Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2 strikes the right Chord

Lila Cheney has made a deal with the devil — or as close as you get, when Mojo’s involved! She’s got to get her views up while figuring out where her kidnapped fans have been taken. Fortunately, she’s got the perfect ally to help her out: our very own Ms. Marvel! Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2 is written by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada, drawn by Scott Godlewski, colored by Erick Arciniega and lettered by Joe Caramagna, with design by Tom Muller and Jay Bowen.

Armaan Babu: There are two kinds of stories you get when Mojo’s a main character. It’s either very silly, or it’s very silly in a dark and twisted way. This is, thankfully, the former, because gosh darn it, Ms. Marvel deserves a break! Being a mutant is hard enough under normal circumstances, and recent issues have been anything but. I had fun this issue. How about you?

Tony Thornley: I had an absolute blast. It was a nice little bright spot in the middle of a bit of personal chaos (which is why I’m two weeks late writing this).

But hey, it did give us time to see news(?) break about one of the most emotionally draining chats you and I have had in our longtime collaboration, so the lateness isn’t a bad thing.

It’s Lila Cheney!

Armaan: This issue is pretty disconnected from the last one (aside from the last page, of course), as Ms. Marvel is simply yoinked to the other side of the galaxy to help intergalactic punk rocker Lila Cheney out with a problem: In a deal gone bad with Mojo (and when you’re dealing with Mojo, all deals are bad), Mojo kidnapped a host of Lila’s biggest fans. Now, Lila is seeking help to get them back, but with Orchis problems, nearly all mutants have gone underground — aside from Ms. Marvel.

Now, I only know Lila Cheney by proxy, I know a lot of people are huge fans of her, and I certainly enjoyed her appearance here. Are you more familiar with the character? What’d you think of her appearance here?

Tony: I started reading X-Men long after Lila was a going concern. For me, she’s Dazzler-lite, and I genuinely can’t think of a story I’ve read where she was an actual driving force, and not a plot device or set dressing.

Which, legitimately, sucks. Lila rules. A teleporter who can only teleport interstellar distances is an interesting as hell hook. Making her a rock star adds to the hook. Then you have cool elements like the fact that she lives on a DYSON SPHERE.

I would not hate on the idea of the next volume of New Mutants just being the New Mutants kids taking a break from all the drama on Earth and just being Lila’s crew for 12 issues.

Armaan: We couldn’t have a better art team for what this comic is going for. Godlewski infuses everything with this sense of youthful energy, turning a comic that has about two pages’ worth of plot into a delightful experience. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about this issue having very little actual plot in it. The character — and fans of the character — deserve to have some fun, and this issue delivers.

There are smaller, throwaway moments here too that really remind you how good this writing team is. Kamala talking about how she and Nakia had to sneak Lila Cheney CDs to listen to them. Kamala’s light quip about how she feels like she’s joining the X-Men just after their glory days. Her continuing to go all-in as a fan to the point of loving Lila’s “flop” album. You can tell that the writers have put a lot of love into Kamala Khan as a person. Little touches like that really flesh her out as a character, make her more than just Exuberant Teen Superhero.

Tony: This run continues to be the best Kamala story since G. Willow Wilson left. The writing team gets Kamala as a character. I can’t get over how she genuinely feels like a kid. Too many writers lose that. It’s one of the big reasons I was turned off of Miles Morales and Kamala Khan stories for a two- or three-year span there.

Teen characters NEED to feel like kids. I don’t know what her stewards thought giving her that much more mature voice. I’m incredibly happy that she’s back to feeling like herself.

I do think they could have played a little bit more with the cult-like followings that some real world musicians have, though. That could have been fun.

Ms. Marvel, (Reluctant) Influencer 

Armaan: To help Lila out, Kamala takes on a new guise (and new costume) as Chord. The new costume has a few simple touches — a leather jacket, a lavender shirt, a spiked headband holding back poofed up hair and bam, Kamala’s ready to rock! It’s a delightful costume, but not as delightful as Kamala experimenting with cool punk rock poses right up to the point that Mojo reminds her he’s got a hair-trigger temper, is ready to kill at a moment’s notice and has the power to back it up.

