The Magnificent Mrs. Marvel #13: Never Trust a County Fail

The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #13 is a victim of timing. The last issue provided a resolution to everything the first twelve issues brought to the table, Kamala’s father, the Stormbringer, even the will they/won’t they between Kamala and Bruno. While there is plenty more that could be done with each of those plots, none of it happens in this issue. This was also the final issue before Outlawed takes the teen heroes of Marvel in an all-new direction, meaning not much new was started here either. Instead, time is taken to revisit the status quo left from the issue before and review what happened.

The exception to this is, of course, Amulet, a mysterious hero armed with magic shields and mystic knowledge who shows up in the nick of time to help Ms. Marvel. We don’t know much about Amulet yet, which I’m sure is the point, but at this point, he seems to be designed to be a hero who can relate to Kamala and her background (they even seem to have matching curfews.) But if this issue was aimed to serve as a vehicle for Amulet’s introduction, it was an odd choice only to have him appear in six of the pages of the actual story.

The art remains consistently good despite the artist change switch from the last issue. The expressive faces may be more impressive without all the heavy emotions from the last issue. It’s one thing to make despair clear on a person’s face, another thing entirely to have Nakia’s resigned annoyance show through clear.