nomadreader

After enjoying the first volume of Ms. Marvel: No Normal ,  I was eager to continue with the series. Ms. Marvel Vol. 2: Generation Why If  the first volume had a weakness, it was a necessary one: Wilson had a world to build. Generation Why  is able to pick right up where the action left off, and it covers a lot of ground. These collections feature several issues of the comics bound together. As someone who has never read traditional comics, I find the pacing interesting. Many of the issues end of cliffhangers, as the first volume did, but I was pleased this collection's ending felt like a satisfying end for a volume that's part of a continuing series. Readers familiar with comics will find many familiar faces (I confirmed some with Mr. Nomadreader), but as relative Marvel neophyte, I never felt lost. Wilson manages to write for new and old fans simultaneously. Wilson also packs a lot of action into this volume. Thankfully, there is also a lot of character developme...

The backstory: G. Willow Wilson is one of the keynote speakers at next week's Association of College and Research Libraries conference in Portland, Oregon , and part of the conference marketing campaign was designed around Ms. Marvel, so I knew I wanted to read it before seeing Wilson speak at the conference. The basics: The titular Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager living in Jersey City. My thoughts: I don't read many traditional comics, and while Ms. Marvel  is clearly a subversion of the genre, I knew there were references I wouldn't understand. I even wondered if I would get all the things it was trying to do, so I enlisted the help of a veteran comic book fan, Mr. Nomadreader. He explained a few things to me that gave the book more depth, but I was pleasantly surprised how much I did get  just from my own reading. There's a lot of set-up in this comic, but that didn't detract from the plot. Kamala's family and friends a...