The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #17 // Review
The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #17 is written by Saladin Ahmed, drawn by Minkyu Jung, colored by Ian Herring, and lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna. In this penultimate issue, Ms. Marvel faces old enemies, uneasy alliances, and betrayal from a friend.
When Kamala learns that Rubicon (The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #8) has been crawling back into Jersey City, she temporarily puts aside her fight with C.R.A.D.L.E., reluctantly forming an alliance with Dugan to put down the more immediate threat to her city. And while she gets the chance to work closely with an enemy, maybe Ms. Marvel can help him see things from her side.
Ahmed has always done a good job of adding very real and important ideas in the dialogue of The Magnificent Ms. Marvel, and this issue is no different. As C.R.A.D.L.E. is using so much money and resources to hunt down Ms. Marvel, multiple teenagers have been disappearing off the streets. When Ms. Marvel calls out Dugan for this, he says, “...I don’t make those calls. I just do the job that needs doin’.” To which Ms. Marvel responds, “‘Only following orders’ is never an excuse.” Dugan and his team might not be the ones running the reeducation centers for teen superheroes, but they’re actively helping put them there. Ahmed makes it clear that even though Dugan isn’t the one at the top, he and his team are complicit in a harmful and unjust system because they refuse to fight back or speak out.
The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #17 gives Jung the opportunity to draw a lot of dynamic action scenes. Kamala uses her shape-shifting to deposit C.R.A.D.L.E. employees on rooftops, fight zombified corporation employees, slide under doors, and more. In addition to Jung’s linework, Herring’s colors help each panel really come to life. Herring makes use of differences in lighting and shadow, and the way that similar color stories carry throughout the book keeps everything visually cohesive.
The next issue of The Magnificent Ms. Marvel will be bittersweet; I look forward to seeing how the creative team wraps up this part of Kamala’s story, but I’ll miss this story a lot.