Brian Reed’s Ms. Marvel series recently became an unfortunate casualty of the global economic slowdown, as it became prudent to drop the title from my pull-list rather than endure a multi-issue arc about Carol’s past that I had no interest in. Still, it was an entertaining series for a while, and I’m still interested in both the character and Brian Reed’s writing, so when the opportunity came up to read a one-shot story which sequelises a nice little Ms. Marvel Special released a year or two ago, I gave it a go.

The story features the return of Gavin, a child created by AIM to have the same reality-warping powers as the scarlet witch. Now in control of his powers, he’s going wild with them in a similar fashion to the Twilight Zone’s “It’s a wonderful life” where his captive friend has no choice but to go along with his illusions. Ms. Marvel gets wind of all this, and goes to sort him out. It’s a pretty standard story, and like the original special, there’s never any real indication given as to why this one is a one-shot rather than an issue of the proper series.

The art on this issue is by Giuseppe Camuncali, and it’s largely disappointing when compared to the standard, superhero fare of the Ms. Marvel solo title. His figures are distorted and ugly, and overall the art just has the wrong tone for superheroics. It could work well in other contexts, but it’s just not right for Ms. Marvel. The colouring and inking also seem a little sub-par, and the pallette seems almost a little too washed-out for the kind of vivid cartoonish images being presented.

In fairness, there’s nothing offensively bad about the comic - it’s just that when you come out of it, you’re going to be left wondering what the point of it is. The cliffhanger ending means that if they do any more issues, it’ll simply be the world’s slowest miniseries. If they fold it into the main title, you’ll wonder why the instalments weren’t always there to begin with. And if the character of Gavin never appears again, well, no story has been told - and that’s what’s the major crime here.

While it’s remarkable for any comic to make it to it’s 24th issue these days, Ms. Marvel is doubly surprising because it’s got a female lead, which can amount to industry suicide, and because it wasn’t launched by a name writer. That said, I originally bought the title out of a desire to see more of Brian Reed’s work after he had co-written the entertaining Spider-Woman: Origin series with Bendis, and since then he’s only gained popularity, so his willingness to stick with the title can only be good thing.

In the issue, Ms. Marvel faces the brood queen. A fairly obvious choice of villain for the character, that’s for certain, though it’s also an entertaining one, because it means lots of action and the knowledge that the villain is an amoral killing machine. A far cry from the muddyness of the Civil War days. Ms. Marvel herself is having difficulties with her powers - first because she accidentally bonded with the alien Cru, and now that’s over, the unexpected (and so far, temporary) re-emergance of her binary powers. As a character who’s always had identity issues - especially with her audience - it’s an appropriate topic.

The supporting cast of the title is a fairly motley bunch - there’s Agent Sum, Carol’s (human) SHIELD liason, X-51, who’s in full-on nextwave mode and utterly hilarious because of it, the virtually-forgotten super-hero Sleepwalker, Arana, who ended up here once her solo series flopped, and the occasional appearance by Wonder-Man. Somehow, Reed does manage to pull the disparate personalities together. In fact, their own inadequacy seems to even contribute to Ms. Marvel’s overall feeling that she’s not quite as good a hero as she could be - the overarching theme of Reed’s run on the book.

With the brood plot wrapped up in this issue, there’s a two-page epilogue which promises to make the next arc very interesting, though it does come off as a bit of a sales bid (though arguably, the book could use one.) In the last scene, Agent Sum is called to Director Stark’s office, where he’s told about the “secret invasion” and informed that there’s a skrull in their team - the skrull in question? None other than Ms. Marvel.

Now, if true, this opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities - after all, we’ve been privy to Ms. Marvel’s inner-dialogue. If she is a skrull, well, that gives us a lot of information about how the invasion works. I can’t bring myself to believe that it’s the case, though. There’s definitely a fake-out happening somewhere in this situation, but as far as crossover tie-ins go, this one looks like it’ll have a strong tie to the book’s actual setup, so I can see it being an interesting story. Definitely, it’s a title worth a try anyway, so perhaps next issue’s the time to start.