The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Book 4: I Kissed A Squirrel And I Liked It (#7-11)

"Heed me well. Squirrel Girl. Your boyfriend now belongs to me!" - Mole Man

Ladies month continues and it's Valentine's Day as well.  So what better way to deal with this special day than seeing how Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl deals with the wacky world of online dating. Squirrel Girl has the strength and agility of a squirrel and can also speak to them.  She has a constant squirrel companion called Tippy-Toe as well.  In her non-superhero life she is a computer science student along with her best friend and housemate Nancy, who is a very down-to-earth normal human regularly dragged into Squirrel Girl's daft adventures.  Squirrel Girl picks up an unwanted admirer in the main three part arc in this book with a one-shot involving her dreaming about using her advanced math skills to defeat various villains and another a "choose your own adventure" where you, yes YOU can be Squirrel Girl. The series is written by Ryan North and is mostly drawn by Erica Henderson. Jacob Chabot draws issues #11 but manages to stay true to the style of the book.  As per usual, the previous issue's events are summarised by a twitter feed and the letters pages have been left inside the trade which I am going to say for the zillionth time is a brilliant idea that more comics should do. Anyway enough of that, let's continue with a chance to take a walk in her very comfortable shoes.

Stylish Galactus.

We begin with Galactus dressed in a smart gown supping on a cocktail.  He tells us that we are about to experience no ordinary comic, it is "nothing less than a Squirrel Girl Simulator".  We get to be Squirrel Girl and he gats to judge how well we do at it. If we're a sucky Squirrel Girl he'll eat the entire planet.  So the fate of the world rests in our hands...

It starts with her facing a villain called "Bonehead" causing trouble at a farmers market.   The choices are to physically attack him, which doesn't work or send squirrels down his pants which does work. Then Squirrel Girl checks her twitter feed and she has two options: help detective Corson take on Doctor Yes who wants to hold the world to ransom with a killer disease.  Or help him fight the eldritch god Quoggoth in Central Park, who "wants to bring gibbering madness to this fallen realm".

Choosing to battle Quoggoth brings Squirrel Girl to a giant many tentacled being with lots of eyes.  Squirrel Girl says all those eyes make it have "100% weak points."  But Quoggoth wraps her in a tentacle saying he can stop her getting to his eyes.  It can't stop a hundred squirrels though and Tippy-toe and friends attack.  This defeats Quoggoth, releasing Squirrel Girl and allowing it to be arrested.

Choosing to take on Doctor Yes finds her facing off against a man holding the only sample of "Deathbringer 8000, a Doomsday virus of my own invention".  If his ransom demands aren't met he'll release it.  Squirrel Girl asks him if it works on squirrels.  Doctor Yes says of course not, so Tippy-Toe grabs the virus capsule and eats it.  Doctot Yes is arrested and Detective Corson says thanks no matter which path you took.  The other incident also being resolved "through good old-fashioned police work".

Squirrel Girl and Tippy-Toe carry on with their day.  Suddenly they hear a buzzing noise.  Squirrel Girl has two options, either investigate or go home and study.  The study harder path unfortunately leads to a non standard gameover as she forgets to fight any crime and also eat.

Investigating the buzzing noise takes her to the supervillain "Swarm" a man made up of a swarm of bees. He says he has done his research and knows her weaknesses.  He planned his attack for today when all other heroes had been lured away so by the time he returns he'll have taken over New York.   Squirrel Girl has two options, attack with punches; which doesn't work.  Or attack with squirrels, which also doesn't work.

Some choices to make.

So that leads to two more options.  One in which she gives up, "I've decided being awesome is boring and stupid! Apparently" and that leads to gameover as the bees take over the world.  Or she decides to never give up.  Two more options appear. To try and resolve the situation without violence or to eat nuts and kick butts.

Unfortunately he is resistant to both her rhetoric and her butt kicking capabilities. Squirrel Girl is vexed to find she is losing "this never happens" she says to Tippy-Toe.  But then she realises that they can summon a hero he wasn't prepared for, "the unsinkable Koi Boi".  He either ignores his phone which results in gameover, or he answers it and agrees to come help.

There are several options now.  Koi Boi and Squirrel Girl lure Swarm to the sea.  Or make like beekeepers and smoke Swarm out. Or use pollen to take control of the bees.  The smoke option doesn't work as it is used to make bees gorge themselves on honey from a burning hive and "there's no honey here, heroes!"  This results in a gameover as does the attempt to use pollen to break his telepathic hold on the bees.

Fortunately the option for Koi Boi to splash Swarm with a giant wave does work, weighing the bees down and causing Swarm to fall apart.  They sweep the bees into rubbish sacks and take them to the local police station saying the bees aren't bad just Swarm so if they keep the bees apart in a well misted cell with lots of bee treats they should be OK.  She also hands over the queen bee in a jar who she thinks Swarm lives inside.

Combined they beat the Swarm.

As they leave, Koi Boi asks how she got mixed up in all this and she has the choice of recounting the whole adventure including every single path where it could have gone wrong.  Or she says it's "kinda irrelevant right now".   She and Koi Boi agree they make a good team, then he says they have to get back to studying and she groans about why fighting crime has to be more fun than "achieving academic goalsets."  We also get a special cheating bonus ending by cheating, which is Squirrel and Tippy-Toe fighting Swarm in the Iron Man armour.

This issue wraps up by returning to Galactus eating Earth.  But he says it's actually a cake he decorated to look like a planet using the power cosmic. Also he doesn't need to eat planets now, he has a "life energy inversion thig going on".  Anyway he wasn't paying attention much but if we got this far we must have been a "pretty rad Squirrel Girl so good job on that."  He leaves us with a cut out n'keep coupon saying how rad we are at being Squirrel Girl and how the bearer of this card should be given free snacks.  "Thanks for reading my comic" he says, "Peace."

