Ms. Marvel #11

Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artists: Takeshi Miyazawa & Adrian Alphona
Colorist: Ian Herring
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Publisher: Marvel

Well, this was bound to happen. This is the issue that G.Willow Wilson has been building up to since the Civil War II arc started. We saw Ms. Marvel's world slowly coming apart and this issue pulls no punches in the climax of that storyline, pitting Kamala against her idol and her friends.

With a smaller focus, Ms. Marvel has really delivered the best possible tie-in to Civil War. Starting from Kamala's relationships with the event's protagonists, Captain Marvel and Iron Man, this arc really went the extra mile in exploring and defining its protagonist's stance, while linking the sci-fi premise of predictive justice to a real-world issue like profiling. But what made the storyline so great was the strong emotional core that Wilson imbued the arc with. Relying on Ms. Marvel's supporting cast since the start of it.

There isn't a happy ending, with Iron Man doing little less than trying to make Kamala feel better and Bruno leaving for Wakanda. It's a bit surprising to see this book do what was an out-and-out tragic arc but it was done really well without trying to resort to shock value. Bruno's injury is handled with a lot of respect by the creative team and the comic book never got overbearingly dark.

Takeshi Miyazawa's art has grown on me a whole lot. Adrian Alphona's work came to define this title for me and contrasting both artists in earlier issues made me think less of the former's art, but Miyazawa is really good at doing visual jokes that keep a light tone even in an issue that's pretty emotionally devastating. Overall, this book has a great team. Cameron Stewart's covers for the arc are also fairly solid and fit well with the themes explored in the book. And I can't heap enough praise on Ian Herring, his very distinct, very saturated style goes a long way to give the ongoings that he's doing a cohesive style (Silk and Ms. Marvel) even though both of them have a rotating cast of artists.

Ms. Marvel has been an amazing title since it launched 2 years ago, and this Civil War II tie-in maintained that same level of quality, even though the tone of it was somewhat a departure from the previous issues. Since the relaunch, there's been real growth to Kamala Khan and I hope that it gets explored more on the next few issues.