Disney Channel’s new series Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a kid-friendly, superhero, action-series that the House of M (That’s Mickey, not Mutants) has built.
Unfortunately, the pilot episode starts off with a heavy Pakistani stereotype between Ammi (Meera Rohit Kumbhani) making Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Kathreen Khavari) feel inferior by comparing her to her cousin without knowing that she’s really a super heroine.
Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl (Milana Vayntrub) is pretty funny with lines like, “Let’s get nuts!” and “You mess with the girl, you get the squirrel!” That, long with her team-up with Ms. Marvel, it made things more entertaining that I had initially expected from such a new series.
The characters develop quite quickly and with the inclusion of Dante Pertuz aka Inferno (Tyler Posey) and Victor Kohl aka Exile (Booboo Stewart) things can get a little fiery. The only sad part in all this is that Marvel still can’t use the the term “mutants” since the deal with Fox hasn’t fully gone through yet.
Chloe Bennet moves over from live action to the animated world, reprising her role Daisy Johnson aka Quake from the ABC series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it was great to see Rayshaun Lucas aka Patriot (Kamil McFadden), the original Captain America’s grandson come to life. Unfortunately, the tampered with his costume too much and he looks more like Evel Knievel than the total bad-a$$ that he was in comic series Young Avengers.
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is full of female empowerment, which is refreshing because they bash you over the head with, “Hey! Look! It’s a strong female!” It is just loaded with strong females without it being made an issue. What’s also great is that it is a multi-ethnic cast, the characters are Pakistani, Hispanic, Caucasian, East Asian, African-American, etc.
There is another problem with the hour and a half long episode besides the stereotyping of displeased Pakistani parents and that comes with America Chavez aka Miss America (Cierra Ramirez) having to throw in random Spanish words into almost every sentence. DC did that in the late-70s with El Dorado on Superfriends, Kidd Video did that in the mid-80s with Carla and so-on-and-so-forth into today.
However, the largest issue of them all is that the one who should be quipping constantly is Squirrel Girl, but like everything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), everyone has got to be a complete smart aleck. I wish Ms. Marvel was more like Spider-Man when it comes to the self-double and adding to the trouble of not only being bi-cultural but also being an Inhuman, would make her the emotional backbone of the series. She should really be the Captain America of this teenage super team with focusing on getting the job done and then worrying about her personal insecurities.
Overall, this is going to be a fun series that will most likely go two-to-three seasons like all the other Marvel animated shows that have air on Disney XD. The rest of the season should be quite interesting.
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors premieres on Disney Channel and Disney XD simultaneously on Sunday, September 30 at 10:00PM ET/PT.
- Overall Score
Summary
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a fun, female empowering series without having to constantly remind you that it is a female empowering series. Although the constant quipping gets annoying, it still is full of action and jokes that parents will love watching with their kids.