Warning: Spoilers for Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1!As Ms. Marvel integrates herself into the X-Men, the superteam teaches her the true meaning of “tough love.” It’s been a tough year in itself for Kamala Khan, who learned through her brush with death that she’s half-Inhuman, half-mutant. She’s mutant enough to not only be resurrected by the X-Men themselves at this year’s Hellfire Gala, but to join them as the team’s newest member.
Kamala’s first days as both a mutant and an X-Man are chronicled in Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1 by Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Carlos Gomez, Adam Gorham, Erick Arciniega, VC’s Joe Caramagna, Tom Muller, and Jay Bowen. An unexpected encounter with an alligator offers Ms. Marvel her first taste of tough love on behalf of her new teammates.
Taking place after the Mutant Massacre at the Hellfire Gala, the issue sees Ms. Marvel retreat underground to meet with the surviving mutants seeking refuge. In her travels through the sewers, she runs into and gets into a fight with an alligator. Coincidentally, she also happens to run into Kate Pryde, who has just rebranded herself as Shadowkat, the world’s deadliest mutant. After pointing out that the alligator is sniffing out the candy bar in Kamala’s pocket, Shadowkat flees the scene, leaving Kamala to fend for herself. This compels Kamala to say, “That’s one way the X-Men are different from the Champions and the Avengers. They really take the ‘tough love’ part seriously.”
What the X-Men Know About Tough Love
To better understand the X-Men’s brand of tough love, especially compared to other superhero squads Kamala’s been on, one must first understand the concept of tough love itself. Tough love is usually dished out by someone who received a tough upbringing in the past. They try to carry out a similar brand of difficult constraints on someone they are teaching (i.e. a mentee or a child) in order to instill the strong values that they garnered from their own experiences.
Most mutants gained their own strong values because mutants, first and foremost, are survivors. As the planet’s minority group, mutants have had to endure extreme levels of oppression and obstacles, but those who came out on the other side did so as stronger individuals. Most members from other superteams haven’t been forced to endure the same kind of obstacles that X-Men or mutants in general have. This goes to explain why X-Men’s methods often read as cruel on paper.
Ms. Marvel is on course to experience her own obstacles in discovering her mutanthood. In fact, she does when she’s immediately ostracized by the public upon revealing that she’s joined the X-Men. Especially with Orchis on the horizon, Ms. Marvel is being forced to grow up and learn such strong, character-building values fast, and as such, X-Men members like Shadowkat push “tough love” to speed up the process.
Ms. Marvel: The Next Mutant #1 is available everywhere now!
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