Ms. Marvel #1: Embracing The Paradox [Review]

From the beginning, Ms. Marvel feels like the best kind of young adult fiction. Page one introduces you to Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim Pakistani-American and the star of the series, as she longingly smells some bacon she describes as “infidel meat.”
Kamala Khan doesn’t have that benefit. The character is female, Muslim, and new. Because of that, there are some readers who simply won’t give the book a chance and some retailers who won’t even bother to order it. In that sense, the pressure on the Ms. Marvel team to put out a good product far exceeds that of creators on other books. Chris Rock once said his father told him that if he wanted to succeed as a comedian, it wouldn’t be enough to be as funny as the white comedians around him, and then complain that they got jobs ahead of him. He had to be funnier than them – much funnier — in order to make it. He had to give people no choice but to acknowledge his talent. It’s not fair, but but it’s true. I think that’s the position the Ms. Marvel team finds themselves in. Sadly, it isn’t enough to be good; they have to be better.
Fortunately for us, they were up to the task. Maybe this is the revolution.