Captain Marvel super-fan Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) finds her dreams becoming reality when she stumbles across an ancient bangle passed down through her family; a bangle that bestows the user with cosmic powers. After a series of mishaps occur as she struggles to control her powers, Kamala finds herself on the run from the Damage Control department and a gang of other super-powered beings, desperately trying to balance her search to find herself with the pull to be a dutiful daughter and friend.
Starring: Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Zenobia Shroff, Yasmeen Fletcher, Rish Shah, Mohan Kapur & Nimra Bucha
Watch it now on Disney+
For a while now it has seemed as if the old-school days of the MCU are over. Gone are the small-scale origin stories about men learning to work with ants and soldiers struggling to defeat skull-faced Nazis, replaced with the sprawling, world-ending stakes of the Avengers films. Hell even the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man himself – ever the small scale hero – is tackling purple aliens now instead of bank robbers. Ms. Marvel is a glorious return to that bygone form, perhaps not in the scope of its action but certainly in its story, which spans generations and yearns to show a different side of the MCU than audiences are perhaps used to. In doing so it becomes one of the studio’s best shows and indeed projects they’ve put out in some time.
The heart of Ms. Marvel lies in the charming family dynamic at its centre. The Khans are a tight-knit, loving group of people – there’s the touch overbearing matriarch Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), the effortlessly cool dad Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) and joker brother Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) with his soon to be wife Tyesha (Travina Springer) – and they are a joy to spend time with, their relationships to Kamala in particular feeling authentic and lived-in. Fresh out of high-school herself, Iman Vellani is easily able to handle the typical teenage frustration of having your family insert themselves in your life and gives a bright, bubbly performance that is instantly endearing.
In a rare move for a Marvel Disney+ show, Ms. Marvel uses those early episodes not to establish some convoluted mystery that it will later fumble (Moon Knight), but to make you care about Kamala’s everyday familial and school struggles. This foundation makes it all the more impactful once the powers and villains are introduced to the story: things are already so hectic for Kamala, how can she possibly take on the pressure of super-powers? It’s a wise approach that ensures that the considerably pared back approach to the action (no alien armies or Egyptian gods here) still feels monumental in Kamala’s world. It’s not every day that you’re chased across the rooftops of New Jersey by drones and showrunner Bisha K. Ali wrings every last drop of fun out of these set-pieces.
Also worth noting is the fact that this is one of very few of these Disney+ Marvel series not to succumb to an incredibly rushed finale. The series drags a touch here and there and overextends at times in just how many characters it wants to introduce and give justice to but all the key beats of Kamala’s story feel earned. The representation of Kamala’s Pakistani culture is also a highlight of the series (a vibrant wedding dance set-piece is joyous). Never does the show feel like it includes it simply to say this is Marvel’s first Pakistani hero; the Khan’s culture and heritage are woven into the very fabric of the story. In a lot of ways their family life is universally relatable – who amongst us hasn’t had fought with friends or struggled with an overbearing parent – but the differences here serve to differentiate this as a unique piece of Marvel entertainment, one that justifies its existence as a wholly seperate piece of storytelling, rather than just a Pakistani version of Spider-Man.
After the multiverse-ending stakes of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the over-the-top ridiculousness of Thor: Love and Thunder, Ms. Marvel is a breath of fresh air, a reprieve that feels both familiar in its origin story setting and unique enough to expand the MCU into a whole new direction. Iman Vellani shows great promise as one of the new young heroes to usher in a new era of Marvel and the rich familial story told here shows nothing but promise going forward. If you’re one of the people longing for the MCU before it became gigantic, you might just be surprised by this little marvel.