The New Avengers

The next arc begins with the New Avengers aided by Squirrel Girl's friend "Chipmunk Hunk" taking on a massive antlike creature.  They don't seem to be able to stop it.  Then five minutes later Squirrel Girl tells the others a story about a ship that in 1918 ran into some islands.  They repaired the ship and left but the rats aboard had swum to the island at ate everything living there "including a species of super-cute leaf eating bugs called Tree Lobsters."

But eighty years later twenty-four were found and so they were taken off the extinction list.  Scientist collected pairs of the lobsters and bred them in captivity.  The giant ant is listening to her story as well, and when she asks if it was born in a lab it nods.  And she asks if it accidentally got loose and exposed to cosmic rays which made it giant?  It nods again.  She says it's probably just hungry and it nods again.  She hugs its head and says "problem solved guys".

They supply it with some trees to nibble on and when asked how she knew all this, Squirrel Girl says she spends some nights refreshing wikipedia's random article page-link.  So they will keep it fed until Ant-Man arrives to shrink it back down, so the rest of the New Avengers will take it from here.  Squirrel Girl and Chipmunk Hunk take their leave, he's happy he got to tag along.  She says everyone is allowed the occasional plus one, Hawkeye once brought his dog and Power Man his high school English teacher.

She says they should go back to base but Chipmunk Hunk, real name Tomas, says he has plans. He admits he has a date and that renders Squirrel Girl speechless, then she runs off blabbering that she is super cool with that and to have fun.  We then cut to Doreen with Nancy as she yells "I'm super not cool with this, Nancy!!"

Nancy tells her straight that she's had a crush on Tomas for over a year and done nothing, "what did you expect would happen."  Doreen grumbles quietly that he'd ask her out, declare his undying love so she wouldn't have to be the first to say anything and risk rejection.

Nancy doesn't sugar coat.

Nancy says it sucks but it's time for Doreen to go on some "friggin' dates."  Doreen says she doesn't know anyone to date and Nancy says sarcastically:

Nancy: "Oh no! If only there were some way to meet romantic partners, perhaps some vast and international information network.  Here's how we're gonna solve your problem Doreen Green... you're going to try online dating".

Doreen gets excited by this saying it's going to be super great and she will go on some fun dates with boys.  Unfortunately she has some trouble writing a dating profile and tries to give the whole thing up as a "huge pain and boys aren't nearly worth it. The end."

Nancy and Ken aka Koi Boi are with her and Nancy says how hard can this be for someone who punched Galactus on the moon?   Doreen says she knew what she was doing then, but she has no idea what to say to make boys like her.   Tippy-Toe offers help as do the others.  They'll write her a profile each and she'll use the one she likes best.  Doreen agrees, offering some descriptive words she wants them to include.

The profiles are written, Doreen read them and puts her head in her hands.  She tells them it was sweet of them to help but she'd rather never kiss a dude again than deal with dating profiles.  Ken says it would help if they new if she was dating as Doreen or Squirrel Girl.   She says neither is  good option, either they want her because of her powers or they'll find out on the awkward third date.

Nancy says she will make two profiles and they can combine the best of the two of them.  With that done, Doreen can check out some profiles and message anyone who seems interesting and go on some dates.  Grumpily Doreen agrees.  Then asks the two of them how come they don't go on dates.  Nancy says she is focusing on her studies and Ken says he already dates with optimum efficiency.

We then get a two page spread of Doreen going on a bunch of dates.  This includes a villain called "Fancy Dan".  A boy who thinks squirrels are vermin.  Another criminal called "Boomerang".  The Human Torch who sets the sprinklers off on their date.  A man who is phobic of squirrels and a Sentinel.

Failed dates.

We join her on a date that actually seems to be going well.  She is at the fairground with a man called Brad, and she says she knows who he is with an online handle "HawkJock" and she reveals her tail to him.  He boggles then asks what cosplay she is doing.   She says he mustn't be coy she knows why he called himself HawkJock.  He says that it's because he's a fan of the basketball team the Hawks.

She says that he isn't a superhero with the powers of a hawk and a jock?  Just the jock part he says.  When she lists of traits hawks have he just responds with totally normal reactions.  Then he laughs saying she thought he had powers.  She admits briefly that she did.  He says he is into her cosplay:

Brad: "... you gotta know that all that superhero stuff is fake, man!  Superheroe don't exist."

Turns out Brad is a superhero "truther". He says he will email her some literature about how they put things in the water to make people believe in superheroes.  Doreen says she will take him to meet some of the people he doesn't believe exist then they will never date again.

But Brad keeps going saying Thor is just a series of paid actors all playing a role.  When Doreen says Thor is a woman now, Brad ponders that the previous dude must have found out something he wasn't supposed to.  Doreen starts to leave but then with a might boom a corkscrew points up through the ground with the aged "Mole Man" standing on it backed up by a multi-headed monster.

Mole Man crashes her bad date.

He demands to see Squirrel Girl and she quickly changes.  Mole Man's monsters grab Brad who films what is happening, "advanced animatronics are being used in so called 'superhero' false flag operations" he cries.  Mole Man says she must head him as he has her boyfriend now.  She attacks Mole Man yelling "He's! Not! My! Boyfriend!"

She gives Mole Man a punch and then consults her Deadpool Villain Cards to check him out.  As she fends off the multi-headed Mole Monsters she demands to know why he is even fighting her, he doesn't seem to have anything against squirrels or girls. He fights back calling her a "hoyden" which he has to clarify as a saucy or boisterous woman and other outdated slang.

We then get a page recounting how Squirrel Girl had tangled with Kraven The Hunter and at the end of their encounter she had persuaded him to go hunting underwater leviathans instead of spidered men.  But Kraven needed money to do this and went hunting in the employ of others but again Squirrel Girl stopped him and she persauded him to hunt those who hunt others and so Kraven has been a thorn in Mole Man's side ever since, "and it's all due to your meddling Squirrel Girl!!!"  It's bad enough the human world dumps its rubbish underground but Kraven is a bridge too far:

Mole Man: "...I can bear these indignities no longer.  I've thus taken it upon myself to end all such insults... by securing the destruction of the surface world!!"

