“Ms. Marvel: This Woman, This Warrior” by Chris Claremont & Gerry Conway

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel Marvel Epic Collection “Ms. Marvel: This Woman, This Warrior” by Chris Claremont & Gerry Conway. It is NOT a review of the “Ms. Marvel” series on Disney+.

            Carol Danvers was the head of security for NASA. She had an encounter with the Kree super hero Captain Mar-Vell and villain Yon-Rogg when a Kree device called the Psyche Magnitron exploded. Mar-Vell was able to save Carol’s life, shielding her from the blast. Carol then retired from NASA and became a writer.

            Carol is hired by the publisher of the New York tabloid The Daily Bugle J. Jonah Jameson to be the editor of Woman Magazine. When super villain the Scorpion attempts to rob a bank, a new mysterious heroine arrives on the scene, wearing a uniform similar to that of Mar-Vell. She can fly, she has super strength, and a precognitive seventh sense. After rescuing Jameson from the Scorpion, unaware of her actual identity, she is christened “Ms. Marvel.” Carol forms a friendship with Mary Jane Watson, who hangs around the offices of The Daily Bugle and Woman with her boyfriend, photographer Peter Parker (secretly the super hero Spider-Man). Carol has been having headaches and blackouts.

            The villainous organization Advanced Idea Mechanics recovers the defeated Scorpion, AIM scientist Professor Kerwin Korman assumes the identity of the Destructor, and the Scorpion escapes AIM custody and swears vengeance against Ms. Marvel. Carol, wishing to understand her blackouts, turns to psychiatrist and friend Doctor Michael Barnett. After hypnotism, Carol reveals she is Ms. Marvel. Barnett believes Carol’s story to be a paranoid delusion until he witnesses Carol’s transformation to Ms. Marvel with his own two eyes.

Carol flies to Cape Canaveral to interview old friends and NASA astronauts Salia Petrie and David Adamson as they prepare to fly into space. Ms. Marvel herself flies to space and finds herself battling the Doomsday Man. Upon falling to Earth, Carol and Ms. Marvel discover they are the same woman and have been transforming from one to the other, and now battle for control of their shared body.

Ms. Marvel has a premonition of a devastating disaster. She attempts to prevent it and has a misunderstanding with the synthetic Avenger the Vision, locking into a battle.

After Carol features Ms. Marvel in Woman magazine, Jameson is not happy. Jameson hates super heroes (especially Spider-Man). The Subterranean Prince Gor-Tok/Grotesk, only surviving member of his race, surfaces to steal the cavourite crystal in his bid to destroy Earth. Ms. Marvel is abducted by AIM’s former leader MODOK, who tries to replicate Carol’s costume, believed to be the source of Ms. Marvel’s powers, which reveals that the powers are actually Carol’s and not granted by the costume. Ms. Marvel discovers AIM’s base is in Alden’s Department Store. Carol alerts SHIELD, who are fooled by AIM, and their base is undiscovered.

Carol and Doctor Burnett are attacked, leading to a climactic battle between Ms. Marvel and Grotesk.

MODOK allies with Death-Bird, who ruin Carol’s dinner date, and Carol’s apartment is destroyed, and AIM strikes against Ms. Marvel again.

Spider-Man, Johnny Storm/Human Torch (of the Fantastic Four), and Ms. Marvel team up to battle the Super-Skrull, an alien shapeshifter with all the powers of the Fantastic Four (and a few other powers as well).

Carol returns to Cape Canaveral to witness Salia and David fly to space, but has a premonition of the shuttle’s destruction. Ms. Marvel battles the witch Hecate and the Elementals for the Ruby Scarab.

Carol returns to Massachusetts to visit with her family. Her father is a construction worker, and Ms. Marvel battles Steeplejack to save the life of her father.

