer as a character? And the characters are written to the point they are interchangeable. They have almost no defined characteristics making me thing this was indeed a shorter project with a smaller cast that got stretched out into turddom.

There is no depth put into the scenarios presented. What is on the surface is all that there is. What is occurring serves the moment and nothing more. Not always bad but with it being consistent that there is not even the weakest of mystery here it leaves little reason to play close attention or have this series be anything beyond something to break the silence.

Ms. Marvel’s goal was clearly to set the stage for The Marvels. That is okay but it was a thin idea stretched out into a boring and just bad series. I say skip it!