There are people you meet in your life who just seem effortlessly cool in a way you can’t help but obsess over a little bit. People who, with that same sense of effortlessness, make you cooler with a few helpful suggestions, bringing out the best in you. Lila Cheney is that person here. Kamala’s debut as Chord may be her first time really experimenting with the idea of cool, and her awkwardness in her costume’s debut shows. It’s another quick, missable moment, but in a single image, Godlewski manages to show how much Lila understands how new this is for Kamala, while appreciating her own handiwork at the same time. Godlewski honestly does fantastic work conveying a range of fun emotions through this book in both body language and facial expressions.

Tony: I was worried a bit that I might miss Carlos Gomez’s work, but you’re so right about Godlewski. The only complaint I have is that it might have been nice to see a touch of the surreal from Adrian Alphona’s early work on the character creep in here. I mean, it’s a Mojo story. It would have worked.

I like the use of Mojo so much in this issue. Our good friends on Battle of the Atom often say Mojo is the character that everyone is just like, “No, I can tell the one good/definitive Mojo story.” Pirzada and Vellani don’t try that. Here, Mojo is exactly what he needs to be: a crooked entertainment industry exec. He does just enough to be seen as a real threat, but then the story gets out.

Armaan: Lila quickly slips away to find a way to rescue her “Lina-tics,” leaving “Chord” to fend for herself. Luckily for Kamala, her new persona is an instant hit with the audience of Mojo’s TikTok ripoff, Mij-Moj, and we’re treated to a montage of Kamala doing a whole lot of very random internet content that I suspect I am either too old to fully appreciate or am simply missing out on ‘cause TikTok’s banned where I am.

I worry it’s the former. Tony, are we too old for this comic? Is this written for the youths? Have I been using the wrong slang? Should I not have said “cool” as many times as I did in the previous section? Do people still say “cool”?

I’m grumpy now. How dare a comic book starring a teenager make me feel old.

Tony: Look. I’m very online, so I get what they were going for. It read to me like the sequence in Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet where Wreck-It Ralph does his version of a bunch of internet memes that we’re not supposed to understand. It’s more like vibes.

I would not hate on the Chord disguise coming back, though. I think we’ve discovered Kamala’s Patch: It’s obviously Kamala, but we can suspend disbelief for a couple issues every once in a while to see it come back.

Armaan: I’m just waiting for more games featuring Ms. Marvel that bring this in as a variant costume. Hey, Marvel Snap, are you paying attention?

Ms. Marvel’s Mij-Moj montage is interspersed with Lila’s more action-packed adventure, as she sneaks through Mojo’s facilities, battles Spiral and ultimately teams up with Chord to take down Mojo — or at least hold him off long enough for Lila to teleport everyone safely back to New Jersey.

The action in this book continues to be as fun as everything else in, and I continue to enjoy that it remembers that Ms. Marvel’s powers are more than just “stretchy arms and embiggening fists.”

The book sets up some fun stuff to come in future issues. Dr. Nitika Gaiha continues working on her sinister plan, Lila Cheney and the Lina-Tics are stuck in New Jersey for a while until Lila gets the power-repressing Blightswill out of her system, and hey, the Red Dagger’s in town! Things are only going to get more chaotic from here, and I am looking forward to it.

Tony: Red Dagger was a welcome final page. It’s more of this creative team leaning into the history of the character to merge it with the X-Men universe. Honestly, if the only X-Men we get are villains and cameos the rest of the series, I think it did its job well. The first series was about merging Kamala with the X-Men’s world. This one is obviously the inverse, and I want that to continue.

Armaan: I will admit, from another team on this book, I might have been more hesitant about enjoying this story that takes Kamala so far away from home and all the things that make her special. This team, however, has given me enough faith in their love for those very things that it’s easy to just back and enjoy a little silliness for an issue. Marvel, make this an ongoing already!

Ms. Cellaneous Menaces

• Yellow and black is a terrible background for a social media app, I think, but hey, it is in keeping with Ms. Marvel’s new X-uniform.
• You can tell how evil Mojo is by the fact that he uses AI to write his scripts.
• He does, however, deserve credit for this brilliant line: “Self-righteous attitude, powers and a lame outfit, I know an X-man when I see one.” It may fit better as an Avengers description, but hey, Kamala’s been both!
• After this run, hearing that Kamala’s moving to NYX makes me nervous. I like Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s Star Trek work, but a lot of their Marvel work has left me flat. Let’s hope it’s more of the former than the latter.

Buy Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)