Calling him Harvey, Squirrel Girl says that what she did to him was unintentional but he says it's just as bad if she did it through carelessness.

He says he is going to rend her and the world asunder, but she holds out her hand and says she is really sorry.  This throws Mole Man off balance.  He asks if she accepts his version of events and she says she accepts "the truth of your lived experiences and I'm not going to tell you that your feelings are wrong."  And they shake hands.

Mole Man is enchanted.

He asks if she is going to attack him but she says only if he goes around hurting people, but it sounds like he is mad at her and she'd like to fix it.  He tells her Squirrel Girl is a lovely name, uh oh.  She thanks him saying she understands why he'd be cheesed off, forgotten by the surface world with people messing with him without even realising it.

He says he'd be happy to be forgotten if surface dwellers left him alone. Squirrel Girl agrees with him saying all the stuff that gets buried must be a pain, even graveyards.  He rants that "anything the surface world tires of gets tossed in a dump, and when that's full? Why, they just cover it with a layer of soil and call it a day".  Squirrel Girl says he must be sick of it. 

Mole Man: "You... you understand me in a way nobody else ever has."

Run Squirrel Girl, run!  But she doesn't run, she tells Mole Man that connecting with people is "kinda my thing".  She says she is glad they are getting along and he agrees calling her "my lady".  Red Flag! Red Flag!

Squirrel Girl tells him they can get the Avengers to help get rid of waste that doesn't involve burying it, "Thor throws things into the sun all the time" so they can set up a system were he does that with nuclear waste. She asks if he'll free Brad now, the man who is totally not her boyfriend.

She asks if Brad believes in superheroes now, but he yells that it'll take more than one staged operation to fool him.  If the government believe this will stop him blogging they've got another thing coming.  Squirrel Girl rolls her eyes then asks Mole Man if they have a deal?  If she deals with the dumping, he'll stop attacking the surface world.

Mole Man agrees but then he starts to tell her how no one has really understood him before and who could answer the challenge of living underground.  His life below ground has been a solitary one which "has left certain matters of the heart... well buried".   But Squirrel Girl has awakened something inside him.  Squirrel Girl finally realises what is happening and tries to leave.  But he kneels before her saying her grace, acceptance, kindness, strength, beauty and tail are intoxicating and captivating.

Mole Man: "I am but a simple Mole Man, but I swear I can give you a life unlike any other. I offer you my riches, my kingdom, my endless underground empire.  Will you give me a chance? Squirrel Girl... will you be my Mole Ma'am?"

We then jump forwards to Doreen recounting the tale to Nancy and Ken.  Ken asks what she did next.  Doreen says she let him down gently telling him it's not you it's me, that she had commitments on the surface world and school is busy so she doesn't have time to date right now, "anything I could think of."

Doreen relates the incident.

She says he's just an old man who no one has been nice to in decades, their conversation was probably the first one he'd had in ages.  Nancy snort that's it's incredible he thought he could sweet talk her into marriage have only just met her.

Doreen says it all ended OK though, she told him squirrels don't live underground, there from two different worlds and she thinks he accepted that.  Ken says the Brad story would have been amazing on his own.  Doreen groans that after Mole Man left Brad pulled on her tail like he thought it would come off, "it was the worst date ever in time.  I should have stuck with the Sentinel".

Suddenly the ground shakes, Central Park is sinking.  Doreen and Ken suit up as Squirrel Girl and Koi Boi chasing after Nancy as she runs to look.  Squirrel Girl pick Nancy up and they jump down into the hole which the trees have dropped into.   And it turns out it was Mole Man, who is delighted that Squirrel Girl came, saying she understood his gesture's intent.

Central Park a few meters lower.

He tells her that now squirrels can live underground, but she did not account for "my adoration and mining genius".  But once he realised how important squirrels were to her he knew he would defy the fates, the very gods themselves for her.   He tells her this is an engagement gift and takes the speechless Squirrel Girl's hand.  But Nancy steps in and slaps him.

Nancy: "Don't you ever touch my friend without her permission, creepo."

Hooray for SJW Nancy! Squirrel Girl tells Mole Man that Nancy is her friend and she is protective of her, "oh, you'll see how protective I can be Johnny Grabby Hands.." Nancy threatens.  Koi Boi arrives and Mole Man warns him off from asking Squirrel Girl out, which infuriates Nancy, "Oh my god, I'm gonna slap that grin right off his.."  But Squirrel Girl says she has this under control.

Squirrel Girl explains that there is no right words or romantic gesture he can make, he can't cajole or debate her into loving him.  She says she is sorry.  Mole Man says he understands, "I understand that your so-called friends have been poisoning your mind against me!!"

He orders his "Moloids" to attack them, Squirrel Girl tosses Nancy out of harms way as she and Koi Boi battle the pale and skinny creatures.  When they are defeated, Nancy drop back down, caught by Squirrel Girl.  Mole Man says enough, he understands that his gift was not appreciated and was the wrong way to go about things.

Koi Boi asks if he'll put Central Park back, Mole Man says any fool can fill a hole have the authorities contact him if they can't figure it out. Squirrel Girl tells Harvy that there is someone out there for him and he won't need to convince her when he finds her.  Mole Man thanks her and walks off alone into the dark.

The next day Doreen and Nancy are walking by the sunken Central Park, Tippy-Toe says the squirrels are enjoying actually, lots of new places to hide nuts.  Nancy say she's won't apologise for slapping Mole Man, Doreen says she isn't asking her too, she finds it so hard to say no to people and Nancy is the world champion at that.  Then the ground rumbles again.

I don't normally include the interior covers but this made me laugh so hard when I turned to it that I nearly dropped the book in the nice hot bath I was having.  Tip that fedora Harvey!

The Empire State Building has been sunk, and checking her phone Nancy discovers other world landmarks have been sunk as well.  Then Mole Man hijacks the undersea communication cables to broadcast his demands, he will claim one building every twelve hours until Squirrel Girl agrees to go on "one single date with me".  He wants to kiss and make up and as for everyone else, they know his terms and he ends the broadcast.

