Welcome, dear readers, to another week of comics and commentary at Comics! The Blog! We kick things off, as always, by handing out awards for the Best of the week – beginning with two (usually) Award postings, followed closely by the past week’s Best.

Without question, the new comic I’ve been looking forward to the most over the last few months has been Ms. Marvel. One of my favourite series over the past few years has been Captain Marvel, and a companion book immediately grabbed my attention, as did the creative team. G. WIllow Wilson and Adrian Alphona are personal favourites, and the opportunity to see them create a new hero - a Muslim teenage girl from New Jersey! - whole cloth and tell a story we don’t often get to see in American superhero comics.

Of course, the fact that it’s not often seen is a matter on its own, one that isn’t the fault of the book or its creative team. But as Joe Hughes wrote over at ComicsAlliance, the sad truth isn’t just that the book is inseparable from the broad demographic identity of Kamala Khan, but that the relative rarity of people like her in the genre put unfair pressure on Ms. Marvel. She and her book couldn’t just be good; they had to be great. Luckily, Wilson, Alphona and Ian Herring delivered in that regard.

Even the book itself, in a way, reads as a response to the idea that Kamala Khan represents some rare unicorn of a person, let alone one who might read comics. The reality is that there are thousands - millions, really - of people just like her, and what’s striking about Ms. Marvel #1 is the familiarity that underscores everything. None of the characters are unicorns, from the strict-parent-who-just-wants-to-eat-a-meal-in-piece to the Born Again friend to the mean classmates. All of those are familiar character types who are made unique and vibrant by Wilson, Alphona and Herring‘s warm eye. We know the types, but we’re discovering them for the first time all over again, and at the core of that process is Kamala herself.

Kamala is the great contradiction of superhero comics: a character who is so new and unique but familiar enough to be immediately welcoming. I didn’t grow up in a religious household but I ached with her desire to be able to be just like the other kids and her confidence, that if she was just given the chance, that she could be something truly spectacular. Her problems are universal, even if the specifics aren’t, just like icons like Peter Parker before her.

Similarly, so is the visual world of the series. Alphona‘s an established artist, but his work here is a career best, familiar to readers of Runaways but possessing an increased fluidity that works to great effect here, whether it’s adding an exaggerated wink to the interactions or making the scenes of the mysterious mists that bring about Kamala’s change and of her cocoon dream more disturbing or vivid. Herring‘s use of colour is remarkable, similar to Jordie Bellaire‘s in the Filipe Andrade-drawn Captain Marvel issues; at once recognizable, but different from the more commonly forceful colouring in a lot of major superhero books. The colouring marks the book like Kamala herself: it could be anything, if we’d just give it the chance. It’s like nothing else but reminds us of something.

It’s not fair that Ms. Marvel had to be this great if it wanted to survive. I’m grateful it is anyway.