It's okay, now. Everything's okay. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. How has this miracle happened? Easy! The world now includes The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.


Comics are good, and they come in a variety of flavors. Marvel's gotten weird lately, what with several heroes turning into jerks and several jerks turning into heroes. The good guys aren't role models anymore, which is a problem. Thank goodness for Squirrel Girl.

Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl, has the proportional speed and strength of a squirrel. She's a nutjob, but a lovable one. She has also taken down some of the greatest powerhouses in the Marvel universe, with nothing more than her own two fists and an army of freaking squirrels. Doctor Doom. Modok. THANOS. (That's canon. You can't argue with canon. You could try, but you'd wind up looking like a dumb jerk.)


After beating up a passel of muggers while singing her own theme song, SG decides it's high time she went to college. She figures a degree in Computer Science will do the job, so she packs her things and moves out of the Avengers Mansion attic (where she's been squatting for free). Deciding her true identity needs to start being a secret, she tucks her tail into her pants and gets a move on. (One demerit for the kinda racist sight gag of a gentleman of color, appreciating Doreen's "conspicuously awesome butt".)


I'd like to direct your attention to Exhibit A: Doreen, talking to a squirrel, in public, about her secret identity. It's glorious. Behold the WTF look on this gentleman's face, and get used to it, because the majority of the folks who appear in this comic will be giving her a very similar look. The comic helpfully illustrates that to everyone else, Tippy-Toe's conversation sounds like, well, squirrel noises.

We meet Doreen's dormmate, Nancy. She's a good foil, rather joyless where Dor is perpetually cheerful. Nancy likes knitting, being serious, and her cat.


Then Kraven the Hunter shows up, and grabs Tippy-Toe. Can you believe the nerve of that guy??


So this happens: Squirrel Girl consults her Deadpool's Guide to Super Villains cards and finds the one on Kraven. If you cannot see how this is completely without flaws, then I don't think we can be friends. I want the whole set.

Kraven started his day brooding and kicking squirrels. SG will not stand for this. Their battle is fierce, if brief. Dor gets Kraven talking about his raison d'etre, and convinces him to go after bigger game than Spider-Man. Literally bigger game. Gigantos-big.


How a nut like Squirrel Girl manages to use insane troll logic to defeat Kraven the Hunter is beyond me. But it is magnificent.

She returns to her dorm, back in her civvies, when a random squirrel arrives to warn Tippy-Toe that Galactus is coming. Yes, that Galactus. Gulp.


Let me be clear about what I love, so very much, about this comic. It is itself. SG has always been goofy, light-hearted, and a magnet for hijinks (and squirrels). Will Murray and Steve Ditko created her specifically to inject more light-hearted comedy into Marvel comics; and now she's in the very capable hands of Ryan North and Erica Henderson. The illustrations are simple and clean. The colors (provided by Rico Renzi) are crisp and simple. The tone, the voice of this comic, is as bright as it is funny. Things aren't going to get too heavy, here.


The major players in the Marvel Universe have been real grumps lately, or jerks. They got the Red Skull in their heads, so it makes sense. But it doesn't make their comics fun to read.

Not all comics need to be fun, it's true. But super heroes, if they're going to be true to their self-appointed job, need to be role models. They've been falling down on the job lately.


Hulk is on a violent quest to regain the monopoly on hulking. The new Captain America's a merciless brute. Iron Man's holding San Francisco's elite hostage in a vice of vanity and technologically-applied physical improvements. Thor's lost his way, and his arm. Spider-Man's off fighting a whole family of Morluns.

Then there are our heroines. Ms. Marvel struggles to protect New Jersey and keep up her grades. Storm acts as headmistress of Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants, and champions mutant rights worldwide. She-Hulk defends her clients with a razor-sharp legal mind, and still packs one hell of a gamma-powered punch (but her comic's being cancelled). Thor puts everything she has into defending the world from the Frost Giants and their ilk.


And now we have Squirrel Girl. She's goofy. She's earnest. She talks to squirrels.

I hope she sticks around for a while.

~

[EDIT: Reader comments have informed me that the word 'thug' has some racial connotations I was unaware of. Words are important, and using them correctly is just as important. As my comments have nothing to do with Sam Wilson's race, I've removed the word that had negative context for some of my readers.]