She discovered she has powers when we left. She is a hero for her actions. How will she progress as a hero?
After waking her powers in the first episode, "Crushed" opens as she comes to school with more confidence. She stands up to randos blocking her locker, plays a few hoops in the hallway, and musters up the courage to correct the gym teacher on how to say her name. But all that is cut short as she finds out that she has been getting success on her social media channel talking about their experiences at AvengerCon. She calls her hero name "Night- Light" to make things worse. She wants to go to the party to celebrate her close call at AvengerCon, after seeing her friend Desi invite her new friend Kamran. Bruno looked like he was going to get a lot more of this episode.
Bruno and Kamala investigate the new powers of the latter as she makes a big light fist and calls it an idea come to life. It is similar to how a Green Lantern's powers work, by tapping into their imaginations while also focusing on their theme. But she isn't mastering these powers yet. Thankfully she has Bruno run her through a training regimen as they investigate further, honing at least a few of her skills. She can walk on light constructs and has light blasts. It's not clear what the scope of her powers are, but the skies and her imagination are the only limits.
It is not simply that the bangle gives Kamala her powers, but that there is something genetic in her. Bruno told her that her power isn't coming from the bangle. It comes from within, like the bangle unlocked the part of you. I can't help but wonder if the bangle is related to the Terrigen Mist that unlocks the abilities of Inhumans in the comics. Even though this version of her has a very different set of powers, it would still look like her comics roots. I will keep peddling this conspiracy until I am proven wrong.
Kamala realized that she and Nakia are late for prayers after testing out her powers. When we go to the Masjid we are admonished for our lateness as we get to our prayers. The girls wash their faces, hands, arms, and feet before Islamic prayer in this video. In this series, it is refreshing to see a nice moment in which Islam is portrayed. The prayer scene itself is not so nice, and it leads to frustration for the two people. The audio for the women's section is very bad, along with other things, but the men's section is pristine. In the comics, only one problem is expressed by Kamala when she tells Sheikh Abdullah that it is hard to see him from the women's section. In order to make it better for the women in the Masjid, Kamala suggests that they run for mosque board. Do you think you're crazy? I wonder if I look like a 90-year-old man to you. In reply, Nakia said.
The show here seems to be poising Nakia, known and beloved in the comics for her steadfast Muslim identity and liberal political activism, as a Muslim reformer who will fight against white supremacy. Some Muslim communities need to improve their conditions for women. At least some Muslims will be able to relate to Nakia's story. The question is why this is the focus of the series when the gender inequalities were never really her focus in the comics. There aren't overly conservative Muslim communities in the U.S. that could use some reform, but why is that the focus so far, instead of the Islamophobia and racism that they face today. Almost all of her activism is focused inside.
The focus of the comics has always been about the systemic problems that come from the rich elite who oppress and ostracize her community, and she has always been aware of the Islamophobia her community faces. She calls out injustice whenever she sees it in front of her. As the past few years have shown, the systems of power in the comics are often based in violence and racism.
Maybe we will see all of that later on in the series, but the version we are presented with doesn't line up. When the casting directors cast a non- Muslim actress for the role of Nakia, they played into a "savior trope" that could have meant more for a Muslim woman in the role. Women's issues in certain Muslim societies need reform. I hope we get more of what she is talking about in the source material, instead of her complaining about the 22nd pair of shoes being stolen.
After prayers are over, we see Kamala go home and apologize to her mom for sneaking out to AvengerCon, and she uses the opportunity to get permission to go to the party as long as she keeps her curfew. There is a nice moment of reconciliation between the two, and Zenobia Shroff and Iman Vellani continue to skillfully convey their complex and multi-tiered mother-daughter dynamic on screen. This is the focal point of the series so far and there is a lot of heart here.
At the party, a man offers a drink to a woman, and she asks if there is any alcohol in it. He says no and she drinks it, then spits out the alcoholic beverage and her friends are angry. This is similar to the comics where this happens to Kamala at the same party where she gets her powers and it works well here to convey some of the ostracization she feels from her peers. Kamran jumped from a high height into the pool, causing Kamala and Nakia to fall in love with him. Kamran and Kamala share the same Desi background and have similar tastes in music and Bollywood. Everybody has our love triangle. I am currently #teamKamran.
