Ok so Ms Marvel Episode 1 is now out on Disney Plus and throughout this video, we’re gonna be breaking it down, talking about the easter eggs in it and also going over how it links into the comics. Though the powers have been changed up massively for the character, this is arguably the most comic book accurate Disney Plus show we’ve ever had.
This is extremely in line with the Graphic Novel by G.Willow Wilson titled No Normal. Several things pull from it however the biggest departure is Kamala Khan’s powers which are completely different to how they are in the comics. In the source material she’s pretty much a shape shifter that can make parts of her body shift and change at will. The reason she even got the nickname Ms Marvel in the first place was that she became infected with terrigen myst she shape-shifted to look like Captain Marvel in her older costume. She ended up saving Zoe, a character from the show and after the news reported on this the name stuck.
Ms Marvel can make herself, her hands or her body larger in the comics but here she’s got powers more in line with a character like Green Lantern.
In the series, she wears Nega Bands which are powerful relics from the Kree Empire. These were gifted to Captain Mar-Vell by the supreme intelligence in the comics and they ended up trapping him in the negative zone. At one point we potentially see Kamala travel through this and it’s gonna be interesting to see if it’s brought up further down the line as we don’t really have a villain per se after this first entry.
I think we’ll also track down the origin of them and this will likely be where we lead into The Marvels which we know is an upcoming film starring the character, Captain Marvel and Photon.
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Now we open with Kamala Khan’s life as a Youtuber. In the comics, she wrote fan fiction but here they’ve changed it up to make it so she’s down with the kids…who happen to be 33 years old. Stay off my f**king patch. In
Nah her vid is good though and if I was watching it and, well any Youtube video, I’d definitely like, comment and subscribe.
Cheers.
We hear the Weekend’s song Blinded by the lights and I hope she doesn’t put this in the video otherwise she’s gonna get slapped with a big copyright claim. Damn chump.
This recounts the battle at the end of Avenger’s Endgame and it features Okoye, Black Panther, Thor, Steve Rogers, Hulk and Iron Man. There’s also Hawkeye in a purple crossbow whilst he wears his new costume. Like the comics he’s blonde and this purple and white style was part of the Matt Fraction Run which also inspired the style of the series.
Cap’s shield is broken like how it was in the film but rather than being split in half it has a pizza slice out of it like the one that appeared in the vision during Age Of Ultron.
As we pan out we also see Pepper Potts in the rescue suit, Valkyrie, a tiny Ant-Man and Wanda.
We then get a quick shot of a cockatoo which was a bird that actually played into the villain reveal at the end of the first graphic novel. Guess who loves a Cockatoo, Ryan Arey’s Mom shabow.
Next, we get an airforce jet before the arrival of Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was of course a pilot before she became a Kree warrior and amongst the pictures of her, we can also see her older costumes on the way. There’s also mention of the Scott Lang podcast titled Big Me Little Me. She destroys the Sanctuary 2 like in the movie and changes her hairstyle as she lands, alternating between the one from her solo film and Endgame.
We can also see that one of the ships has Circle Q on it which is the name of a convenience store her pal Bruno works at. This is the same place he was at in the comics and Kamala ended up stopping a robbery there carried out by his brother.
Thanos then arrives and he is wearing a crown possibly riffing on the Rick Ross fan art that was created of him.
She’s the one who’s seen as beating Thanos by Kamala and she talks about her going back into space to who knows where.
Kamala announces she’s going as Marvel and this is basically the plot device that the first episode is centred around that gets her her powers. In the comics, it was a party in a field she was told that she couldn’t go to and her classmates ended up putting vodka in some orange juice. Upon realising she was drinking alcohol she spat it out and headed home. Here the terrigen myst rolled in and she had a vision of the Avengers fighting on planet unicorn. This is presented in a comic book style, similar to the opening here.
Carol wears an Army Jacket at this, similar to what she has in the comics.
Kamala then says this line about Thor.
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As we learned in Endgame the guy had a bitter rivalry with NoobMaster69 so you might be onto something there. She’s got faster upload speed than me and she posts this on her channel Sloth Baby Productions, sloth baby being a moniker she took up in the comics.
Amongst her vids that get no views, hehe chump, we also have Ant-Man and The Wasp’s romantic vacation where they fly ontop of an Ant with a beret in Paris. 5 views in 2 weeks hahaha, stay off my patch, there’s also a video called bitten by a radioactive feminist, riffing on how Peter Parker got his spider powers.
Here we meet her family which has a similar set-up to what it is in the comic. Her brother Amir is praying and this scene downstairs pretty much plays out exactly as how it is in the source material. Really nice attention to detail here and it leads into her driving test in which she wears aviators, further calling back to her idol.
