The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #9-14
Originally released in 2016
Written by Ryan North
Art by Erica Henderson (#9-14), Jacob Chabot (#11)
I feel the need to read something light-hearted today, so I went with Squirrel Girl. Picking up where the last issue left off, Squirrel Girl's attempts at dating have been interrupted by the Mole Man. Mole Man has a grudge against Squirrel Girl in particular, even if what he's angry about isn't really her fault.
Contrary to what Mole Man expects, Squirrel Girl actually listens to his concerns rather than beating him up and forcing him back underground. Mole Man shunned society a long time ago, and he's never been treated nice by anyone before. I'm sure he'll react in a completely reasonable manner and wait what is he doing?
Mole Man has fallen madly in love with Squirrel Girl and insists on marrying her despite her clearly being uninterested and having only just met him five minutes beforehand. In this story, Mole Man is a parody of the sort of "nice guy" mentality where people think that they're entitled to a reward because they act nice to others, and become bitter when they don't get it. Except in this case, landmark-sinking monsters are involved.
Every time it seems like Squirrel Girl has managed to talk some sense into Mole Man and made him see that, just because someone is nice to you, it doesn't mean that they're in love with you, he doubles down and escalates things even further. He starts holding landmarks hostage until Squirrel Girl goes on a date with him, leading to her being hounded by the press and her dating history becoming a matter of public speculation.
Her friend and roommate, Nancy, is consistently supportive, helping however she can and trying to bluntly explain to Mole Man how what he's doing is wrong. This doesn't work, and gets Mole Man to believe that Squirrel Girl's friends are trying to take her away from him, so Squirrel Girl goes to tell Mole Man it's over only to be attacked by one of Mole Man's minions, Tricephalous, who has a shocking secret.
As the fight progresses, Mole Man slowly starts to return Tricephalous's feelings after learning the truth, leading to an image so disturbing that if I have to be exposed to it, then so will everyone else:
With Mole Man having found love, the day is saved. The next issue starts with Squirrel Girl having a battle with Doctor Octopus, where she uses her knowledge of coding and computer science logic to defeat him.
As it turns out, this is all a dream - or rather, a NIGHTMARE! Old-school Doctor Strange villain Nightmare is trying to drive Squirrel Girl insane in her dreams by throwing villains at her to weaken her subconscious, which doesn't seem like the greatest plan given her reputation for being unbeatable.
The entire dream feels like an elaborate excuse by Nightmare to learn computer science, honestly - even Count Nefaria, upon being summoned, challenges Squirrel Girl to a game that basically involves Squirrel Girl teaching how counting in binary works.
However, that's not the case; the villains that Nightmare creates are based on Squirrel Girl's knowledge of them, and she knows nothing about Count Nefaria beyond him having "count" in his name. Nightmare attacks directly, forcing Squirrel Girl to escape to another bad dream.
Through the power of squirrels, counting in binary, and Nightmare using the Venom symbiote since that's a villain that Squirrel Girl knows (and giving himself Venom's weaknesses in the process), Squirrel Girl is ultimately triumphant.
The next story arc deals with Brain Drain, a robot who was repaired and is trying to be a superhero. Between Brain Drain's efforts and the sheer amount of superheroes in New York City (seriously, you'd think the lower level villains would move anywhere else), Squirrel Girl is convinced to take a break. Squirrel Girl has a teleporter to avoid any awkward questions from airport security (given her giant tail), so her, Tippy-Toe, and Nancy teleport to...
It's not as exciting as Squirrel Girl had hoped, though; there's no electricity, and while Nancy, Tippy-Toe, and Squirrel Girl's mother are excited, Squirrel Girl isn't thrilled, especially when the only things to read are magazines like this:
Back in New York, Brain Drain is having more trouble than he expected when it comes to handling the city's crime.
The villain in question is Enigmo, who can make copies of himself that shrink as more copies get made. He's seeking to take over the world, and there's inexplicably a whole town made up of tiny versions of him beneath the cabin that Squirrel Girl's mom rented.
Brain Drain kidnaps Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and takes him to Canada to help Squirrel Girl. With Enigmo having taken over North America using his clones, the heroes come up with a plan to HEIST FREEDOM BACK! ...Not clear on how that works.
With the help of a good version of Enigmo who had been hiding out in Canada, they come up with a plan. The plan takes two panels to tell and only involves the good Enigmo, leaving Squirrel Girl disappointed.
Scott does come up with a way for Squirrel Girl to be involved, though (talking Enigmo down if the plan doesn't work), and with some conveniently-placed billboards, they decide that Toronto's city hall will be where they'll carry out the plan.
Of course, once they've explained the heist in full, it falls apart immediately, leading to a brawl between the heroes and the various evil Enigmos. Only one thing can save the good guys now:
We get a flashback explaining what that is, along with how super-scientists in the Marvel universe have fundamentally messed up the concept of physics.
This series is a refreshing pick-me-up. I could have gone with something else, like Jonathan Hickman's run on The Ultimates (or at least the issues that are on Marvel Unlimited so far), but this was some light-hearted irreverent fun.
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