Ms. Marvel Vol 1: No Normal, by G. Willow Wilson et al

[nwhyte]

To a happier part of the 2015 Hugo discussion. I really enjoyed this graphic story about a teenage Pakistani-American girl in New Jersey who acquires super powers. It deftly combined a number of familiar tropes, from Buffy and urban fantasy on the one hand and the increasing literature about being a non-white kid in a new and largely white country

Comments

[londonkds]

It's not so much imitating Buffy and urban fantasy, so much as the early Marvel comics which Buffy and urban fantasy have also imitated.

I'm not sure whether the extent to which it follows the stereotypical early Marvel superhero comic is kindly intended to reassure bigoted fanboys who actually read it, or maliciously intended to prove that, yes, you can do exactly the same thing when the hero is not a white man and it will still work.

[dalmeny]

Something similar had occurred to me also. So far the comic's sole innovation is the hero's demographics. I wish we lived in a better world where that alone wasn't ground-breaking, but to get there we will need this and many other stories.

[nwhyte]

I'm simply not well-enough acquainted with superhero comics to have an informed view, so I guess I'm coming at it from a different direction to those who are more familiar with the genre!