Ms. Marvel, Crushed - June 15

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else entirely – this week’s episode of Ms. Marvel. Named ‘Crush’, it is about Kamala’s crush on Kareem, whose mom may or may not be a supervillain – isn’t the MCU fun?

Well yes, yes it is, save that so far, little else is going down in ‘Crush’ – MCU is going with a slow burn here, possibly to avoid competition with ‘Obi-Wan’, whose penultimate episode has also aired on this day. There are similarities between the two shows: in ‘Obi-Wan’, women are clearly in charge, save for the titular character and Darth Vader; the show could’ve went with just the original female characters, but they tried already something similar in the SW sequel trilogy, and that didn’t go down too went, so now they’re trying a subtler approach – and there already are mixed reviews towards the show. Fun!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, is trying… something similar, actually. Both the titular character, her mom and grandma dominate the show, at least to a point. Since Islam is actually a quite patriarchal religion, there is… a female character, (not related to the Khan family, but still a family friend), who is planning to challenge, or is challenging already, some sort of a mosque board for more gender variety – or something along those lines. Now what?

So far, there is no obvious indication as to how this plotline will go in the future episodes: Disney/MCU obviously has no intention of alienating the Islamic community…but neither does it want to be retrograde and upset the progressive community…so yeah, Disney/MCU is going to handle this politically correct, politely, and perfectly poised – the 3P, you can call them.

On the other hand, we still got the Damage Control duo, as they canvass the area, trying to find that elusive masked vigilante. (This takes place in a world with Sokovia accords, remember?) So far, they do not appear to have much success, but then again, they appear to be mostly annoyances right now… which is appropriate, since now? Kamala is not much of a hero, either.

Oh, of course, she is well intentioned, and she is already doing ‘the right thing’©, but, sadly, the scope is rather underwhelming – period. Again, this isn’t surprising, she isn’t a hero yet, she is only learning, but this does leave her behind on all the excitement and the drama, when compared to ‘Obi-Wan’, where the latter tries to be a telenovela built along the lines of the ‘Rogue 1’ film… or the ‘original’ ‘SW: Legends’ novels… Everything old is new again, put otherwise.

‘Ms. Marvel’, however, does not do that, but tries to be original – to a point. The problem is that while Hulu’s ‘Runaways’ – remember them? – actually did go mostly original, at least in the first two seasons or so – ‘Ms. Marvel’ does not. In fact, it tries to multitask, as it tries to entertain with Kamala and friends’ teenage antics, as well as to promote the Islam-American community, (at least the Pakistani aspect of it), in the best possible light. I.e., ‘Ms. Marvel’ the show fluctuates between reality and fiction, without settling on either, and consequently it risks ending-up flat-footed instead.

There was another TV show that tried something similar, and it was AoS, (the first 2-3 seasons). This show actually introduced a Russian – or a quasi-Russian villain; there was actually a mini-story arc, set in Russia, which caused Hunter and Morse to be taken ‘out of commission’ – they were supposed to get their own TV show, but instead they were taken outright out of MCU. Ouch!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, does not have excessive characters, (as AoS did during the first half of S3), but it did have a reference to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the series’ premiere, apparently. Can’t say that I’m too surprised, as S.H.I.E.L.D. is still supposed to be a part of MCU, it’s just that due to real life issues Disney/MCU can no longer fit it, (at least for now), so now we got Damage Control running around, (and not amounting to anything yet). It will be interesting to see as to what exactly MCU will do with this development, and how does S.W.O.R.D. will fit in, (remember, Photon took over S.W.O.R.D. at the end of WV?). Indeed, Photon and S.W.O.R.D. should be appearing soon enough, since Kamala, Carol, and Photon are supposed to all appear in the 2023 MCU movie ‘The Marvels’, right? Because if Photon will be removed – and she is the Afro-American character here – this will be a PR disaster and Disney/MCU hates that…

For now, however, this is it. See you all soon.