A close friend just betrayed Ms. Marvel to C.R.A.D.L.E. and it’s the last person anyone ever expected.
WARNING: Spoilers follow for The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #17 by Saladin Ahmed, Minkyu, Ian Herring & VC’s Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
In both Ms. Marvel and The Champions, it seems C.R.A.D.L.E. is one step of the teenage heroes every step of the way. While the main reason seems to be Viv Vision in The Champions, the reason that Ms. Marvel can’t seem to keep the task force off her tale was a little closer to home.
Zoe Zimmer and Ms. Marvel have been close for a long time. The one-time “most popular girl” and former girlfriend of Josh Richardson (Discord) was also the first person that Ms. Marvel ever rescued. Now, it turns out that Zoe is also the person who betrayed Kamala Khan to the task force of C.R.A.D.L.E.
Ironically, Kamala had just saved Josh, who happened to be under Monopoly’s control, to create more zombies out of Rubicon employees. Josh decided it was time he hung up his costume and turned himself over to the police. He finally saw how good of a hero Ms. Marvel was and said that he was nothing like her because she always helped others no matter the risk to herself. This caused Dum Dum Duggan to agree to stop pursuing her and gave her one less enemy on the streets. However, Duggan then dropped a nugget for her: they didn’t use high-tech toys to find her — someone told them where she was.
Kamala knew instantly who it was and set up a meeting with Zoe. When she said she wanted to talk to Zoe, her old friend beat her to the punch and admitted to selling Ms. Marvel out. Zoe said that Ms. Marvel is brave and is not afraid of anything, but as a result, she puts a lot of other people in danger. When Kamala said she spends some nights only thinking about that, Zoe asks how she can do it. Kamala drifted out, knowing that she went there to make peace with Zoe, but feels betrayed at what her friend did to her.
The strife between Kamala and Zoe started thanks to the “Outlawed” event. When the Champions failed to stop an attack, and Kamala ended up in a coma, Zoe reacted like much of the nation. She blamed the Champions for everything that happened. This started in Magnificent Ms. Marvel #14 when Zoe lost control and said Kamala could have died because of her “wannabe-Avenger friends.” Kamala spent her entire time in a coma having non-stop nightmares about not saving her friends and loved ones. It was exactly what Zoe accused her of, but Kamala knew she couldn’t just hide. She had to fight to protect them.