Doreen: "Shut up.  Oh my god. Shut up... I'm going to kick his butt Nancy.  To the moon. I'm not even joking.  I will literally kick his butt so hard that it would land on the moon."

Two days later Squirrel Girl and Mole Man are still all over the news.  People are complaining that their lives are being ruined because she refuses to go out on one date with him.  A man on an audience participation show says that who does she think she is to turn down a man she barely knows and not even think him worth a single date. He starts saying "not all men" before the channel is changed to J.Jonah Jameson who is offering five grand to any photgraphic evidence of Squirrel Girl going on a date with people of lower caliber than Mole Man.

Nancy: "I think it's awful that whoever a particular woman chooses to date is now a matter of worldwide speculation."

She is telling this to a report then leaveswith Doreen who is muffled in a face scarf and big hat. Doreen can't believe J. Jonah Jameson wants "creeper pics" of her on dates, "who does that?"

Nancy says she could make a cool five grand by staging a photo herself.  Doreen says she totally should and then get a job working for him as a photographer who always gets amazing pictures of Squirrel Girl and never wonders why. They overhear two men moaning about what'll happen when Mole Man starts sinking buildings they care about and why cant "Woodchuck Chick" kiss him already.

Annoyed Doreen says they should ditch class and deal with the Mole Man thing, but todays lesson is "The Physics Of Punching".  And so one totally amazing physics lecture later, Squirrel Girl returns to the sunken Central Park.  She hides in the trees from the media gathered there but they spot her and she shoots off saying "this was a horrible idea, bye!!"

Back at her and Nancy's place she says the media means she can't even get close.  Nancy says she should go as Doreen but Squirrel Girl says they have figured out heroes have secret identities and are checking everyone who comes with a face scanner.  She just wants to talk to the guy but she can't do it with "literally the world's media in my face".

Nancy decides that it's "time to get fancy and watch Nancy".  She'll go down there and solve the friggin' problems.  Squirrel Girl says it's dangerous, but Nancy says she will be OK because she is close to Squirrel Girl so he won't hurt her.  She's seen Squirrel Girl talk down dozens of bad guys, so she knows she can do it herself.

So they get changed and walk to where the media are in Central Park.  As Squirrel Girl faces a barrage of questions Nancy sneaks off and jumps down one of the holes.  She finds herself faced with Mole Man, the Mole Monsters and Moloids and Mole Man himself.

Nancy tries to sort things out.

Nancy tells him that he has to find someone else.  But he says he has evidence that Squirrel Girl harbours feelings for him.  He words of comfort and understanding were words of attraction, "moles may be blind, but we're not deaf".  Actually he goes on, moles aren't blind either.  He asks Nancy to speak to Squirrel Girl on his behalf.

Nancy gets mad saying she has come to tell him she is not interested in him, Mole Man says would she deny her "the love of a nice and gentle man? You would refuse my request?!"  Nancy says absolutely she is refusing his request, "move on".

Mole Man: "I should have realised.  Squirrel Girl is so kind.  So loving... so understanding.  A paragon of virtue.  Of course you'd be in love with her too."

Nancy pulls an amazing WTF face.  Mole Man says she is here to sabotage her because she want Squirrel Girl all to herself.  But her jealousy will be the cause of her never returning to the surface world.

Nancy says she is not getting kidnapped today and opens her bag, unleashing a horde of squirrels led by Tippy-Toe.  As they distract Mole Man's minions, Nancy climbs out and meets up with Doreen.  When Nancy tells her Mole Man described her as a "paragon of virtue" Doreen says she is ending this "now. Tonight".  And to avoid the press, she is going to burrow her way down to him.

And she digs her way down grumbling about the situation the whole way.  She is irritated that showing basic human decency has made him think she owes him something:

Squirrel Girl: "Plus, how are you a nice guy if the only reason you're being nice is because you think it might make me kiss you?!"

She breaks through saying she is "so over making your feelings my problem.  They're your feelings, dude!  You deal with them!"

Tricephalus admits her love.

But she is attacked by the three-headed "Tricephalous" who says she won't let her hurt the man she loves.  She has loved Mole Man for many years, ever since they first met and he was not afraid of her.  She has kept her feelings underground knowing that it was a love that could never be.  Now Squirrel Girl is here to hurt him, "he's too good for you, Squirrel Girl.  You don't deserve him. Nobody does."

Mole Man alone fights the surface dwellers to protect the underground and her kind,  how could she resist falling for him and have feelings grow deeper every day?  Mole Man is surprised to hear this confession.  He ddn't realise it was possible for a Mole Monster to love him.

She says if their love is to be, he must love himself first, he has internalised much of what the surface world has said about him, he even still calls them monsters.  Squirrel Girl has bewitched him "and I will not allow her to darken our realm again!!"  Tippy-Toe points out that Mole Man is letting Tricephalous do all the fighting while he watches with fascination.  So Squirrel Girl has an idea.

She goes into battle with Tricephlous and lets her be beaten by her including getting stomped on.  Squirrel Girl declares herself defeated and Mole Man cancels his date with her.  Tippy-Toe says it worked while Squirrel Girl grumbles that losing fights is "the worst."  Mole Man and Tricephalous start making out so Squirrel Girl and Tippy-Toe leave them too it.

And so Doreen and friends start helping to restore Central Park.  One of them is Tomas's girlfriend who Doreen is surprised to find she likes.  Doreen then apologises to Tomas for being weird about his dating.  Soon all the worlds landmarks are restored and Nancy says that the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl finally lost a fight.

Doreen says this has all made her realise that she was setting up dates for the wrong reason because she felt like she was falling behind. "But I've got nothing to prove" she says, "I'm a rad lady and everyone just has to deal."  Nancy asks what she is going to do now and Doreen says she is cancelling her last internet date and go home and call to order "Mew Club".  Mew being Nancy's cat she gives Squirrel Girl a hug and they spend the rest of the evening hanging out at home while Mole Man sleeps snuggled up to Tricephalous.

