Can Squirrel Girl be… normal?!
Creative Staff:
Story: Ryan North
Art: Erica Henderson
What They Say:
Wolverine, Deadpool, Doctor Doom, Thanos: There’s one hero that’s beaten them all, and now she’s got her own ongoing series! (Not that she’s bragging.) That’s right, you asked for it, you got it, it’s Squirrel Girl, (she’s also starting college this semester!) It’s the start of a brand-new series of adventures starring the nuttiest and most upbeat super hero in the world!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I was around, and actually read, Squirrel Girl’s early appearances way back in the 90’s, I hadn’t realized that over the years while I was away from comics that she had become a thing. A thing that has now earned her a book of her own. Humor comics are a different beast than the usual superhero stuff and in many ways they’re much harder to do. Some go for blending more humor in but not making it the primary things. Others go all in and just revel in it. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl goes all in and then some to just have some fun in that Marvel Universe. It’s the kind of book that while it may be connected to everything else, you can likely just enjoy it all on its own and leave it at that. And it is definitely quite enjoyable. Though perhaps in smaller doses.
The series reveals around the title character who has been spending her time crashing in the attic of the Avengers mansion while doing her superhero thing. But she’s come to a point in her life where she wants to be more than she is, so she’s going to truly assume her secret identity of Doreen Green and head to college to major in… computer science. Maybe. With her having been so invested in her superhero identity, she has a hard time really taking on the role of Doreen because she hasn’t lived a normal life in quite a long time, which is made worse since her companion Tippy-Toe the squirrel constantly talks to her and she talks back, confusing your average citizen. But she’s intent on making this working, having figured out how to tuck her bushy tail in her pants to give her quite the rear end, and experience college life and be something more.
The opening issue walks us through her moving out and bringing lots of nuts with her, dealing with some muggers and also trying to remember how to be normal while taking advice from a squirrel that knows nothing about what it means to be a person. She gets to meet her roommate, Nancy Whitehead, who will definitely provide some straight man fun for her to play off, though she’s got enough quirks as well that come across in just the few pages she’s in. The book is a like a constant stream of thought to word from Doreen, which definitely takes some adjustment when you read it since it’s all over the map, but also because there’s a lot of below the art text that provides commentary on the scenes at hand. Which is definitely fun, but it can also be distracting sometimes from the main storyline itself.
This issue also gives us some decent action from the comedy side as while she’s trying to settle into her room, she gets pulled away because Kraven the Hunter has arrived and is about to kill Tippy-Toe for some grievance he has against him. That has its own really amusing way of unfolding, almost in the old school style of cartoon dealings, but with some creative bits as well from Doreen’s part in trying to distract him. The book does some good stuff in filling in new readers on who he is by using some snarky trading cards, but it fits in with the style of the book pretty well and makes for a fun read overall with what it’s doing, even if just adds to the packed nature of the issue with the amount of information on hand.
In Summary:
I had a lot of fun with the debut of the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, though I almost feel like I had a headache from it afterwards because of just how much there is to it and the style of it all. Ryan North definitely makes this a busy and active book with the dialogue and pacing of it, enough so that you can easily see this being a cartoon series that just screws around with Marvel properties in a very fun and big way. Erica Henderson captures that style really well with what she does here, making it a silly, fun but detailed and well laid out book so that the narrative comes together well. Fans of the character are likely going to be delighted by the whole experience and those looking for the lighter side of the Marvel Universe will definitely get some good grins and chuckles in here.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 7th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