Ms. Marvel teams up with the Defenders (Valkyrie, Kyle Richmond/Nighthawk, Patsy Walker/Hellcat [pardon my language] and Bruce Banner/Hulk) to defeat AIM and save the life of Doctor Michael Burnett.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I’ve long been a fan of Carol Danvers (as Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, and Captain Marvel), and this book felt like a great buy for me. Not only was I not disappointed, I was impressed. I’ve been a fan of Chris Claremont as well, especially his runs of X-Men, and I was not disappointed by his work on early Carol stories. Carol and Ms. Marvel being unaware of their dual identity at first, then Carol fighting for control of her body was a tactic that I found interesting. I also liked that Carol shared villains with Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the Defenders. Too often is a super villain associated with just on super hero or team, so the Scorpion, Grotesk, MODOK, AIM, and Super-Skrull from other heroes, and the Destructor, Death-Bird, Hecate and the Elementals being her villains was an interesting balance to me. I enjoyed the supporting cast as well, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, the Vision, Spider-Man, the Human Torch, and the Defenders appearing was a thrill for me. It’s rare for me to read an Epic Collection and enjoy every single story in it, and in this case, I actually never disliked anything at any point while reading this book. And, when reading a graphic novel, the artwork is also very important. The graphics and the novel are in an important balance. You can have an amazing story, yet when looking at the artwork you see a complete disaster, then enjoying the story is difficult. On the other hand, the story can be horrible, yet the art can be amazing, but that still doesn’t make it possible to enjoy the story. Balance is extremely important. Note that the issues contained in this graphic novel were published in 1977-1978, and that time period had a distinct comic book art style. It was a period where the art looked like a fusion between a cartoon and illustration that gave the period a certain flair, and that was executed, in my opinion, perfectly. I also enjoyed that while there were many different artists, there was a uniform standard, so that you could visually see benchmark differences in each artist’s turn at drawing. That said, sometimes you look at a comic book and don’t need to read the artists’ names to know that they were the artists in the issue. There are several artists who I feel that way about. But the artists in this book never stuck out to me, and I wouldn’t have known the artist just by looking at the artwork. You can also look at old comic books and say that the issue had good artwork for its time, which unfortunately is not actually good. Good comic art has to meet certain standards to actually be considered good art for all time. Now, I felt that the art in this book holds up to this day, which makes it good art, but I have to admit that two people can go to an art museum and have two completely different opinions on what they see, so while I may see good art, you could see an eyesore. But for me, the story was great, for me the art was great, so all-in-all, for me a great graphic novel. I did, however, notice a color inconsistency, as some colorists actually had Ms. Marvel’s stomach show and some covered her stomach with the costume.

As far as if I give this book my recommendation, I emphatically say that I do. I felt that this book was very self-contained and can be read and understood by a person if they knew nothing about Carol Danvers. But that’s the problem there. If you only know Carol Danvers from the “Captain Marvel” movie and liked it, I might actually say this is not the right book for you. There are so few consistencies and the characterizations are so vastly different it’s like it’s a completely different character. But if you didn’t like the “Captain Marvel” movie, this might give you a Carol redemption, if you’re willing to get her back in your head. If you’ve never seen any Marvel Cinematic Universe film with Captain Marvel, you might be interested in reading this book first to get a different, possibly positive, first impression of Carol that the MCU might taint. If you’re looking for a comic book with a strong female super hero lead, then this book is for you. Not only is she a super hero, she’s an editor of a magazine. If you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before, there are many better places to start. That’s not to say that this isn’t a good place to start, but for me it wouldn’t generally be my first recommendation. If you’re a fan of Carol from the comics, however, I would say that you should totally give this book a look. It should be noted she originally couldn’t create energy blasts and she had a precognitive seventh sense. This look back at the character was a treat to me, and I feel it will be one for other Carol Danvers fans as well.

Of course, if you’re still reading at this point, you may be wondering exactly how I feel about this book on a numeric score. I always go on a scale of one-to-ten. One means that I regret buying this book, I will store it and I will never look at it again. Ten means this was a great buy and in all likelihood I’ll read this again. I am usually a very harsh scorer and difficult to please, so a high score should be factored in to your considering if you want to read the book yourself. I score this book as a nine. I would love to give this book a ten, I really would, but for some reason, I just can’t. I can say that I loved this book a lot, but I just can’t quite say I felt it was perfect.

If you enjoyed this review, keep looking at my blog, From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin. I have done dozens of book reviews. I’m a journalist, a writer and a poet, so you can find many examples of these on my blog as well. I post frequently, so keep checking back for more content whenever you like, there’ll be more. And I’ll leave you with just three more words: Tim Cubbin… out!