Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 4), Issue #4 – “Army of One (Part 1)”! In the previous storyline, Ms. Marvel gets embroiled in a plot to take over Jersey City via Hydra’s expensive housing development operation. They even used her image in a billboard promoting the development without her permission! So not cool, yo. And even if Ms. Marvel did beat the bad guys in the end, she lost the trust of the neighborhood.

Now she has to gain that trust back by either a) saving more people from evil, or b) baking cookies. And Kamala Khan isn’t allowed to use the oven, so that settles that.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 4), Issue #4 [April, 2016]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Army of One (Part 1)”

Once upon a time, on a Sunday afternoon, Aamir and that one chick that Aamir is only allowed to see when in the presence of 600 people are sitting on the couch nervously mumbling to Mr. and Mrs. Khan. Now, remember, Aamir lives at home without a job so he has nothing to bring to the table. Remember that.

“We want to get married!” Aamir and Tyesha say in unison. Kamala pumps her fist with a huge “YASSS!” while Abu turns purple like a eggplant. “You WHAT?! What do you mean, you want to get married? Aamir can’t support a wife! The idiot doesn’t even have a job!” Aha, so Abu was already thinking what I was thinking. It’s a good thing to note, at any rate.

Ammi is like, who the fuck is this girl anyway? Kamala tells her that Tyesha is awesome because she read Dune. “I’ve chaperoned, like, three of their non-dates!” she adds. Ammi would have happily arranged a marriage with a nice girl who wouldn’t mind a total broke loser like fuckin’ Aamir.

Aamir loses it, knows that Abu and Ammi are against this for racist reasons because Tyesha is black and there are no black people in Pakistan, for Allah’s sake. Tyesha knows this too, but she also knows that Aamir speaks highly of both of them. And he speaks so highly of both of them because he knows that they wouldn’t care who he married! Right? Right?? Right?!? Right!

Abu and Ammi stop in their tracks, humbled by the accusation. “We’re not prejudiced, Aamir, you know – It’s just that, you’re my only son.” Yes, yes, her only awful son. This is a great opportunity to kick him out of the nest, after all. Let’s a get a move on with that.

“Even if we said yes, how would you support yourselves? Where would you live?” Abu asks the tough questions! And, hilariously, Tyesha says she’s willing to live in the Khan household! LOL!

I would have been like “No way, Jose”, but Abu and Ammi are both overjoyed because this is tradition. A new bride in the family home! What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours, except for the Xbox. That’s Kamala’s.

Lose my number, Iron Man.

Kamala is less than happy about this arrangement, probably because Tyesha loves Xbox. Amidst the thick of it, Kamala gets a phone call from Iron Man who’s flying around like a dipshit because a classified shipment of neurotoxin has been stolen from the Port of Jersey City. Guess what, sister, that’s your turf. Get on it before Captain America shows up to pound your puny face into raw hamburger meat. Dig?

While Ammi fawns over her new prospective daughter-in-law, Abu gets a call from Kamala’s math teacher that she got a C- on her last test. With all the chaos going on, Kamala realizes that maybe her double life isn’t going to quite work out right now. Oh hey, there’s Captain America calling Kamala! He wants to know what kind of condiments she wants after he pounds her face in.

Later that evening, Ms. Marvel wonders how she’s going to keep everything straight in her head with the wedding and the school and the extra person in their house. “It’s like I need to be in three places at once just to get everything done,” she complains as she goosesteps her way to the docks. Immediately, two goons who are carrying boxes of hazardous materials are like “oh crap, it’s her” and then attempt to book it. She avoids gunfire and CLONKs them both in the head. Then she holds one guy up by the head with her extendo-arm and asks who they are working for. “Who do you think?” he spits.

“If Dr. Faustus is still pissed I ruined his plans to colonize Jersey City, he’s just being a sore loser,” Ms. Marvel says.

“It was supposed to be his big comeback! He’s really pissed!”

The other guy gets up and tasers Ms. Marvel successfully. That’s the kind of shit that renders her powers temporarily useless. She collapses to the ground, normal sized, and kicks herself for not noticing Taser Man. “I’m getting tired… and when I get tired, I get sloppy.”

Electricity! One of my 550 weaknesses!

It takes about 90 seconds of getting punched before she is able to embiggen again and finish the job. And by “finish the job” I mean “call the rest of the Avengers to help finish the job”. She feels like she’s letting everyone down. Can’t even complete a simple task like killing two grown men and recovering hazardous toxins. Dingus.

Ms. Marvel tries to tell the Avengers that Dr. Faustus is behind this, but she gets a dismissive “We’ll take it from here”. As if she can’t handle anything! She sheepishly says “okay” and walks away feeling like such a little infantilized weakling. That does it for the evening I guess. Ms. Marvel goes home and commits suicide.

The next morning, Kamala is asleep in class after a long evening of getting her balls busted. It’s Presentation Day, and she came semi-prepared for her report on the black market economy of the Port of New Jersey. “Sometimes you can find seriously weird stuff there after hours. Like monkeys who have been trained to hack the GPS of cargo ships in order to conceal illegal docking, or hired goons stealing neurotoxin–”

Kamala is interrupted immediately by the teacher, who doesn’t find this joke funny at all. She is hereby BANISHED from social studies class! Mike chases after her wondering if she wants to eat lunch together. But Kamala cannot, she promised to meet Bruno in the science lab for a little sexual healing. And by that she means a totally platonic encounter! Heh heh.

Check it out, Kamala. I fabricated my own sex mannequin!

Bruno is alone in the science lab talking to himself about “tensile strengths” and “sustained locomotion”. He had 3-D printed one of Loki’s golems using experimental polymers after mapping a bioelectric signature from a tissue sample of one of the original golems. In layman’s terms, he’s been jacking off.

This is cool beans and all, but Kamala has a lightbulb moment. “Could you make it look like a specific person?” she asks wryly. A couple of hours later, Bruno makes two Kamala-looking mannequins. “I’d like to state for the record that I think this is a spectacularly bad idea,” he says. Kamala notes this outburst and pockets it for a later Go Fuck Yourself date.

Bruno makes it clear that these golems aren’t intelligent. They can barely string six words together and that they’re just “hipster Viking goop with electricity running through it.” No one is going to be fooled! Then Bruno suggests doing something a little less drastic, like cutting back on her extracurricular activities. Kamala says “Nein!” She’s the youngest Avenger; she still needs to prove herself!

All she needs these sex mannequins to do is say “Present!” during roll call and she can skip a hell of a lot of school to focus on getting Iron Man his coffee in between butt-kickings, and be there during all of Aamir’s stupid wedding parties that will happen between now and when he consummates his own butthole. “You’re a lifesaver, Bruno! I’ll be back to pick these guys up tomorrow morning!” she says happily as she leaves the science lab to go do some Ms. Marvel things. What could go wrong with any of this?

The next morning, a Kamala golem stomps through the hallways with determination. Zoe and Nakia are fooled, so things seem ok so far.

Then Bruno enters the science lab and finds 12 more Kamalas wreaking havoc!

What could go wrong with any of this?

Final Thoughts

Bruno, a teenage boy with a crush on Kamala Khan, is probably thrilled with the prospect of 12 Kamala Khans running around! Like a kid in a candy shop! Take your pick, son!

Just kidding. Don’t be a fucking sleaze, Bruno.