The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Let me tell you why the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is the best book you have never read. I have been wanting to write this post for a while, but I had to wait until I finished both volumes. While I think her initial origins are silly and maybe her power set is ridiculous, what this book does is place her at the middle of many funny adventures. It also proves her to be a very capable super hero. As she likes to say, she eats nuts and kicks butts. There is a whole supporting cast that is fleshed out around her and each of them are funny in their own ways. Specifically her squirrel, Tippy-Toe, that has a distinctive pink bow so that you will always find her in every panel. I should also mention that she can talk to squirrels, so you will see them interacting with each other, while the rest of the world cannot understand them.

What really makes this book work is the writing of Ryan North and the art of Erica Henderson and Derek Charm. One of North's gimmicks is to have these little editor notes at the bottom of each page that hilariously references what we just read. There are MANY great gags here and it ensures you will want to absorb every ounce of this comic book. Also, there is a recap page before each issue that acts as a faux twitter feed. Lots of funny stuff here too. My wife can tell you that anytime I opened up each issue, I already start off chuckling to myself within the first five seconds. Never ignore these, even if they all appear to look the same.

If you are a computer science major, this is the book for you. In her "secret identity", Squirrel Girl is a second year computer science student along with her friends. So you will get a lot of jokes about binary, algorithms, networking, etc. If you are even remotely familiar, you will get a big kick out of these.

Then there are the hilarious interactions she has with several characters. For example, Galactus as shown here. Take in this whole page. The fact that she has THIS kind of conversation with him is why this book is so funny. 

She has the ability to relate and talk to all the characters of the Marvel Universe. You will find her to be an infectious and innately likeable character. Like I said, although the situations are funny, at the heart is a warm and fully formed character. She is humanized here in a way that she wasn't in other books.

Other characters like Loki make constant appearances and he has an affection for Squirrel Girl's best friend, Nancy Whitehead. 

Then there are the jokes that are roasting other characters of the Marvel Universe. For instance, check out this panel about Jubilee making fun of Wolverine below:

This book is chock full of stuff like this. No character is safe and it is fun to hear some meta jokes about some of the characters. 

To further my case for why you need to read this comic, see to the left where those notes at the bottom of the page come into play. It's a simple gag. Really, this is definitely Kevin humor so maybe I am biased.

There will be notes on just about every page. So you will be doing a lot of reading, but I promise you it will be all worth it.

Finally, I've talked about how funny the writing on this book is, but I don't want you to dismiss the art. Erica Henderson puts in some wonderful work. At first you might be a little turned off by it, but to do so belies some of the brilliance of it. She does a lot of great facial acting in her artwork. I think she draws some of the best eye rolls in the business. When you see them, you definitely feel it come across. Every character has a specific body shape to them and there is nothing gratuitous here. You will not see cheesecakey shots of Squirrel Girl or any other character bent over here. If it is ever used, it is for humor, not to sell art books. 

The characters are infused with all kinds of characteristics and quirks that gives you more insight into who they are. That is why it is so brilliant. Unfortunately, she would leave the book after about 40ish issues or so across the volumes and then Derek Charm comes in. His art is also good, but it is a different style that gets used to because you were originally used to a specific look for Squirrel Girl.

I absolutely loved this book and it is honestly one of my favorite series. I have never had so much fun with a book in all my life. I used to be a huge Deadpool fan, but after a while, his kind of jokes fall flat. In this book, every attempt at humor felt earnest and well thought out. So I don't think I had one issue where I didn't enjoy it. Sure I enjoyed some more than others, but I can't think of any that I would call a dud. As you read on and get more of a feel for the characters, it only gets better from there. 

Although the series ended, I hope it returns some day with this kind of humor. Maybe they can lure Ryan North and Erica Henderson back to do it. I don't know. Strong recommendation to pick this up because if you need a good laugh, you will find it here. I'll end this article with a few panels of Squirrel Girl taking Taskmaster to...well, to task.