Ms. Marvel finale brings it home.
The series sticks its landing, cementing Kamala Khan as my favorite new Phase 4 hero.
The Short Take:
A heartwarming, hope-stirring final adventure, with satisfying payoffs for themes set up in previous episodes. I’m more excited for Kamala Khan’s role in the MCU than when we started; I’d say that’s mission accomplished.
[SPOILER WARNING: Swipe away from this faster than you would a bad Tik Tok video if you haven’t seen the final episode of Ms. Marvel Season 1 (we don’t have confirmation of a second season, but I think it’s safe to assume that there will be one). Even if you have seen the finale, make sure you go back and watch the end credits scene as well; I discuss the implications of that right away.]
The Long Take:
Mutants! It’s finally happening. We now officially have confirmation that mutants exist in the MCU.
With all the other characters and threads to tie up, I didn’t think we’d have time to introduce Kamala’s idol, Captain Marvel, into the main story, but I was pretty sure that we’d finally see Brie Larson in an end credits scene to set-up The Marvels, the sequel to Captain Marvel (2019) slated for next summer. We did. It was brief, but did just enough to put Kamala in Carol’s path, though it may take some time for them to actually meet. I was not particularly excited about the upcoming film until watching this series, and that’s a testament to its success.
What I did NOT expect in a million years, however, was Bruno telling Kamala that after examining her DNA he noticed something different compared to all her other family members — a “mutation.” Then, a very brief but very clear riff of the iconic (iconic!) theme from X-Men: The Animated Series plays as the camera cuts to Kamala’s surprised face. I’ll admit I didn’t notice the music the first time I watched because I was too busy throwing my head back and cackling with excitement at the mere mention of “mutation.”
This, of course, is not the first time a Marvel/Disney+ series has teased mutants or the X-Men. There was the whole Quicksilver/Evan Peters/Ralph Bohner fiasco in WandaVision, and Sam and Bucky, if you’ll recall, took a trip to Madripoor, a corrupt underworld typically associated with Wolverine. But while those references felt more like cruel teases, this feels a bit more definitive, like an announcement.
This excites me personally because the X-Men are my favorite Marvel heroes; I grew up on the animated series in the 90s and fell in love with comic book movies when X-Men came out in 2000. The X-Men can only be rivaled by Star Wars in terms of media that influenced me as a young nerd. (Maybe also Gargoyles, but no one’s talking about that show right now.) It now seems as though the revival of X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men ’97, slated for Disney+ sometime in 2023, could be a part of a larger initiative to introduce mutants and the X-Men into the MCU. If that means we might get Beast quoting Shakespeare in a courtroom in one scene and then Ms. Marvel hanging out with Jubilee in the next, I’m all for that.
Since the 2019 acquisition of Fox by Disney recently resolved copyright issues that have kept the X-Men apart from other Marvel heroes, there has been much chatter about if, when, and how the MCU might try to reintroduce mutants into the MCU. Knowing that, I got a kick out of Kamala’s response to Bruno’s news. She says, “Whatever it is, it’s just going to be another label.” I’d like to think this is the show’s way of infusing some meta-commentary about the MCU’s history with mutants. Originally, the comics called Kamala an “inhuman” because when 20th Century Fox still had the rights to “mutants,” Marvel had to come up with a different term to refer to similar characters. Hopefully now they won’t feel the need to come up with yet another specialized term. Inhumans didn’t work; just admit that mutants is what we want and move on.
While I may be elated by this revelation, I do not want to distract from the episode itself, which I quite enjoyed. By going back to a more teenager-focused adventure, like the first two episodes, this finale made me forget about all the complaints I had in previous two weeks. The only mention related to the bigger questions I had about Najma vs. Aisha and The Veil was when Kamran balks at the idea of accepting help from the Red Daggers. He says that that they have been fighting with his family for decades. This does imply that the battle to protect Earth from the Noor Dimension has been going on, at least since Najma murdered Aisha and the bangle fled India to Pakistan with Sana. But how?
Sorry, I said I didn’t care anymore. Beyond this one comment, the writers cut their losses with the ClanDestines and the Noor Dimension, bringing the focus back to Jersey City and Kamala’s motley crew. This was a very wise decision. I almost immediately became engrossed in their scrambling to save Kamran and the final standoff in their own high school against the Department of Damage Control. The Home Alone/Goonies shenanigans worked for me.
More importantly, though, a lot of the thematic seeds planted in previous episodes bear fruit here. All the Episode 3 discussion of not having to go it alone and finding family, community, and culture when you feel lost paid off in a big way. This is most evident when the Jersey City crowd surrounds Kamala to create a barricade in hopes of protecting her from Damage Control. I found the scene surprisingly stirring and not saccharine at all, and that’s probably because the writers set up the subtext for it so thoroughly in Episode 3. Kamala’s line to Kamran about the title of the episode, “no normal” neatly ties back into what the Sheikh Abdullah says to her in Episode 3 as well. She says, “There’s just us, and what we do with what we’ve been given.” I read this as evidence of her absorption of the Sheikh’s advice about doing good rather than just being good. The no normal line tries to pass that wisdom on to Kamran as well. I also love how supportive the entire Khan family is. They’re bursting with pride, curious, excited, and only a moderately concerned.
Kamala’s internal journey has been as much of part of this series as her relationship with her family, friends, and community. The shot of her looking in the mirror as she dons her finished costume echoes Episode 1 so powerfully because we can see how far she has come. The last time we saw her looking in her bedroom mirror she was still in search of something she felt was missing from her Captain Marvel costume for AvengerCon. Now, instead of an insecure, self-conscious teenager struggling to be herself, Kamala has now unified her perception of self, her aspirational self, her actual self, and the self she presents to others.
When Muneeba tells her that this costume is more “you,” it becomes clear that neither mother or daughter realized that what they wanted for Kamala was one and the same all along. She’s not trying to imitate Carol Danvers anymore. She’s strengthened her connection to her Pakistani roots. She’s not hiding who she is from everyone around her. (Well, except for the whole secret identity superhero thing, but they don’t seem to be particularly committed or worried to anonymity anyway.) Her material world can finally catch up with her imagination. Her character arc, so rich and deep, has been more satisfying than other Marvel shows I’ve seen.
Speaking of other shows, how would I rank Ms. Marvel against other Marvel Disney+ shows? I apparently had enough to say about this that the post became too long for Substack to publish! That’s a first. I moved my ranked list to a separate post, here. Feel free to read it and then come back to finish the rest of the review, since that’s how I originally wrote it.
My personal ranking reflects my assessment of these shows as sustained serialized narratives. But if I’m looking at the individual characters and not necessarily the shows in which they appeared, and if I’m thinking about whom I’m eager to see more of as the MCU moves forward through Phase 4 and beyond, Ms. Marvel quickly shoots to the top of that list. Kamala Khan is funny, exciting, and hopeful. She hasn’t yet been jaded by personal tragedy. She has a fun team of friends. She stress eats and falls down just like the rest of us. She has a compelling backstory. I want to see more of her and more of what she can do with her powers.
Alongside her, I’m most excited for all the younger characters that the Disney+ series have introduced to us rather than the older characters they’ve revisited. A team-up series or film we might get down the road with Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, and Maya Lopez sounds amazing. Maybe Nakia could take them in Kamran’s car to grab some shawarma too.