Kamala Khan is in many ways the quintessential American teen: sneaking out of the house to go on adventures with her friends, navigating failed crushes and unrequited love, and arguing with her parents about their misaligned visions for her future. Of course, she has the added stressor of being Ms. Marvel, a superhero tasked with keeping her hometown of Jersey City safe.
In Ms. Marvel Volume 4, Kamala faces her biggest challenge yet: she has to navigate a possible apocalypse while also processing an unexpectedly painful heartbreak. The volume was like a prophesy for me—a week after reading it, I would experience a similar whirlwind crush that broke my heart just a little. And like Kamala’s community, my friends would gather around me and handle my heart with a gentleness and warmth I didn’t even know I needed.
I think a goal of the Ms. Marvel series more broadly is to challenge dominant narratives of Muslimness in the US, which it does well through the lens of Kamala’s experience of Pakistani American Muslim girlhood. She’s a rebellious teen and one having to sort through the messy ethics of having superhero responsibilities. Volume 4 takes this a step further. In the wake of a possible end to the world, this volume shows us a family that is both devoutly Muslim and also critically engaged with rewriting public narratives of Muslimness.
In this volume, Kamala’s brother and mom invite her to expand her sense of what her family is capable of. She realizes that they know much more about who she is and how she moves through the world than she could have imagined. They truly see her. And she learns that their love is unconditional—they are devoted to her, no matter how messy or rebellious she becomes.
Kamala isn’t prepared for the ways her family shows up. She’s been so busy trying to protect them from violence and an impending apocalypse that she hasn’t seen their growth. In witnessing her family's fierce, if surprising, support for her, Kamala finally gets an opportunity to soften. She gets relief from what she's felt has been her primary role: Ms. Marvel, the protector.
In its place, she gets to be a 16-year old again: to resolve conflicts with her 16-year old friends and sit with her heartbreak over the crush who betrayed her. She gets to set aside the burden of being a super hero, even if just for a few minutes, and to be held by the safety of her family’s expansive devotion.
Have you experienced moments in which your family members surprised you by going against a well-established belief system? Or maybe you’ve been the one to find yourself choosing loyalty and devotion over an important personal belief. Click below to like, comment, and share.
I really love the inquiry with the idea of protection and growth-- how sometimes we're so busy protecting and shielding that we don't see how people we love have grown in ways that can in turn help us heal our own hearts/wounds. Thank you for this, Mel!