By Lauren Barbour

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With the release of its second volume on April 7, “Ms. Marvel” has been occupying an almost embarrassing amount of headspace for me lately. In an effort to turn my excitement into some form of productivity, this week I’m taking a break from my usual format and giving you guys a more in-depth review of the first volume, “No Normal.”

The volume, which contains issues one to five of “Ms. Marvel” and the first issue of “All-New Marvel Now! Point One,” starts off with regular Jersey City teen Kamala Khan gaining shape-shifting powers and adopting the name Ms. Marvel, after her hero Carol Danvers (now Captain Marvel, and headlining her own series). And alongside figuring out her new powers and what it means to be a hero, Kamala starts to figure out herself too, which is a theme I think a lot of us can relate to.

And to be honest, that’s probably my favorite thing about the series. Kamala is a sixteen-year-old Pakistani-American girl who wants nothing more than to be like the “beautiful and awesome and butt-kicking and less complicated” Carol Danvers. To her, being Carol is being happy; obviously that’s not actually true but Kamala thinks it is. So to see her go from struggling to distance herself from… herself, basically, to accepting that she doesn’t need to change who she is to be a hero is incredibly satisfying to see.

The empathy Kamala elicits paired with her optimism and genuine desire to do good really makes “No Normal” a very hope-for-the-future kind of read.

If you’re interested, the volume can be downloaded at www.comixology.com or  on Google Play or purchased from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Happy reading!