Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 – “Generation Why (Part 1)”

* Part 1 of 4 of the Generation Why storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 – “Generation Why (Part 1)”! In the previous installment, and, technically, the end of the previous storyline, Ms. Marvel and Wolverine spend a lot of time bonding as they make their way to the exit of the sewers. Wolverine takes a liking to the young lass, which is saying something since Wolverine doesn’t take much of a liking to anybody or anything, and relays his opinions to a couple of Avenger-types. They decide to get Ms. Marvel a giant dog companion.

Wolverine found his runaway, but Ms. Marvel is still keen on finding some other kidnapped runaways that are being used by Thomas Birdface Edison. I’m sure she’ll regret this decision shortly.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #8 [November, 2014]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Generation Why (Part 1)”

Kamala’s narration reveals that she spent the better part of the weekend punching out alligators in the sewers. Sounds like she’s finally getting the hang of necessary animal cruelty! It gets her ruminating about why adults running the planet don’t seem to care much about the big stuff going on: terrigen bomb mist, bird clones kidnapping runaway children, etc. It’s almost like they’re pretending that these problems don’t exist until the problems get too big to ignore.

Ms. Marvel is roaming the neighborhood with photos of missing runaways, asking around if anyone has seen any of them lately. As this is happening, she doesn’t seem to notice the thing that everyone on the street wants to run away from. Something that looks like a problem that’s too big to ignore.

As everyone around her flees as if in a shitty ‘50s Godzilla movie, Ms. Marvel looks around and wonders what all the fuss is about.

She slowly turns around…

She sees the problem that’s too big to ignore…

“Awww! Look at you! You are just the cutest most humongous thing I have ever seen!”

Ms. Marvel fawns over her new best friend in a big “daaawwwwww” moment.

I like hugz :3

We’re back to the old artist! I guess someone was on strike until his demands for $28M per panel were met.

ATTENTION! I’M NOT REWRITING THE RECAPS ANYMORE. Yeah yeah yeah, we get it, strict parents, nerdy hobbies, she becomes Ms. Marvel, lots of trips to the mosque, Jersey City, and erotic fanfiction.

“So…he followed me home. Ammi, Abu, can I keep him?” Kamala grins while hugging the giant canine. As if she already didn’t know the exact reaction.

“Get out! Fuck you! Gross! That thing is forty feet tall! Out! I can’t imagine how big its turds must be! Go to hell!”

That kind of thing, essentially.

Aamir tells her she can’t have dogs in a house because it’s considered haram. Forbidden. I guess Islamic law prohibits dogs purely for companionship. Kamala starts gibbering and bargaining, insisting that she’ll feed and care for the monster and keep him in the backyard at all times. I mean, how much could this thing possibly eat, right? He probably eats dirt and trash. There’s ALWAYS trash!

Ammi worries about what the neighbors would think. Abu has been silent the whole time. They walk away, and Kamala will take all this as begrudging permission. “It’s your funeral,” Aamir says, walking away as well, “I’ll try to talk Ammi and Abu off the ledge.”

“Huzzah!” Kamala cries, like Mr. Burns. Later that night, she entertains the idea of teaching Lockjaw to play fetch, but she has other more important business to attend to first. She’s got her buddy, Bruno, on the horn to discuss Runaway Julie. She’s been in a coma since Wolverine took her to the hospital. Some real feeding tube shit. Total vegetable.

Julie Harrison is the only lead Kamala has on the Inventor’s nefarious kidnapping schemes. She browses Julie’s Facebook page – I’m sorry, Facehead page – and finds nothing of great import. Some real dead-end shit. Total futility.

There is something, though, maybe: her latest Facebook – I’m sorry, Facehead – status from five days earlier. “Side trip!! Met some like-minded souls on the road. So excited!!”

“She sounds like a hippie,” Bruno says dully. Some real crunchy shit. Total granola.

You can ride your new tank. I mean, dog.

The post is has a tagged location, so Bruno punches them into Google Earth – I’m sorry, Google Earth-616 – and it’s a random spot outside of Bayonne, NJ. There’s nothing there. Kamala rubs her head in migraine frustration and wonders what to do next. Suddenly, her giant oaf of a dog is heard panting right behind her head. “Uhhh..hold on, Bruno. I think my new dog just teleported into my room.”

Kamala hangs up the phone rudely and gets right up in Lockjaw’s face. “Did you just BAMF in here all by yourself? That’s amazing! How good are you at reading maps?”

Lockjaw gives her a quick, sad-eyed stare. “Hurrh,” is the response.

Later, Kamala clad as Mrs. Marvelous meets Bruno in the alley behind Circle Q. Bruno frowns at the dog. “You found a giant teleporting dog wandering down Cator Ave.? Is this for real?!”

Oh, it’s real, son. And Kamala’s gonna use this dog to teleport to the exact coordinates within Bayonne! While she’s there she can check out the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway and then visit George R. R. Martin’s childhood home! Thanks, Wikipedia.

Kamala grabs her pet and wonders what to do to activate the, you know, teleportation sequence. I think just wondering how to teleport out loud was good enough. Bruno takes out garbage, remaining completely nonplussed, as Kamala and her giant dog disappear in a wisp before his eyes. “So yeah, I’ll hang here and take out the trash while you guys warp out to fight bad guys. I don’t feel emasculated at all…”

Whatever, Bruno, you fucking loser. The teleportation takes all of three seconds; in the gross outskirts of Bayonne, Ms. Marvel starts traversing the landscape with her super-stretchy legs looking for something, anything, that looks noteworthy. “Why would she come here? What could a teenage girl possibly be doing in a place like this?”

