Dorren Green, the superhero known as Squirrel Girl, has a longstanding joke going in that she has managed to somehow defeat each and every one of the most dangerous villains in the Marvel Universe.
That actually is played up a bit in her new solo series, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
The trade starts with Doreen moving out of the attic of Avengers Mansion and into an Empire State dormitory. She’s starting college and carrying on a running conversation with her squirrel pal Tippy Toe. Tippy Toe is the one that eventually points out she isn’t doing much to maintain a secret identity if she’s carrying on a running conversation with a squirrel while carrying a heavy load of boxes without any effort whatsoever.
And that’s the sort of humor that permeates Ryan North’s script. Doreen is a positive, upbeat gal, and of the three superhuman opponents (Kraven the Hunter, Whiplash, and Galactus) she deals with in this trade, two she beats by talking to them. In fact, that would seem to be the only reason she manages to defeat Galactus at all, if you can call what she does a defeat. Violence is not her first response, though she is more than capable of doing it thanks to the simple fact that she’s so gosh darn nice that squirrels everywhere just feel compelled to come help her out no matter what’s going on.
That fact she and Galactus bond by discussing what a tool Thanos is, and that Doreen beat him once, is more of the book’s overall fun.
Erica Henderson’s artwork fits the series well. It’s comedic, and presents Doreen as someone who isn’t the slightly bit self-conscious walking around with her tail tucked into her pants, creating the impression of a large butt. The trade has, ultimately, two flaws. The first is the rather small print at the bottom of many pages, which, while funny, was sometimes a little rough for me to read. The second is the trade itself is so darn short. Apparently, getting new issues out on time was a little rough, so Marvel supplemented the first trade with a special extra.
That special extra was Squirrel Girl’s first appearance, plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko, showing her teaming up with a reluctant Iron Man and then embarrassing Doctor Doom.
This was a fun book for a fun character. I’m giving it eight and a half rewritten Spider-Man theme songs out of ten.
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