SPOILERS ALERT!!!

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I’ve finished checking out another ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ series on Disney+ called ‘Ms. Marvel’. It’s rather fortunate that I’ve checked out this series, especially since the recent teaser trailer for ‘The Marvels’, due to be released in November 2023, came out. I’ve enjoyed ‘Ms. Marvel’.

Arguably, I found ‘Ms. Marvel’ better than ‘Moon Knight’. With that said, I can’t deny there are things in ‘Ms. Marvel’ that I would have liked done differently, particularly in terms of how Ms. Marvel’s origins as a superhero are set up and how a lot of the action-packed elements are handled.

I probably misunderstood the origins of Captain Marvel in Marvel Comics when it came to outlining them in my in-depth review on the ‘Captain Marvel’ 2019 film. If that is the case, I apologise for that. But like I said in that review, I haven’t come across Captain Marvel (and Ms. Marvel) in the comics. 😐

Anyway, ‘Mrs. Marvel’ introduces us to a new hero in the ‘MCU’ – Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. Kamala is a 16-year-old fangirl of the Avengers who struggles to fit in with her normal day life. Very soon, Kamala acquires her own superpowers via the use of a bangle that used to belong to her Nani.

It was interesting to see a Muslin/Pakistani influence in the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series, especially when it came to exploring Kamala’s background as a character. There are echoes of the ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘Demons of the Punjab’ for me, especially when checking out the fifth episode on Disney+. 🙂

I haven’t had a chance to check out the ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ book ‘The Extinction Key’ and the ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ 2020 video game, but I do recall that Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel makes appearances in them. I now sort-of know what to expect with Kamala after having seen ‘Ms. Marvel’.

In the first episode, the set-up of Kamala becoming a superhero when she uses the bangle at the ‘AvengerCon’ convention is well-handled. However, I felt there wasn’t enough of Kamala doing her superhero stuff, especially when the series tends to explore more of Kamala’s character background.

Kamala doesn’t even get to wear her Ms. Marvel superhero outfit until the sixth and final episode of the series. You know, at least Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker in the first ‘Spider-Man’ movie had his origins set up in the first half, before he donned the costume and became Spidey in the second half.

There’s also a lot of exposition dumped in the episodes for audiences to take in. At least for me anyway. I would have liked it if the episodes moved at a fast pace with us seeing Kamala more in the superhero role as opposed to exploring more of her background and the supporting cast around her.

The series features Matt Lintz as Bruno Carrelli, Kamala’s best friend and tech genius at school, who has a crush on her. There’s also Yasmeen Fletcher as Nakia Bahadir, Kamala’s close friend, who runs for a position on the mosque board; and there’s Zenobia Shroff as Muneeba Khan, Kamala’s mother.

There’s Mohan Kapur as Yusuf Khan, Kamala’s father; Saagar Shaikh as Aamir Khan, Kamala’s older brother; and Laurel Marsden as Zoe Zimmer, the most popular girl at Kamala’s high school. There’s Azhar Usman as Najaf; Rish Shah as Kamran, whom Kamala has a crush on; and Arian Moayed as P. Cleary, who is a DODC agent. 🙂

If you recognize Cleary’s character, he was in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (both of them). There’s Alysia Reiner as Sadie Deever, another DODC agent; Laith Nakli as Sheikh Abdullah; Nimra Bucha as Najma, Kamran’s mother; and there’s Trayina Sprigner as Tyesha Hillman, Aamir’s wife in the series.

There’s Adaku Ononogbo as Fariha; Samina Ahmad as Sana, Kamala’s grandmother; Fawad Khan as Hasan, Mehwish Hayat as Waleed, and Aramis Knight as Kareem/Red Dagger. Brie Larson makes a cameo appearance as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel at the end of the series to set up ‘The Marvels’.

‘Ms. Marvels’ as a ‘MCU’ series is okay. It’s a lot better than ‘Moon Knight’ – I could at least follow the plot of the episodes as I went along – but I would have preferred Kamala Khan to have been in the superhero outfit far sooner rather than later and actually have her doing more superhero stuff. 😦

With that said, I’m looking forward to seeing Kamala Khan team up with Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau, who appeared in ‘WandaVision’, in ‘The Marvels’. I know that people are divided over Captain Marvel in the ‘MCU’, but I hope to see the film soon in November this year.

Hopefully, I’ll be seeing ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ on Disney+ soon, but I’m looking forward to checking out either Season 3 of ‘Star Trek: Picard’ on Amazon Prime Video or Season 3 of ‘The Orville’ on Disney+ next. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