Happy endings all round.

This final story I'm going to skate over a bit as it contains both computer programming and mathematics, two of my major weak points.  Squirrel Girl is fighting Doctor Octopus in the snow, using programming language to describe what they are doing. The tussle continues until Squirrel Girl uses her tail to grab a clock off a nearby wall and knocks him out with it before tying him up with his tentacle arms.

Squirrel Girl then says to Tippy-Toe that the fight was strange how their fight kept illustrating basic computer science concepts.  Tippy-Toe says it's more strange because Doc Ock has been dead for two years.  Squirrel Girl wonders how she forgot that.  Then she realises she forgot same way it's snowing in August, "this is a friggin' dream."

And a goth looking being shows up saying he is "The Nightmare Man". He says he here to take her sanity from her, everytime she sleeps she'll enter a bespoke nightmare where he will beat her.  She says she took down Doc Ock easily enough so "bring it on."  Nightmare Man then conjures up Count Nefaria.

Nightmare Man invades Squirrel Girls dreams.

The man in question appears and challenges her to "dactylonomy" a counting-on-your-fingers challenge.  He wants her to count to ten using only one hand.  She says no problem, she can count to thirty-one on one hand and 1023 on two.  It is using binary and she goes on a lengthy eplanation that I don't understand of how to count in binary.  When Count Nefaria gets it, he departs saying thankyou to her, "never have I been so engrossed in my own hands!!"

Nightmare Man appears, extremely annoyed at this.  He accuses her of ruining everything, Nefaria isn't into counting he says.  So why is his name "Count Nefaria" she responds.  Nightmare Man yells at her for not knowing more about the strongest human in the entire universe. "I dunno" says Squirrel Girl, "he seemed to me like a Dracula who's big into counting."

She smugly tells Nightmare Man that she is fast asleep and still beating all the draculas he throws at her.  So he decides he'll take her on directly and he manifest the Venom symbiote around him.  Squirrel says Venom is a good guy now, but Nightmare Man says that's only in the real world.  Tippy-Toe tells her to escape from him into another bad dream.

So she shifts the scene and find herself in an exam for a class she doesn't remember taking and haven't studied one bit for.  But she is able to defeat this dream by going to Kraven the College Administrator telling him to remove her from the final which is for a class she never attended or submitted any work for and thus it was an error putting her in for the exam.

She and Tippy-Toe then discuss how they can use Venom's weakness against sound and fire to defeat Nightmare Man.  But then the tree grabs her as Venom pops out. She shifts to a nightmare where she is surrounded by squirrels who are upset that all the worlds trees have stopped producing nuts.

Sonic Squirrel attack!

But using a computer algorithm so they can hit Nightmare Man Venom with a sonic blast.  As Nightmare Venom drops in, she unleashes the sonic cries of the squirrels at once and the Venom Symbiote fades away leaving just Nightmare Man behind.  He sighs that he'll leave her alone from now on.

Squirrel Girl: "And hey. I trash-talked you before, but you've actually got a pretty good domain here in the dream world!  People love it here!  Maybe hang out with people while they are having fun dreams insetad of giving them nightmares, huh?"

When he says he prefers nightmares she says dreams are fun and takes off flying with him in tow.  And he starts to smile as he follows her over the city.  In bed, we see Doreen asleep and she is "such an incredible force for good that one time she defeated a bad guy in her friggin' sleep."  The end.

As ever, this is wonderful stuff.  So packed with jokes I can barely do it justice.  The Choose Your Own Adventure issue was marvellous and great fun, and although I didn't understand much of the techical stuff in the final story I liked how Squirrel Girl got use out of what she is studying to best her foes.  But the three issues dealing with Mole Man were brilliant. And very pertinent to what happens to a lot of women these days. Hell it even happened to me when I was a university twenty-five years ago.  My Nice Guy wasn't a hipster, they hadn't been invented yet but he spent all his time being nice to me in a way I thought was because we were friends.  It was when he started writing poetry dedicated to me and giving me roses that it suddenly clicked, and  had to sit him down and say "dude I am the gayest gayer that ever gayed.  I value you as a friend but you're not going to get any further along with me than that."  And he left the course at the end of term so, oh well.  Taught me a valuable lesson that when dealing with potential men as mates, declare my sexuality as soon as possible.  That seems to have worked since. I also liked to fact she was being excoricated by the manosphere for not acceeding to Mole Man's demands because those people need to be shown for the dickheads they are and need taking down a peg or two.  "Not all men" indeed.  Making a woman's sexuality public and the matter of debate is also a pertinent point to have made, maybe even more so in the wake of #metoo.  I just like how Squirrel Girl can deal with potentially heavy topics with a sharp but humourous touch and also find it in its heart to still give Mole Man a happy ending while Doreen realises she'd been dating for all the wrong reasons.  All-in-all this was another winner for me, it made me genuinely laugh out loud several times and as per usual Ryan North's punchy writing and Erica Henderson's characterful art make this one of modern comics real jewels.  Join me in a few days where we reenter The Clean Room.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Book 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now (#1-6, Howard The Duck #6)

"Goodbye, Squirrel Girl.  You shall not trouble me again" - Doctor Doom

"Hey" I hear you say, "haven't we already had number one and so on for Squirrel Girl?"  Well you can blame the 2015 Marvel Universal reboot that saw everything start back at issue 1 for that.  Thanks Obama! Never fear though, all our favourite characters are still here.  Doreen Green is Squirrel Girl, she has the proportional strength of a squirrel, can speak with squirrels and has a squirrel side-kick called "Tippy Toe".  Best friend Nancy is also still around with Mew her beloved cat as well as fellow creature themed heroes, Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk.  This collection also includes the awesome letters pages and an issue of Howard The Duck which was a crossover with Squirrel Girl #6.  This is a tremendously fun, all-ages comic.  Breezily written by Ryan North and characterful artwork by Erica Henderson make it a cut above the usual superhero fare and proves comics can be both mature and fun at the same time.  This volume includes a visit from Squirrel Girls mum, time travel back to the 1960's and Howard the Duck's search for a lost cat going somewhat awry.  So without further ado, let's tuck in to a slice of fun.