In the same way we saw her fantasize about superheros in the first episode, we can see that Kamala is in love with Kamran the next day at school. There is a hard-light on Kamala's nose while she daydreams. She hides in the bathroom because she doesn't have complete control over her powers. This is similar to how her abilities are awkward in the comics, but without the bodily change, I don't think it lands here as well. The hard-light went away when Nakia came to the aid of her friends. They talk about how they deal with awkwardness at school, which leads to Nakia acknowledging that she is half white and half Lebanon in the comics. Even though the series touches on this change, there is a strange choice to not explicitly mention the Turkish ethnicity of the woman.
There is something questionable about the approach to one of its most fundamental supporting stars. It is a nice conversation between friends if we step back from the comic books. There was no need to change the background of the character. After a fun sequence of Kamala out with Kamran–where she is almost spotted at a restaurant by her brother and fiancée–we cut to a nice dinner with Kamala's family. After Yusef mentioned that his family has been in Karachi for many years, he said that Muneeba's family moved to Karachi after the partition.
There was a civil war after the British left us with a mess. More than two million people died and 15 million were forced to move because of it. The trauma left by Western Imperialism informs the experiences of many SWANASA families today, but doesn't define them. In popular media depictions can sometimes stray towards the latter, and I hope Ms. Marvel keeps trying to find a balance. When Yusef starts to tell a story about Muneeba's family after the partition, it gets very interesting. Just before the train pulled out of the station, the woman got back on the train. He says that she followed a trail of stars. When he mentioned that his mother, Aisha, had vanished that same night, his bangle began glowing and she saw a vision of a Desi woman. The experience has had a big impact on Kamala, who passes out only to wake up and find her family worrying over her, in a wonderfully funny family moment.
Later that night, Kamala called her and asked her about the bangle she had, but she wouldn't let him know anything more. She gets no help from her mother the next morning, trying to ask Muneeba about what happened to Aisha, as Muneeba clearly harbors some grief over something she did long ago. As we cut to the local community celebrating the holiday, we pondered the mystery of the family. The scene is bright, colorful, and vibrant, with lots of delicious food, beautiful clothing, fun conversations, and people having a great time. There is a touchingly fun way to show the lumin-aunties, mosque Bros, Pious Boys, Sunday School Teachers, and Converts/Re-verts. I would like to give them all spinoffs.
As the story quickly transitions to danger, it seems that Muslim joy is enough for now. While questioning her about her social media prowess, Agent Deever andrian Moayed guilt tripped her into saying she did it for social media clout. There is a weird, unnecessary low blow of a "woke joke" when they mention the possible ethnicities of Night- Light. South Asians? It is at that last suggestion that she gets a glimpse of the future. How would she know that when she wasn't seen by the public? Time will tell if the plot was worth the effort.
Before telling Deever to sweep every temple, community center, and mosque in the tri-state area, he was told to be respectful by the FBI. It is close to being as close to acknowledging an external aspect of Islamophobia as Ms.Marvel has been willing to get. It's a necessary step for the show to take, but I wish more of the everyday microaggressions from people like ZOE were more of the focus of the show. While campaigning for Nakia to join the mosque's board, she discovers that her great-grandmother was known for bringing shame to her family. A young boy has tripped on top of the mosque tower, clutching on for dear life, and she sees the chance to come to the rescue, using her CaptainMarvel cosplay as a disguise again. It is time for the adventure to begin.
After getting the boy to think about his favorite food (pizza with ice cream on it) and making a set of light steps for him to descend on, Kamala tried and failed to make a series of platforms for the boy. As she scurries away into an alley to escape, she finds herself surrounded by drones which look very similar to the ones in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But not before bumping into Kamran, who pulls up in a fancy car and offers her a ride, with his own mother. The name isKamala. She says that she has been waiting a long time to meet you. What is this woman's purpose? Why are these agents following someone else? There is a seat on the mosque board. The person is the great shoe thief.
The second episode of the show is a good step forward for the show, setting the stage for some mysteries for Ms. Marvel to keep digging into while still thoughtfully exploring conversations on the role of intergenerational trauma that turns up for many of us in brown families. Some more modern-day explorations of the prejudice we still endure, at least balanced with the internal conversations we have, may propel these storylines forward into even deeper resonance and more compelling stories as the series continues
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