Tails of the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5
Marvel
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Erica Henderson
Please read Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Stop reading this, please go to your store, buy every issue, and read them all immediately. There is not another book out there right now as charming and downright fun as Unbeatable Squirrel Girl; if you’re a Deadpool fan, grab it. If someday you want to transition your small children into young adult Deadpool fans but aren’t ready to drop a Deadpool book at their feet, then give them Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
This week’s Squirrel Girl #5 is the perfect issue to kick off your Doreen Green binge. In the midst of a dino-crisis, a group of hostages swap nebulously truthful stories about Squirrel Girl’s surprisingly dated previous exploits — there’s nothing you need to know about previous issues that you won’t find out in the first couple of pages, and Ryan North continues to do an amazing job making one of the goofier heroes in Marvel’s repertoire a truly relatable, well-developed character.
Amidst the grimness of the primary Marvel Universe’s pending apocalypse, Squirrel Girl and her nut-loving squirrel bestie Tippie-Toe are a welcome moment of levity. Henderson’s quirky, somewhat stylized art complements Ryan North’s light-hearted writing, and while a book like Squirrel Girl could easily turn into something too cartoonish or approach “Denny’s tumblr” level of “reach the youths” try-hard, it reads instead as a heartfelt ode to Doreen Green, a sweet and heroic young woman with a weird secret who sees the best in everyone — including Galactus.
If you’re a Marvel fan and you can find a little space between a thousand Secret Wars off-shoots, grab this book. You won’t regret it.
TL;DR: If your fave isn’t Squirrel Girl, your fave will never be this good. For fans of Spider-Gwen, Cameron Stewart’s Batgirl, and yes, Deadpool, if you’re cool with a less murdery, family-friendlier version.