The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1679: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5, July 2015

As we wind down the first story arc, today's issue gives us an idea of how well known our unbeatable heroine actually is in the Marvel U.

The short answer: not very. While trapped in the head of the Statue of Liberty, Nancy, who by this time has figured out that she's living with a superhero, listens to obviously fabricated tales of her new roomie. The stories are excellent, completely inaccurate to Doreen's style and adventures, and touch on some older eras of comics. There's the obligatory Dark Knight nod, some Golden-Age stuff, a nod to the crazy narratives of the 90s, all while Nancy is trying to explain that this is simply not how Squirrel Girl rolls.

Erica Henderson put so much awesomeness into this series. When I first picked it up, I wasn't sure about her far more stylized representation of the Marvel U, but now I can't imagine the series with any other art. SG has definitely been depicted as a typical superhero, prominently in the Bendis/Deodato era of the series. And while she translates well into that world, I much prefer seeing other Marvel heroes translated to hers. The cartoony style does nothing to diminish the excitement that we associate with the Marvel U. What it does do is shine a sunnier light on that world. Squirrel Girl's world is still filled with planetary invasions and interdimensional gods, but that doesn't necessarily make it a grim world. In fact, that might be one of Doreen's most important powers: her sense of optimism. She never lets a situation get the best of her, and that's just one of the lessons that I think we can all take away from this series.

Have I mentioned that, at all? That this series actually does some really important work in teaching us, specifically in teaching us how to be nice to one another.? Well it does, and that's yet another reason that you should be reading it. All of it.

"Anyway, one time a crazy professor secretly stole her blood and used it to make a clone of her!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1678: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #4, June 2015

Finally, Galactus.

All I will say is that this comic does not play out the way you think it's going to, it sets the tone for the entire series that follows it, and features one of my favourite pages of a Marvel comic ever (it's the 8th page of actual comics).

 A cool feature of Squirrel Girl is the bottom of the page commentary, sometimes from Doreen herself, sometimes from writer Ryan North, and sometimes from a narrator voice that is somewhere between the two. In the very first issue, the font is so dim that it's a bit hard to read. But the colour is corrected in the rest of the series and offers a hilarious counterpoint to the action on each page. It's simply another of the features of this series that makes it stand out from the rest of the spandex comics on the shelves.

I've been trying to think of another comic that has a similar aesthetic to USG, but there really aren't that many. Perhaps Keith Giffen's criminally cut short Vext comes closest, a tale that is firmly attached to the shared narrative construct within which it happens, but not to the traditional ways of telling stories in that construct. Squirrel Girl acknowledges that it's surrounded by the Marvel U, but refuses to tell the usual kinds of stories we might expect from that fictional milieu.

"I like you, Squirrel Girl. You don't fear me. In all my travels, you are the first to approach me...as a peer."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1677: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #3, May 2015

You know how sometimes you're on your way to stop Galactus from devouring your planet and they you get knocked back down to Earth by a villain who mistakes you for his arch-nemesis?

No?

Man, this is not a relatable comic for a lot of you.

That is what happens in this issue, but, honestly, I would love to have seen the "Squirrel Girl, Warlady of Mars" story that appears to be what the cover of this issue is advertising. Perhaps, now that the series is ending at issue #50, I'll pick up the reigns and get Doreen to Mars for some green ape action.

"Doreen, I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time. If we stop that robbery, then Galactus makes it to Earth and everybody dies anyway."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1676: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2, April 2015

You know how sometimes you're the only one who knows that Galactus is coming to devour the Earth, so you have to "borrow" some armour from your good friend Tony Stark so you can fly to the moon to keep the Eater of Worlds from, y'know, eating your world?

That's never happened to you?

Well, it happens to Squirrel Girl.

But we also get to see the beginnings of one of the great friendships of modern comics, Doreen Green and her roommate Nancy Whitehead. It's almost as impossible to imagine this series without Nancy as it would be to imagine it without squirrels. Right from the start, Nancy is established as an important character not only to Doreen's narrative, but in her own right too. That's one of the really lovely things about this series: the supporting cast are every bit as interesting and fleshed-out (to the extent that they can be as supporting characters) as our focal heroine. Over the course of the last four years the book has in many ways moved from a single-character focussed narrative to an ensemble cast. And Nancy was there right from the beginning. (As was Chipmunk Hunk - we just didn't know it.)

"Dude, you literally just got lost staring at his cheekbones."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1675: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1, March 2015

I couldn't do it.

Reading Lovecraftian horror first thing in the morning was just too much. So, though I will finish reading the stuff I pulled out, I'm taking a break and am instead going to read the much happier, more optimistic, first series of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

I don't know what more I can say about this comic that I haven't said before. It's easily the best thing Marvel has put out in the last decade or so. While I loved Secret Wars, and Hickman's Fantastic Four, and Bendis' Avengers, Squirrel Girl blows them all away. It's funny, poignant, exciting, kind....really, all of the things that we want in a superhero comic but perhaps didn't know we wanted in a superhero comic. Doreen is an amazing character, full of hope and charity, and her relationships with her friends (both squirrel and human), coupled with some superheroics, make her one of the, strangely, most relatable heroes to have emerged from the House of Ideas.

I'm going to read the truncated (by Secret Wars) first volume, and then perhaps jump back into the Cthulhu stuff with a fresh, and fortified, mind.

"You have learned too late not to jump in the face of the great Kraven, but know this: your body will serve as a warning to future generations."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1034: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl v.2 #27, February 2018

I was going to read DC's Christmas with the Superheroes today, but instead of a Christmas comic, I'm going to read a comic I got for Christmas.

Have I mentioned how much I love Squirrel Girl? Hands down one of the greatest superhero comics ever. So I was super-stoked to have this be the first thing I opened up this morning, while waiting for my son to get up (19-year old's aren't quite as enthusiastic about Christmas as their parents are!). It put a smile on my face and warmth in my heart. It truly is a great comic.

And much as I love it, I can't really find a lot to say about it. Though it's not a Christmas comic, it embodies so much about how I feel about Christmas. And not just this issue, but the series as a whole. Squirrel Girl wants to help people. She forgives, she befriends. She hopes. And isn't that what it's all about?

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 375: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl(s) v.2 #5, April 2016

Apologies - this is going to be a short one. I'm presenting at a conference tomorrow morning, and need to hit the hay.

But, really, what more can I say about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl that I haven't already gushed all over the Internet? This comic is what superhero comics are all about. It's smart, it's funny, it's got heart, and it's beautiful to look at. And the letters page is full of people dressed as Squirrel Girl, and most of them are adorable little girls who LOVE THIS COMIC! Please think about how important that is - we've been whining in the industry (that's right, I consider myself a part of the industry) about bringing in new readers f or years and USG is doing it, right now, before our very eyes. Not only that, but it's bringing in female readers. That's phenomenal on so many levels.

Just go and read this comic. Please? It's so good.

Artists to Check Out

I so wish I could see entire comics of some of these people. Some I'm sure I can, but unfortunately not all.

Vanessa Del Rey: the variety of styles is pretty stunning, just as much for how different they are as for how subtly similar.

Bruno Bellamy: The ladies Mr. Bellamy creates are cute and wonderful. I would gladly put these up on the wall. So lovely.

Erica Henderson: If you're not reading Ms. Henderson's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, you're missing out on one of the best superhero comics I've read in ages. Also. Etta. Goddamn. Candy.