ADVANCED REVIEW! Ms. Marvel: Beyond The Limit #1: Bollywood?

To say that I was extremely excited for Samira’s take on Ms. Marvel would be an understatement. 

So, now that it is finally here, what do we think? 

While it is a promising start, there is room for improvement. 

The story, at the moment, sits in a place where it almost feels a bit cliché. To throw your South Asian superheroine into a Bollywood set version of New Jersey, after an accident at her cousin’s lab in Chicago, even with the return of a much loved character of previous Ms. Marvel stories, feels awkward. The ‘Bollywood-isation’ of South Asian characters in comics is a trope I felt that we had managed to avoid for so long, and as it stands in this issue, feels uncomfortable. I hope it is something which is addressed in the coming issues, and is not just a convenient trope to fall back on. 

But the set-up for some interdimensional  action is something with feels exciting, and I am very keen on seeing how Ahmed follows up on that. There is a lot of fun to be had in that area, and I hope that this run leans more towards that in the coming issues. 

I am not quite sure how I feel about the artwork. While I love how colorful the pallet is, it is a major departure of Alphona, Jung, Vlasco and Herring’s eras. This style is distinctively flatter, there is an abundance of white spaces, and the line art seems to make little use of  hatching/crosshatching to create depth and drama, and in certain panels, leaves us with an unfinished look.