Sometimes being a hero means you have to make impossible decisions; a lesson Kamala learns in The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #12. The creative team of writer Saladin Ahmed, artist Minkyu Jung, inker Juan Vlasco, color artist Ian Herring, and letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna put Kamala into an incredibly tough situation, as she has to decide whether to go help her dying father or save her former friend Josh, now the supervillain called Discord, from her own suit gone rogue, Stormranger. 

In the operating room, Dr. Stephen Strange is doing his best to save Kamala’s father, Yusef, but even the Sorcerer Supreme can only do so much against bone cell death. Yusef needs a blood transfusion, but the only viable donor is his daughter Kamala who is currently hunting down Stormranger as Ms. Marvel. She can’t let Stormranger kill someone, but she can’t let her father die either. Even if she manages to stop Stormranger and make it back to the hospital, will it be too late to reverse the damage?

This issue deals with both very real human emotions and angst, and superhero action and adventure. And Ahmed makes it a very emotional read. It’s a story that really hits hard if you’ve been keeping up with the run thus far and have seen Kamala’s family learn her identity, only to forget it. Readers have watched her father fall sick and decline, watched as Stormranger went from ally to enemy. Everything has led up to this final conflict of sorts. It’s heart-wrenching to watch Kamala come to terms with how her choices have changed her life and that of her family.

The opening panels where Jung draws Kamala sinking into the river are very evocative of how she’s drowning in her life right now. With all of the difficult choices she’s had to make, and all of the heavy emotions she’s dealing with. The overall tone of this issue is sad, and the art reflects this, especially in the color choice. Herring uses a lot of dark colors, blues, purples, grays, and blacks. Even when there are brighter colors used, they’re still muted and soft, giving an overall feeling of melancholy. Like everything is normal, but not quite; there’s still a heavy cloud of sadness hanging over the characters. 

Thus far, The Magnificent Ms. Marvel has been an incredible run with so many different plot points being introduced and developed until they all come together in a devastating way. This issue is truly one of the best that’s come out of this run so far.

GRADE: A