We begin with Squirrel Girl inside a burning building rescuing family from the flames with back up from Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk. The family are very excited to meet her as she picks all three of them up and jumps out to safety.   Later they discuss the situation, Squirrel Girl says they "kicked butts and ate nuts".  Nancy says she didn't eat nuts she stayed on the ground ensuring they were in the most effective places.

Squirrel Girl says she spoiled her catchphrase moment, while Tippy Toe (who the others have been taught to understand) teases Chipmunk Hunk, calling him "Chipmonk Honk" which Squirrel Girl says that should be his name now.  Chipmunk Hunk grumbles it was better when he couldn't understand Tippy Toe.

Sweet new digs!

They arrive at the flat Squirrel Girl and Nancy will be sharing this college year.  Squirrel Girl says they are still moving boxes in because people notice when she carries ten boxes at once.  Nancy wonders how they manage to have secret identities at all.  Squirrel Girl says she clearly has a tail while Doreen has a "rad badonk".  Nancy says that's just her tail stuffed into her trousers.

There is a teleporter in the closet which will take Squirrel Girl directly to Avenger's Island as she is now a member of the "New Avengers".  She says "we avenge all the new stuff." She moans that it doesn't do anything cool like take her to the moon, but the place has a pretty good food court, so do they want to come and "eat delicious food off some friggin' paper plates?"

Then her phone goes.  It's her mother, she wants to meet Nancy who is less than enthralled by the prospect.   Squirrel Girl gets on her knees and begs, Nancy looks grumpy then agrees and Squirrel Girl picks her up and rushes off out the door.  Squirrel Girl's mum is waiting at an open air cafe.  Squirrel Girl has to go to the bathroom so sends Nancy over to her and mum greets her warmly.

She introduces herself as Maureen and tells her she and her husband Dor have heard a lot about her.  She loves cats too but they couldn't have them with all the squirrels running about, doesn't Mew mind Tippy Toe?  Nancy says no.  Maureen says Dor couldn't make it and Nancy says Doreen's parents are called "Dor" and "Maureen".  Maureen says they merged their names to make "Doreen".  Nancy says, "that's... the most adorable thing I've ever heard."

Maureen says she has tonnes of Doreen stories and Nancy grins saying she is so into hearing the stories she has no idea.  Squirrel Girl finally arrives to find her mum showing baby pictures of her to Nancy.   She was climbing trees at nine months.  Nancy comments it must be one of her mutant powers.  Maureen says that Squirrel Girl isn't a mutant.  She was tested and found not to be one by the doctor.

Maureen: "I remember now 'Doreen is medically and legally distinct from being a mutant and I can never take it back'"

Squirrel Girl says that's a cool story so what's for lunch?  Maureen says she already ate.  Squirrel Girl clutches her head saying they are here for nothing.  Nancy says she is here for the baby pictures and embarrassing stories and she is happy to be proved wrong about meeting her being potentially boring.

That's one for the lawyers.

Squirrel Girl picks them both up and takes them back to their building's roof.  She goes to open the roof access door when it bursts open and a robot with a brain and eyes in a jarlike head knocks Squirrel Girl down.  She leaps up and spots that it has Mew and Tippy Toe which it says "will be the first to be consumed".  She won't stand for that and attacks the being.

Nancy tries to find its Deadpool card and discovers its name is "Brain Drain".  But the card has no clues on what his weakness is and he's from Hydra.   He and Squirrel Girl wrestle some more and she rips his coat off his front exposing a control box with wires.  Tippy Toe goes to work on them, nibbling through them and Brain Drain powers down.

They bring him inside their flat and discuss what to do with him.  Her mum says he never actually attacked Squirrel Girl first, and how could he eat Mew and Tippy Toe with no mouth? Nancy and Squirrel Girl realise they "absolutely started this fight".  Tippy says he came through the teleporter and just stood ther until she came close to him, then he snatched her and Mew and was all "chaos" and "murder".

Tippy-toe to the rescue!

They decide to repair him so they can ask him what he wanted.  His real name is Werner and he was robotised in the 1940's.   Squirrel Girl says he might be a good guy who's been affected by lack of repairs over the years.  We then get a "Robot Repair Montage Scene" and using Nancy's cell phone to replace his damaged control panel they bring him back to life.

Fifteen minutes later he says he had been like in a dream with few lucid moments.   He had come to New York to find her, Hippo the Hippo speaks very highly of her.  The aliens who rebuilt him had used a Hydra handbook, but while he wanted to change, his actions would not.  Repairing him though has removed all the Hydra processors for which he is thankful. She asks what he plans to do now:

Werner: "I have been meaning to make a study of how civilisation's false veneer of decency is spread all to thin across the face on a monstrously indifferent universe."
Squirrel Girl says he should learn how to fix himself now he is part cellphone.  So they disguise him and have Maureen pretend he is her son so she can sign him up to the database class Nancy and Squirrel Girl both attend.  He says he is looking forward to studying them.

Werner gets signed up for Awesome Database Action.

Later Squirrel Girl, Nancy, Koi Boy and Chipmunk Hunk are eating in the food court on Avenger's Island.   Ken and Tomas say they are going off to investigate the "Great Cakes Avengers" while Nancy takes a photo of herself eating at the most prestigious of food courts.  She tells Squirrel Girl that having Werner around is going to be weird, but "I get the feeling it was gonna be weird anyway. But that's Ok, weird is good."  Squirrel Girl says "lets kick butts and eat nuts" but Nancy says she is going to eat a burger and Squirrel Girl yells she ruined her catchphrase moment again!

Narration: "One night, Doreen Green and Tippy-Toe were getting ready for bed. They had spent a busy day fighting crime and also studying discrete mathematics so they fell asleep pretty quickly.  They were hit by a temporal blast which had the effect of sending them back in time while also erasing them from the timeline.  This is the story of what happens next".

