This is it!
The untold secret origin of Marvel's great new super-hero sensation!
Ms. Marvel.
Alone against the Scorpion and the Destructor!
The untold secret origin of Marvel's great new super-hero sensation!
Ms. Marvel.
Alone against the Scorpion and the Destructor!
Stan Lee presents: Ms. Marvel!
Enigma of fear!
Featuring the stunning secret origin of Ms. Marvel!
Enigma of fear!
Featuring the stunning secret origin of Ms. Marvel!
Gerry Conway, Writer/Editor.
John Buscema & Joe Sinnott, Artists/Storytellers.
Joe Rosen, Letterer.
Don Warfield, Colorist.
Cosmic Awareness.
The reason AIM wants her alive (surely it has nothing to do with her being a very good looking female) is because they want her to reveal the secrets of her suit, which they realize enhances her natural abilities and allows her to fly. When Korman's prize for capturing Ms. Marvel is negotiated, the AIM agents say he has not proven himself in the field, so he could fail just as the Scorpion did, revealing at this moment that they retrieved the injured Scorpion and have him captive.
Korman ends the negotiations by showing just how capable he can be when acting as his new alter ego, the Destructor, whose main weapon is the strong and incredibly fast Tachyon Blast fired from his helmet.
Mary Jane Watson is wandering on the offices of the Daily Bugle again, and she visits the office of the Woman Magazine Editor, Carol Danvers, who is working late hours. They decide to go have dinner together, which would be a nice change of pace for Carol after having to listen to her boss Jonah Jameson all day long.
The older Carol manages to see how the younger Mary Jane's usual behavior is just a mask that hides a smart woman behind the fun-loving girl look. When asked how she found her self identity, Carol talks about her time as a Security Chief at Cape Kennedy, meeting the alien Captain Marvel, her involvement in his battle against Kree Colonel Yon-Rogg and how all of this led to her change of careers, from Security Chief to writer. As she finishes her story, she starts feeling bad and goes home, but she passes out in the taxi before she can arrive.
Professor Korman has travelled to Florida to visit the cave where Captain Mar-Vell fought against Colonel Yon-Rogg. He has studied Ms. Marvel since her debut weeks earlier. He has acquired a lot of information about what happened in that cave and has come to analyze the energy residues, which indicate the amount of atomic power released back then was very high. He has deduced some of Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg's power is now yielded by Ms. Marvel and plans to get it for himself.
Back at AIM's base, the Scorpion has recovered much faster than the AIM agents expected. When he escapes, his pain drives him berserk and he starts threatening everyone who crosses his path, even real guards and civilians at the department store that works as a front for AIM's base. The AIM agents fear the Scorpion will go after Ms. Marvel, ruining their plans to capture her alive, and proceed to activate Plan Beta One.
Carol Danvers wakes up in her apartment, having a dream she has been having lately and with no idea of how she got there after passing out in the taxi. Worried about her sanity, she visits her friend Michael Barnett, who happens to be a Psychiatrist. Trying to find what caused her memory issues, he proceeds to hypnotize her so she can recall her past.
Michael thinks this is just a delusion and decides not to tell Carol what he discovered, for fear of triggering a black out spell, but she reacts badly when she is told the hypnosis did not work and faints, becoming Ms. Marvel right in front of Michael.
She quickly leaves and goes to find the Scorpion (most likely, guided by her Seventh Sense). The Scorpion is easily defeated and left trapped above a very tall monument just moments before Ms. Marvel is hit by the Destructor's Tachyon Blast. Ms. Marvel will not be taken as a prisoner so easily, but the Destructor will put everything he's got into the fight, so they end up knocking each other out, falling into unconsciousness just inches away from each other.
The Good and The Bad (and The Weird).
