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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal

   

Cover of Ms. Marvel volume 1 - No Normal

Review:

If you are enjoying the new Disney+ Ms. Marvel TV series, you definitely will want to check out the original source material, starting with the 2014 debut of Kamala Khan. This collection reprints the first 5 issues of her ongoing series. And they are an absolute joy and pleasure from cover to cover.

Kamala Khan, 16 yr old Muslim girl in an immigrant family, nerd-level affection for Avengers and especially Captain Marvel. Outsider in high school. Usual teen tensions with parental rules. Such is Kamala's life.

But what if such a person suddenly acquired super powers? Ones that came with no user guide or manual. No online video tutorials? Power that needed to be learned on-the-fly, that involved whole-body transformations and distortions? How would such a nerdy outsider immigrant teen girl handle such a change?

These first few issues drop us into all of these tensions and do an amazing job guiding us through her life, her friends, her temptations and challenges.

The zealously religious brother. The more socially religious but strict family. The mean-nice popular kids at school. The true friends. The characters are a bit prone to falling into one-dimensional caricatures, but author G. Willow Wilson handles them with such care and affection that by the end of the collection they are beginning to mesh into a comfortable ensemble.

Wilson also treats the Muslim faith of this ground-breaking Marvel hero with a deft and light balance of sensitivity and seriousness. It never gets in the way, but Wilson also refuses to shy away from occasionally expressing the tenets and philosophies, and does so with admirable honesty. Stereotypes of terrorists or refugees, so common in other portrayals of Muslims, are anathema here.

Artist Adrian Alphona does a superb job with the distortions of proportions required by Ms. Marvel's powers of polymorphism. From Kamala to Ms. Marvel to Kamala's mother, all blended together in a sequence of shape-shifting panels, yet the reader understands exactly what is happening. The stylistic exaggerations are frequent enough to stamp this with a distinctive visual style yet never detract from the tale.

This is a charming collection. It is a delight to read and look at, and all the major themes of the TV series - Kamala Khan discovering and growing into her powers, while wrestling with her struggles as a teenaged daughter of immigrants, and of being a perpetual outsider - were set in place from the first issue. A strong 4 capes out of 5.

Description:

Marvel Comics presents the all-new Ms. Marvel, the groundbreaking heroine that has become an international sensation! Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City - until she is suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the all-new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! As Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to handle? Kamala has no idea either. But she's comin' for you, New York! It's history in the making from acclaimed writer G. Willow Wilson (Air, Cairo) and beloved artist Adrian Alphona (Runaways)!

Collects: MS. MARVEL (2014) issues #1-5
Authors: 
Artists: 
Published By: Marvel 
Published When: Oct. 28 2014
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN-10: 078519021X
ISBN-13: 978-0785190219
Language: English
Pages: 120 pages

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