Captain Marvel‘s “Last of the Marvels” arc had quite the promising start, building on the layers of the Captain Marvel mantle by allowing the rare chance for all these characters to interact. Issue #33 is a decent entry in the overall pretty excellent run, but the cracks do start to show a little as well.
The big cliffhanger of last issue was seeing Kamala Khan’s house attacked — and of course, this issue picks up right there. The premise of Kamala being involved in this arc and potentially getting to interact more with not just the “Marvel” mantle she holds but characters like Spectrum and Phyla-Vell was exciting. However, Kamala’s role in this issue is actually a little…troubling.
Image: Marvel Comics
Kamala is pretty much used as Carol’s damsel in distress to save, more like a little sister who needs her eldest sibling to get her out of a mess. It seems a bit of a disservice to her character and reading this, I couldn’t help but wonder why Kamala wasn’t allowed to not just have a bigger role but a more competent one. Seeing Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel fight side by side would have been quite charming.
Monica is also a bit glossed over in this issue unlike the treatment of Phyla-Vell in previous issues, which Carol had much more time to reflect on. One can only hope she gets better treatment and more significant action in future issues of this arc all things considered.
Part of what made “The Last of the Marvels” such an exciting arc on paper was the idea of all these different brands of the “Marvel” legacy interacting. And so far, they’re mostly props in a story rather than having anything of value to say.
It’s nice to see Carol and Kamala’s relationship stressed, but it’s hard to be completely excited about it in this issue when it does come at the cost of Kamala’s character a bit. Hopefully, future issues fix this problem.
As usual, Thompson’s writing for Carol is punchy and she has such a great grasp of her character that Carol’s bits are such a joy to read. This arc still has plenty of legs to stand on to make it an intriguing read, even with the bumps in the road that will hopefully be addressed properly later. Artist Sergio Davila does a great job of portraying the fast-paced action sequences that take up a majority of this issue.
All in all, Captain Marvel #33 is one of the weaker issues of Thompson’s ultimately astounding run, but hopefully, she can turn it around in the later pieces of this arc.
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