Anyone not previously familiarized with Ms. Marvel and her comic book appearances is in for a shock if they decide glance past some internet reviews available before giving the new MCU series a worthy shot. That is because, as of now, the show stands as a perfect symbol for the very strange landscape that surrounds movies, TV, and video games when it comes to reviews.
While Ms. Marvel is indeed being review bombed, the show is also being lauded with outstanding reception from many outlets. Reviews consistently call it a definitive 10 out of 10 which, although welcome for newcomer Kamala Khan, hardly helps in painting a clear picture for audiences of what the series is really is like. At the time of writing and after the second episode’s release, Ms. Marvel holds an admirable 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score (down from 97% last week). However, said reviews show great imbalance, thus raising the question: what is really going on with Ms. Marvel?
What Review Bombing Looks Like For Marvel
It's a phenomenon that’s widely known to gamers. A new title (such as Diablo Immortal) comes out, and the inclusion of a feature or plot element irks a certain part of the fanbase (such as microtransactions), or renders the entire experience wholly unsatisfying, thus triggering a wave of negative scores. While the internet enables the democratization of reviews via user-submitted scores, it also opens the door for severe manipulation on either side of the spectrum.
It’s hard to believe 28% percent of all viewers that have seen Ms. Marvel consider it an absolutely miserable experience; not even Morbius does that to people. Yet at the same time, the notion that a newcomer superhero can magically earn better scores than Black Panther, Avengers: Endgame, Iron Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home should also be taken with a grain of salt. Even if Ms. Marvel is groundbreaking in terms of representation, that should not blind anyone to its faults. The series doesn’t deserve a perfect score for simply showing up; in fact, doing so underplays the value of the very diversity milestones it achieves.
Every person is entitled to their own opinion to make of Ms. Marvel, or any other artistic work for that matter. But by trying to push ridiculously high scores as counterbalance to a wave of review bombing, both fans and media outlets throw that very praise into suspicion. As it stands, most reviews for Ms. Marvel are either ones or tens, even though it’s probably more likely the series aligns better with the slew of more organic scores between 7 and 9.
As the MCU’s first Muslim superhero, Ms. Marvel is prone to suffering spiteful online attacks from the very loud islamophobic minority, which will simply hate on the show without any real regard for its actual content. Regardless of that, media outlets owe to themselves and users not to feed such trolls, as there lies one of the internet’s greatest traps.
What Is Ms. Marvel’s Real Review Score?
First and foremost, no Marvel production on Disney Plus deserves the lowest score possible. The sheer budget, production values, and love that go into making them practically guarantee the minimum quality standard that most folks expect from anything related to Disney in the first place. That said, while Ms. Marvel’s visual style gets tons of love, some other aspects about the series will likely fail to resonate with a larger audience.
The first of these is that Ms. Marvel, for the most part, plays very like a teenage comedy or drama. By its very nature, this genre is less likely to appeal to the widely spread demographic that’s kept running the MCU going strong for the past 14 years. This isn’t a bad thing, Ms. Marvel handles its teenage facet surprisingly well, but by leaning into it so hard it simply will not be that attractive to as many people. A certain age bracket will find it relatable, but others won't.
Spider-Man is the Avenger’s youngest member, and even then, Peter Parker is no newcomer. Tom Holland’s introduction was highly-awaited, plus he had two more grown-up predecessors paving the path for him before. For a new completely new character like Ms. Marvel, it's a huge ask to pull the weight of an entire series without audiences having that kind of affinity for her, and that's without the fact that after two episodes the show lacks anything that resembles a villain or antagonist.
Hardly any of the Marvel series deserve unanimously outstanding reviews, and numbers show that Loki stands head and shoulders above the rest, despite the trickster god not being able to reach the same heights as Disney Plus’ golden boy, The Mandalorian. Ms. Marvel is fun and light-hearted. It's exactly the kind of production that would have never gotten made in cinema, and is a delight to see on Disney Plus. But asking a teenager to be the champion of an internet culture war is just throwing the hard work of its directors, producers, actors and all staff into the fire So please, give Kamala the fairest grade possible.
Ms. Marvel is currently available on Disney Plus.