Lockjaw runs off ahead to a closed-off entrance to an abandoned power plant. This wasn’t on the map! Who knows what could be here, all sorts of mutanty mutant radioactive stuff. Plutonium isotopes and toxic waste and cores reachin’ critical mass! Fun! Wonder what Mr. Birdman would need this place for.

Doubt starts sinking in. This all sounds like hogwash! Ms. Marvel asks her companion if he’s sure they teleported to the right place. A big CRREEAK! and a BOOM! answers that question for her: yes! It looks like a large automaton activates among the dilapidated structure. Ms. Marvel tries punching it with an embiggened fist! It just makes it angry! This robot has an enormous meat cleaver.

At this point, I bet Kamala kinda wishes she was punching alligators again.

Robot Butcher, at your service!

So they fight a bit. Eventually, Ms. Marvel crashes the robot to the ground. “Structural integrity compromised,” it chirps, “Switching to defense weapons array.” Doesn’t sound good, does it?

“Initiating weapons command sequence in 3…2…1…” Oooh, that extra extra EXTRA doesn’t sound good!

“STOP!” yells Ms. Marvel, and then headbutts the assuredly very hard and strong metal robot. Granted, she made her head extra-large, almost as large as Tyra Banks’ head, but still. Ouch. It did the job the, she put a big fucking dent in it. The robot, I mean. Not her head. The robot stopped moving.

Ms. Marvel and Lockjaw flip the robot over on its front, revealing a large, domelike cover on its back. She presses a button, the cover unhinges. There’s a fucking kid inside.

CAPTION GOES HERE

Just like in the sewers, this kid is being used as a living battery in order to provide power to the robot. “Is this happening to all the missing kids?” she asks herself. Why? How? Where? When? What? Which? Whom? Whose? ALL the interrogatives!

I barely remember this kid anyway, but I think he was one of the two who was stationed out in front of that house and possibly inhaling illegal substances. Ms. Marvel tries to rescue him out of the robot hatch; while she does this, a tiny robot crawls out of another compartment and sneaks into her boot without her somehow noticing. Seems unlikely, but I’m not a comic book writer! I’m barely any kind of writer. I’m barely literate.

“Nnno– stop–,” the kid rises up suddenly and alarmingly, like a corpse you didn’t know was still alive, “I’m p-part of it now– I’m giving back–”

Ms. Marvel doesn’t know what the HELL this kid is talking about! She’s trying to save him. Be grateful, goddamnit! “Lockjaw, warp us to the nearest hospital,” she instructs her faithful companion. I hope the closest hospital is the one from House. Hugh Laurie will know what to do.

We cut to later that morning, where Kamala’s teacher is in the middle of taking roll call as Kamala sprints through the halls to class. She makes it to the room after the teacher utters the third “Khan…”. Too bad her last name isn’t “Zahn”, she would’ve been on-time and also, as an added bonus, be related to Steve.

“Sit, Ms. Khan. What’s today’s excuse? This is the second time you’ve been tardy this week,” her grumpy, stumpy, frumpy teacher squawks. I’m not entirely certain why, but the teacher has a knife on her desk. She’s also holding a two-by-four, ready to smack someone unconscious. Today’s excuse is as follows: Kamala had to take a friend to visit that pill-popping miscreant Dr. House!

Her friend Nakia sees that as the filthy, flimsy lie that it is! “Kamala, we’ve known each other since kindergarten. Why does it seem like you’re hiding something from me?” she eyes her “friend” suspiciously. Probably because she is hiding something from her. Everything, honestly. They may as well not even be friends anymore!

Yeah, that was me in high school too, sister. The trick is taking naps during all your classes like I did!

Ms. Old-Time-Religion is getting tired of these two talking during class. She’s about four seconds away from thunking that piece of lumber right into someone’s brain. “Ms. Bahadir! Would you like to share your thoughts with the class?” she says to Nakia, referencing the discussion article everyone was supposed to read for homework. Maybe it was this one! Lol

“Well, Mrs. Van Boom…I found the article insulting,” proceeds Nakia, “The writer says teenagers are just parasites addicted to their smartphones, who don’t give back to society…but that doesn’t sound like anybody I know.”

As she’s talking, the little robot stowaway from earlier peaks out of Kamala’s backpack.

“I mean, how can you write off a whole generation before its even had a chance to prove itself?”

Easy, Nakia. It’s because every generation thinks it’s better than the one before it and the one after it. It’s called being human. It’s one of the 19,000,000 reasons why we suck a whole fucking bunch!

Ms. Van Boom (the “Boom” stands for whack, thunk, drop, dead) turns to Kamala and asks if she agrees or disagrees with her colleague. Kamala doesn’t get very far into her own opinion before a giant BA-BOOM!, one that has nothing to do with the piece of lumber, rocks the school.

“Remote homing beacon located,” announces the very large, definitely still-working robot as it plows right through the wall. It found its mark.

Senseless school violence. smdh

Debris falls from the crumbling walls and ceiling. Kamala gets trapped under some shit. Her inner monologue keeps trying to motivate her to get her butt in gear and help stop this thing, but she’s stuck. Lockjaw apparates within school grounds, which is something that even Dumbledore can’t do, and helps Kamala out of the rubble.

“Heal first, then transform. No time to go to the Circle Q for my costume,” she thinks, scrambling to figure out why the robot appears to be chasing her down.

The healing is a drain on her powers. She tries to transform, to look different, but nothing’s working. She stands there in the wreckage, helpless, just like the rest of her classmates.

Nothing happens.

“I don’t understand.”