Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, G.Willow Wilson, hydra, ms marvel, secret empire
Ms Marvel #19 – A Secret Empire Without A Traitor Captain America
Marvel Comics usually has a policy of allowing lead creatives on titles to choose whether or not they want their ongoing books to crossover with big events. So Brian Bendis has chosen for all his comics – Invincible Iron Man, Infamous Iron Man, Defenders, Spider-Man and Jessica Jones – not to be Secret Empire tie-ins, and left Guardians Of The Galaxy before it did that. A number of characters in that book appear prominently in Secret Empire series, however, with Miles Morales, it seems, pursuing a plotline that began in Bendis' Civil War II – the murder of Captain America.
G Willow Wilson has written crossover episodes of Ms Marvel before, but has chosen to sit Secret Empire out – even though Kamala Khan is prominent in the team book Secret Warriors, launched out of and heavily embedded in Secret Empire.
But even though Wilson isn't writing Secret Empire… she kinda is anyway. Without a Hydra Captain America, without a cartoony reliance on Hydra Youth, concentration camps or people saying "Hail" a lot.
In this week's issue, Ms Marvel #19 with Marco Failla and Ian Herring we have a New Jersey undergoing changes during Eid.
Given the context, the initial expectation is that this is regarding people with Islamic backgrounds of culture, but it's going a little wider than that. Just as in Secret Empire, you've had power taken through legal means, by fascist Hydra operatives…
…so New Jersey has its own microcosm version if that, with Ms Marvel's political Hydra nemesis suddenly becoming mayor of New Jersey.
And not only are they doing Secret Empire, we get a dollop of Civil War too. And a curiosity over what exactly Executive Orders one and two may have been.
There's the idea that Ms Marvel may have taken her eye off the ball. Been subject to an echo chamber. Not really realised what's been going on.
This is a bit like Civil War too.
The people have spoken, damn them. And fascists have crept in through the front door. And what other famous comic book fascists can you think of?
That's him. And then it all gets a lot closer to home.
Apparently you have to be cruel to be K.I.N.D.
So if you want the Secret Empire just without the Nazi Captain America, Ms Marvel is waiting for you…
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