We also get a sign for Jersey City which cements her as being based in the same place as her comic book counterpart. There’s a really nice art style to this whole show and though I know it’s a teeny type of MCU entry, I think the editing and animation is some of the most creative stuff we’ve had in the franchise.
Yes, I’m shilling, heavy shilling all day baby.
Kamala Living in Fantasy Land
After crashing the car she’s taken home but she day dreams seeing Captain Marvel as she looks over the New York Skyline. Cut to Jersey City high school and we get a nod to the creative team on a plaque there. This includes G Willow Wilson, the writer of the first Ms Marvel graphic novel who ends up also getting brought into being a character through Mr Wilson.
Her names mispronounced, which even Kevin Feige did
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The kids stand in front of her locker and then we meet Bruno before running into Nakia. Both of these are characters in the comics that we were introduced to in the opening panels at Circle Q.
Here we also came across Zoe Zimmer who too pops up in the scene. Zoe was sort of a bully but she did it by being really nice but by being sarcastic. She ends up dressing up as Captain Marvel at the end of the episode but the comics changed up things quite a lot. Upon transforming into Ms Marvel, Kamala ended up saving Zoe from drowning after the party and this is when people came across her.
Mr Wilson poses the question of who she is, something that we will no doubt ponder in the series and they even split the screen to foreshadow the split between herself and her alter ego.
Desperate to get to Avengers Con she and Bruno work on her costume and we get the inner layout of Circle Q which seems like it’s ripped right out of the comics.
As they try and come up with her final flourish idea we get artwork nods to Steampunk and potentially infinity warps.
In the comics, this was a mashup of characters such as the soldier supreme that basically took two famous ones and mushed em together.
We get mentions of Iron Marvel, Captain Panther or Doctor Stranger Marvel who appears with several arms similar to his battle with Thanos.
There’s mention of Thor and Valkyrie as well as the rainbow bridge aka the Bi-Frost. We then get Zombie Captain Marvel which is of course playing on Marvel Zombies.
At this point, Kamala gets a box from her grandma which contains the bands. We discover that she deliberately wanted to pass things on to her granddaughter potentially teasing her for having the powers herself. Her mother Muneeba sees these and takes them off her possibly hinting at her knowing what they hold.
Along the way, we see lots of nods to Pakistani culture and even several bangles on a mural which were the inspiration for the ten rings Shang-Chi used.
Kamala tries on Bridal Dresses and we hear a story about another girl who ended up travelling Europe instead of getting married. Kamala is really rebellious and the main criticism I’ve seen for this show is that it’s pretty much the pushy parents/rebellious kid stereotype. This kinda pushes her into going to Avengers Con and in the comics, it was what drove her to go to the party. However, upon having alcohol she felt guilty over letting her parents down which is why left to go home.
Girls Get It Done
She asks her parents if she can go to the con and her t-shirt has the girls get it done scene from Avengers Endgame on it.
They have a really cool texting back and forth scene with Kamala and Bruno and some of the graphics are really well thought out. It all happens in one shot and they integrate the emojis really well into the environment in my opinion.
In Bruno’s room we see a picture for Nikola Tesla a famous inventor who inspired Bruno to work on photon gloves for Kamala. Later on, he sits on a roof with Kamala and behind them, we can see a sign for Edison Electric, another rival of Tesla who probs would steal all my easter eggs if he was a YouTuber today.
He stole me easter eggs.
Now in the comics, the villain she faced off against early on was a clone of Thomas Edison created by Gregory Knox. He attempted to recreate the inventor but accidentally mixed the sample with bird DNA. This could kinda tie back to the intro and I don’t wanna get all Mephisto again but the clues that he…yes…he is the big bad. Could be there.
We also get a locker room scene and this is likely riffing on the one from the source material.
In her room, there is also a poster for Captain Marvel above a mirror which is official promo art for the first movie. This riffs on the actual poster she had in her room that she looked at at several points.
She also wraps a sash around her waist which is something that pulls from the source material.
At this point her parents suggest she dresses up as the Hulk and her dad burst in as the giant green guy. CGI looks better than She-Hulk and haha Got Em.
Above her bed we also have artwork detailing her classic costume from the comics.
Photon Gloves
Kamala is gifted the photon gloves and this is of course playing on Photon aka Maria Rambeau. Nice that she was nice to Wanda after Westview and then she went to another universe and killed her mother, yaaay.