Her bed crashes down in a vacant lot, earmarked for forthcoming student housing.  She takes stock and realises by the look of things they must have time travelled.  Also people are staring at her tail.  She yells out that she is an actor playing "Sleepy Squirrel Lady" then jumps away asking Tippy-Toe "what the heck are we doing in the 1960s??"

They duck into a back alley where there is a chairty clothing bank which Squirrel Girl plans to borrow some clothes, including super hero clothes.  Tippy-Toe can't believe she plans to fight crime.

Tippy-Toe: "It's the butterfly effect:  If someone is supposed to steal a butterfly in the past and we stop them, then the future can get changed in crazy ways!"

Squirrel Girl says she seriously needs to get some clothes because a woman with a squirrel tail in pyjamas running round New York will probably change things more.  Tippy-Toe reluctantly agrees and Squirrel Girl gets some nice threads.

Rockin' the sixties look there.

Walking through the streets she spots a crime in progress and despite Tippy-Toe's warnings goes in to stop it. Then she has an epiphany, no one back then know what a super hero is, they think Captain America is wartime propaganda.  She starts babbling and then stops herself saying she needs to keep things a surprise, before knocking out the criminals saying "Surprise!!"

In the present Nancy runs up to Tomas and Ken saying she woke up to find Doreen and her bed had gone missing, and her parents say they never heard of her and the school hasn't either.  They give her a blank look, she says "we fight crime together".  Tomas asks what makes her think they fight crime?  Nancy says he's Chipmunk Hunk and Ken is Koi Boi.

Nancy: "I'll tell you one thing: nobody erases my roomate from existence and steals her bed and gets away with it".

And she walks off, leaving the pair saying she just guessed right that they fight crime.  Nancy says to herself it must be time travel and looks it up on wikipedia to find it happens quite a lot.

Nancy is too sensible for this shit.

She tries to walk through what she thinks Doreen would do, she'd likely try and get a message to her.  Probably tucked away somewhere so it can stay out of history's way until she finds it. And just like that she spots an acorn scratched on a brick in a nearby wall.  She gets a hammer and smashes it finding a note inside saying it's July 20th 1962 and Squirrel Girl and Tippy are trapped in the past there.  She says she has no idea why this has happened but the 60's are fun so give her some time before she shows up.

We then cut back to Squirrel Girl leaving the message and then wandering away to think about getting and apartment and a job.  She says if the worst comes to the worst she can live the slow path, find Nancy as an old lady then come back and rescue herself before that happens.  Tippy says that'll result in a paradox.  Then Squirrel Girl notices a girl walking along listening to music through ear buds.  She stops her and asks if she is from the future?  The girl says "oh thank God.  I was beginning to think I was crazy".

They go to a cafe and discover they both attend the same class at the same university.  Squirrel Girl thinks this can't be a coincidence. The girl, Mary, gives her a phone number to reach her on.  She's been here a few weeks and already has a boyfriend and somewhere to live.  She says she's ready to go back though, it'll be ten years before the first microwavable pizza is invented and "also it'd be nice not to be called 'cupcake' all the time".

Squirrel Girl has a plan to find out if more people have been sent back here.   She takes out a large advert in one of the newspapers saying to contact her if you recognise what the words "Hashtag", "Cerebro", "Selfie", Wikipedia" and "TL:DR" mean. 

Meanwhile Nancy is going through Doreen's Deadpool cards looking for an enemy that uses time travel who might have done this.  They are no help. so she checks wikipedia for a list of confirmed time travellers.  She sees Iron Man has done it and as Squirrel Girl is internet friends with him she tries to go to him for help, but gets ejected from Stark Tower.

In the past, Squirrel Girl sees an advert for the "Individual Portable sOng Device" or "I.P.O.D" and obviously this is too soon for it, Tippy thinks it's her fault and time is ruined forever.  Squirrel Girl says it was obviously in the works before she showed up, someone is using a time machine to rewrite history. In the present Doctor Doom suddenly appears in front of Nancy saying "Fool! The mightiest heroes of any era cannot help but fall... before Doctor Doom!!"

DOOOOM!!!

Jubilee of the X-Men is walking past and runs up saying she'll call them, Doom says he'll atomise her before any signal gets sent.  Nancy then intervenes saying he's not really Doom just someone cosplaying him.  Jubilee apologises and takes a selfie with him and then goes on her way.

He says he has let her go because he doesn't want to tip his hand to the heroes of this era he is here.  Nancy asks when he has come from, he says he is from the present everyone else here is from the future.  Nancy asks him what he wants, he says he wants to be directed to a warehouse of future armaments so "both Stark and his tailed compatriot will realise the folly of standing in Doom's way."

Nancy realise he's the Doom from just after his battle with Squirrel Girl which Doom fibs saying he totally won and had the magnaminity to allow her to live as well.   Nancy tells him Squirrel Girl is trapped in the past and as he turned up with a time machine maybe he could help get her back?  He refuses, but Nancy says she is trapped in both their pasts and manages to convince him via extreme flattery that she's gone back to a time when he was weaker and undefended.  Need she spell it out?

So Doom agrees and will take her back to where Squirrel Girl is now, Nancy says she'll make sure Squirrel Girl never attacks him and he'll be free of her "meddling ways for years. Years".  Only she can talk Squirrel Girl down from messing with a baby Doom.  He tells her to get on his time platform and they decide to give her a week in the past and off they go with Nancy commenting "Do you ever get the feeling your making a huge mistake?"

Squirrel Girl is chairing the first meeting of the "Future Pals." They are all in the same computer science class but none of them recognise each other, so the first mystery is who is doing this to them.  Squirrel Girl says the second mystery is who took out the iPod advert.  Mary 'fesses up to that one.

She says that after her talk with Squirrel Girl she thought one way to get home was try and accelerate the technichal development of mankind so time machines get invented ahead of schedule.   She placed the ad to recruit other time travellers so they could get to work on the plan.  Squirrel Girl says crossly that they can't contaminate the timeline like that.  Then Doom and Nancy arrive, right in the middle of the room.

