Ms. Marvel Vol. 6: Civil War II (Marvel Comics)

The messages and ending of Ms. Marvel Vol. 5: Super Famous were beautiful but wow, did things ever go downhill for Kamala in Ms. Marvel Vol 6: Civil War II (part of the 2015-2017 collection). Things started out pretty good and then they just seemed to get worse and worse until the last chapter which wasn't so heartbreaking. Ms. Marvel definitely learned some lessons but things are still not quite fixed so it definitely has me wondering if things will work out. I am excited to read the next volume but let's talk about Volume 6, shall we?

There was definitely another message about friendship here. There were problems with Kamala's friendship with not only her closest friends in her everyday life but also one of her most important superhero influences, Captain Marvel. All of it is caused by a new crime fighting tool that Captain Marvel is trying out called predictive technology. There's a new Inhuman called Ulysses who can determine events that are going to take place and Captain Marvel has put together a team that will use these "predictions" to stop crime before it happens and detain the criminals until the time when they would have committed a crime has passed to ensure that they do not commit that specific crime. Of course, some people think that this is great but others don't like it and think that it's not fair to arrest someone before they even commit a crime.

A student that Ms. Marvel knows, who is also the ex-boyfriend of one of her friends, gets arrested because something that he was going to do to scare people was going to get out of control and cause a fire in the high school. The team detains him and Kamala's friends find out and are very angry, especially Bruno who knows that Ms. Marvel is really Kamala. He doesn't like what she and the team are doing. Bruno ends up going to the building where the criminals are being kept and blows up the door but ends up hurting himself as well.

Ms. Marvel ends up really mad about everything that is happening. The team is being way too serious and strict about using Ulysses' predictions and Kamala starts seeing how it isn't really fair to hold people for something that they haven't even done yet. She tries to show that this new system is flawed but it doesn't really work out as planned. She gets into a bit of trouble and calls Captain Marvel who she becomes angry with and she ends up upsetting. She also finds out that Bruno is still upset with her and doesn't want to have anything to do with her. Kamala says to herself: "We're all bound up in the people we love--the people who make us who we are. So who am I without them? Who am I now?" (end of chapter 11). She doesn't know who she is anymore without the people that she cares about. The people who helped and encouraged her. The people who always stayed by her side. The people who helped her define herself. She goes to Pakistan to visit family and try to find herself again. She ends up learning a lesson about thinking about a situation more before acting on it.

In this volume, Kamala learned how we can become torn between the different opinions that two friends might have about something. Captain Marvel thought that the prediction system that she put into place was right but Bruno, Kamala's best friend, didn't think so. As Ms. Marvel, Kamala became torn between Captain Marvel and Bruno. Did she want to listen to her great influence, the amazing superhero Captain Marvel, or did she want to listen to her best friend in the whole entire world, Bruno, an actual every day citizen in the city? Just like figuring out who to listen to, was she going to look at this situation as superhero Ms. Marvel or citizen Kamala? In the end, she learns that not only does she need to think like a superhero, but she needs to consider what the citizens think as well. She needs to consider how it might affect them before she does something. Think before you act. We can all learn from this.

Cheers,
Kaylie