Kamala comes up with a plan on how to leave her parents which again is animated really well. We see in this fantasy that her parents think she’s the best daughter ever and that her costume is now like Captain Marvel’s one in the movies rather than some crappy leather jacket.
Bruno in the fantasy is dressed as Tony Stark and he also has the repulsor glove on that he used to fight Bucky with in Civil War.
We discover Avenger cos is at Camp Lehigh, the home of Captain America. When we last saw this it was in Avengers Endgame, however, going off the timeline it also appeared in Winter Soldier which is where it was destroyed by a missile. Been fixed up now and as they get on the bus we see someone dressed as one of the chorus girls from the star-spangled man with a plan. This song is later played when we get to the event and as I’ve been saying. It’s all connected.
Now here we go into some Instagram posts full of characters. I watched these at 0.25xspeed and I’m actually, I’m actually copyrighting that saying so if anyone if you see anyone using that phrase that they watched something at 0.25xspeed then they owe me 25 million dollars baby.
I’m just kidding, shoutouts Canadian Lad, he’s a bloody lovely guy, spoke to him a couple of times and what a nice chap.
Amongst these are Ant-Man, a captain America shie,d some of the dancers from the start of Iron Man 2, there’s also a vision, black widow and female Thor.
Her winning reminds me a lot of the cover of, live through this by hole but obviously, pageant moments like this are laced through films and tv shows.
Bruno suggests she injects some of herself into the costume and this is when she gets the bands from the attic.
We see her original captain America comic that she drew when she was younger and she gets the bands.
The day of the con arrives and after losing her bike we get countless cosplayers.
Cosplay Galore
Not only is there a statue of Captain America we also see someone dressed as him and bucky. Rocket Racoon, The Hulk, Wasp, Mantis, Drax and a Wakandan King. Inside there are models of Ant-Man and cutouts of Iron Man along with Black Widow. There’s also someone as doctor strange, Gamora, Thor with a guy wearing CDs for his armour and a lot more.
We get flashes of Groot, Thor, dancers, a nod to Steve Rogers being America’s ass, an Ant-Man figure and helmet as well as a mural for Tony and Natasha. There’s not one for Vision as he died during Infinity War five years prior and Steve Rogers is thought to have gone to the moon rather than being dead.
There’s also a female Captain America that could be Peggy Carter but due to the star shield rather than the Union Jack, I think that it’s based on Steve.
There’s also Asgard Pride and the Asgardians of course had to settle on Earth after their home was destroyed. We also see a leaflet for Asgardian tours which, judging off the love and thunder trailer, will be something that pops up in the movie.
We get a winter soldier monument with steve wearing black similar to fan art for the film.
Next, we see a man dressed as Anthony from Ant-man before watching a mockup of the San Francisco ship scene from Ant-Man and The Wasp.
There are also trash pandas on sale at the guardian station and the Peter Quill star boy story.
She then sees Zoe dressed as Marvel and though the costume isn’t seen as accurate, it is in line with the comics. This is similar to the 70s ms marvel costume with the MCU colours.
Behind her, we also see cutouts of Strange and Wanda on opposite sides which would end up happening in Multiverse Of Madness…and yes its a reach.
Kamala takes to the stage and at this point, Bruno dresses as Bruce Banner. Bruce..banner…Bruner… never mind.
Kamala’s powers manifest on stage after she puts on the bangles and the crowd goes bloody wild. She destroys the ANt-man exhibit, and nearly kills loads of kids but it’s the best time anyone’s ever had, yaaaaay,
Lastly, it drops a sculpt of Mloknir that final destinations Zoe and similar to the comics, Kamala saves her life. She makes a break for it to get home and she comes across her mother who’s been waiting up for her. She’s not mad, she’s just disappointed and that ends the episode.
Now the credits are filled with references to the comic book covers Ms Marvel has featured on and it’s a really nice way to reference the source material before we head into the post-credits scene.
From here we go into the post-credits scene with the department of damage control. Here we meet Agent P Cleary played once more by Arian Moayed. When we last saw him he was arresting….arresting some…I can’t quite remember who but the point is he’s back. We also see the interrogation from No Way Home and after witnessing Kamala’s powers they decide it’s time to bring her in.
Anyway, that’s the end of the episode and…it was fine, wasn’t it? I don’t think it really did anything outstanding outside of the animation but you know, this probably isn’t aimed at me so I think it’s target audience will find it more enjoyable than I did. Didn’t think it was bad by a long stretch but it was a bit by the numbers and I do kinda wonder where they can really take this show. The comic run is pretty good though and they seem to be sticking close to that so we’ll likely get a coming of age story with a couple of curveballs thrown in there.
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