The Good. | |
|---|---|
 | The art. John Buscema and Joe Sinnott do it again. The backgrounds clearly tell us where the characters are. The character's expressions are detailed and help the story. The poses are dynamic and powerful. What else can I say? These are masters who know exactly what they are doing and take no shortcuts. |
| The storytelling. Just like they did with the art, the Buscema-Sinnott team got another winner in the storytelling department. Each panel leads nicely to the next, and we can always know where the characters are by looking at the elements the artists include in them. |
| Kerwin Korman. Professor Korman is shown as a very talented scientist. His inventions are good and have been bought by HYDRA as weapons. He also knows the importance of knowing one's enemy, and has studied Ms. Marvel meticulously, even suspecting the existence of her Seventh Sense power. He is smart enough to realize just how much of a threat Ms. Marvel really is, unlike the overconfident bee keepers. He does not let emotions cloud his judgment, and has his eyes fixed on the prize, Ms. Marvel's powers, which he wants for himself. This is the kind of focused enemy who would work well as a regular antagonist, posing a significant threat to a hero. |
| AIM. I simply love AIM's bee keepers. They will have a history of clashing with Ms. Marvel, and it all begins in these early issues. Intelligent as they are, I still love how their secret bases always end up being destroyed either by Ms. Marvel or other characters in her stories, like the Scorpion in this case. |
| Carol's backstory. In this issue, we see more of Carol's past and how it had an effect on her current situation. First she tells Mary Jane about her time as Security Chief at Cape Kennedy, where she met Captain Marvel and Colonel Yon-Rogg. Then we see the Destructor visit the cave where Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg fought each other and discover the high amount of radiation still left in that place. Finally, Michael learns about that battle and how an explosion changed Carol, giving her the powers of Ms. Marvel. As I love the Kree, I like how this ties Carol to them. |
The Bad. | |
 | The colors. Don Warfield's colors are such a decline in quality after the previous issue's colors by Marie Severin. His color selections are boring, unnatural or simply not well combined. Or all three. The interior of a cave is colored bright green; an elevator's cables are bright yellow; a department store's bricks are colored bright pink. And Michael's hair goes from brown to almost red, while his eyes are left colorless in some panels. Ms. Severin did such a great work in the first issue, so the bad job done by Mr. Warfield in this one feels even worse. |
| The Destructor. Professor Kerwin Korman may have studied Ms. Marvel for some time, and he may have created a Tachyon Blast that is strong enough to damage her and fast enough to hit her, but still he gave himself the uninspired name of "the Destructor" and a horrible costume that is only slightly better than the one worn by the Unicorn on early Marvel Comics. The armor is functional, but I do not think the design would make the Destructor memorable or iconic. This shows that even John Buscema cannot win all the time. |
| Michael Barnett. Michael is presented as Carol's friend who happens to be a Psychiatrist. When she realizes she needs to look into her headaches, black out spells and memory issues, she goes to him. Even though a Psychiatrist treating a person close to him is not the best idea. It would be fine if the cause were evident and easy to treat, I suppose, but he then uses hypnosis on her. Besides not respecting those boundaries, he also interrupts a session with one of his patients when Carol asks him to. A patient who clearly shows low self-esteem and anxiety. I know bursting into the doctor's office is more dramatic than waiting for one's turn, and it shows Carol's desperation, but this is not a good way to introduce a new character we are expected to see as competent and responsible. |
| The flashback panels. The flashback panels are just fine, but there is a lack of consistency in their portrayal in this issue. When Carol and Mary Jane are talking, the flashback panels have round borders, so they stand out from the other panels. But when we see Carol's memories on Michael's office, the panels' borders are square. |
| The use of non-English words. There is a joke where one of Michael's patients, Mr. Fisbein, is said to feel like a schlemiel. Looking this up on the Internet, I see this means "incompetent person", "fool" or "stupid, awkward, or unlucky person", and is commonly used as a Jewish joke. But the problem is that this word is spelled correctly once, and then is almost immediately spelled incorrectly as "schlemeil". I always dislike when other languages are forced into the story but not used correctly, and this time I can spot it even though I know nothing about this language. |
The Weird. | |
 | Michael's patient. As previously mentioned, Mr. Fisbein is shown as a person who feels like a schlemiel, and this is done as a joke. While I am interested in mental health awareness, I am not against mental health jokes, as a comic book is not necessarily the place to educate people about this. But I am more curious about the level of detail used in the visual design of this character. It is almost as if this was meant to be based on some famous Jewish guy from real life, but I have no idea on whom. And now I would very much want to know if he is indeed someone from the real world. If someone knows if there is something more behind Mr. Fisbein, please let me know. |
| The distance units. One of the AIM agents who review Korman's data on Ms. Marvel says the technology on her suit is light-years beyond AIM's. Light-years. Usually, people measure the advance of technology in time units, like "years". I suppose "light-years" sounds more impresive and perhaps also geekier, but light-years measure distance, not time. However, I pass this off as "weird" instead of the more probable "bad" just because of the tiny chance that this AIM agent is referring to the technology race as an actual race, making distance an appropriate way to compare advances. Yes, surely that was it. |
The Endgame.
Carol's backstory is revealed to the reader in smaller doses, first as she tells it to Mary Jane, then as Professor Korman visits the site of Yon-Rogg's last battle, and, lastly, as Dr. Michael Barnett hypnotizes Carol. I liked this approach, as it was not all told as a single information dump, but integrated with the current plot.
It is good that they are not stretching the mystery of Ms. Marvel's identity for too many issues, as that could get boring real quickly.
This issue has some calm moments, but also some good action scenes, like the Scorpion's escape, Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg's battle, and Ms. Marvel's fight with the Scorpion and the Destructor.
Even though Ms. Marvel gets to defeat the Scorpion very easily for the second time, it is good to see that the Destructor will be a more dangerous foe. He may not be able to resist Ms. Marvel's attacks, but has a way to damage her, so this can be dangerous for her if she does not react quickly.
I really enjoyed this issue. It features AIM getting ready to go against Ms. Marvel, it introduces Korman as a serious enemy for Ms. Marvel, it shows her origin and how her powers are related to the Kree, and it explores more of Carol's life while solving the mystery that has caused her problems for some time. It is a lot of good content in just one issue.
The final grade is:
5 Tracys, 5 Rogues and 2 Storytellers.
Next issue:
The final climactic chapter in the mystery of Ms. Marvel -- featuring the menace of --
The Doomsday Man!