Quite an entrance.

Quickly Squirrel Girl changes into her crime fighting outfit, before she can attack him though, Nancy says he's the Doom from just after she met him for the first time, when she wass fourteen. "How the heck have you been?!" Squirrel Girl says to him.  "You will respect Doom's personal space" he responds.

Nancy tells her that after she disappeared no one remembered her but herself and Doctor Doom.  He explains that time machines have "chronoton protection" fields which allow the traveller to not be affected if history changes around them.  Nancy asks how she remembers?  "Oooh! Power of Friendship?" suggests Squirrel Girl.  Doom then demonstrates what happens if you remove the field by doing it to Nancy's phone.  Which changes to "Doomphone 5000".

Nancy looks up the offline version of wikipedia she keeps on it and finds history has changed, before July 28th 1962 things were "boring and awful".  Afterwards when Doctor Doom arrived "things were wonderful forever".

Doctor Doom: "I won.  I've already won.  No matter what the era, Doom always wins.  And this world... shall be owned by Doom!!"

He starts firing energy blasts at Squirrel Girl and Nancy says she thought they had a deal, but he says he never said he wouldn't attack her and he will bring them back to their own time, "in a coffin! And you shall join her!"

Nancy ducks and is annoyed he got out of his promise with "stupid baby word games".  Doom carries on ranting and tosses Squirrel Girl out of the building through an advertising hoarding, "Oh. It's so on now" she says.   First of all she needs to get the Future Pals out of there, so she scoops them all up and they all jump out of the window into  a nearby rooftop pool.

Doom isn't following them, Nancy thinks he'll lay low to prepare to take over the world.  And because he has her phone and article telling how to do it, he's convinced it shows him a future victory he can't lose.   One of the Future Pals says he's wrong, right?  But Squirrel Girl and Nancy look pensive.  Meanwhile in the new present a man wakes up and realises something is wrong across a New York ruled by Doom.

Cody wakes up to DoomWorld.

He walks round the former planet Earth, now Planet Doom saying "this isn't how I remember things at all!!"  Back in the past the Future Pals are out of the pool and drying themselves off.  Squirrel Girl tries to cheer everyone up:

Squirrel Girl: "Besides, I can't call myself the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl if I let a teeny thing like a crazy unstoppable genius science wizard with his own time machine and robot suit foil me, right?"

Nancy has an idea, they need to steal his time machine, Squirrel Girl realises that means they could have dinosaurs on their team in that case!  Mary says a better idea would be going to the future and bringing the cool tech back to use.  Nancy says they could go back and find baby Doom and give him a better childhood.

Squirrel Girl will go steal the machine while Mary works on making an EMP.  Squirrel Girl frowns at her and asks if she's been making nukes?  Mary says no... the parts are too expensive.   The EMP will be able to shut down Doom's armour, she learned to make one in Computer Hardware.  Nancy says she took that course and didn't think she'd need to use it for making doomsday devices, "Well, that's where we're different" says Mary. I like Mary.

The plan is made, Mary and Nancy will work on the EMP device, while Squirrel Girl steals the time machine.  The other Future Pals will help Mary and Nancy.  So Squirrel Girl tracks Doom down to an abandoned castle in the middle of Central Park.   They sneak inside and see Doom busy building something.

Let words be our battle!

He's making Doombots, made of sixties junk but still way ahead of when they first appeared.   If he activates them they don't stand a chance so Squirrel Girl jumps in and stands on the time machine.  She tries to use it but he left it in neutral so she can't work it and he swats her aside.

She says she doesn't want to fight him, "there must be some way we can both get what we want".  He says he desires world domination.  She says she found common ground with Galactus so there must be something they can agree on.   Doom keeps punching and she keeps dodging, he says "compromise is for the weak" and hits her with an energy blast.

Doom: "Woman, do you even realise what you can achieve when you refuse to compromise? Can you fathom what heights await you when you refuse to accept anyone's 'no'. When you deny failure even a passing consideration?"

He stops attacking her and decides to show her.  He has built a Doombot already, in just a matter of hours using his own programming language.  And now he has shown her, he unleashes the Doombots on her. 

Then coming to her rescue come the Future Pals armed with EMP devices.   But they are ineffective, Doom protected himself and his Doombots from them.   Then suddenly before things can get really bad, the time machine lights up and it's the guy who was shown walking round Doom World with someone in Doom's armour.  And that person turns out to be... an elderly Squirrel Girl.

Squirrel Girl young and old.

The man is a student called Cody.  He was left a disintegrator pistol by an uncle he never heard of which actually worked by transporting things back in time to the sixties and because he was flunking his class he started using it on other students to improve his chance of getting better grades.

He's telling them this in the middle of the two Squirrel Girls fighting Doom and the Doombots. Old Squirrel Girl says she is from a sucky future where she lost this fight first time and Doom took over the world.

Because there was no Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic, only Doom had a time machine.  Cody was protected from the timeline changes and came back on his own originally to try and fix things, so she tracked him down in the future inside a hollowed out Doombot and tweaked his machine so it wouldn't erase themselves from history and now she's back and she is "more than a little unbeatable!!"

The Squirrel Girls lure him outside so they have more tactical advantages against him but he runs into the Museum of Natural History. Old Squirrel Girl is exhausted and they decide young Squirrel Girl will fight Doom and Old Squirrel Girl will fight the Doombots. They hug and part.

Inside Doom swings some fake dinosaur bones at her.  Nancy had the Future Pals come in and Squirrel Girl stops Doom hurting them with an energy blast.   Squirrel Girl speaks some C++ to Nancy and Doom's confusion gives Nancy time to program Cody's time machine gun.  Nancy blasts it at her and sends her back the day before.   She keeps doing this creating more and more Squirrel Girls at different points on the timeline.  Finally a big crowd of them converge on the Doom battle and swarm over him as he flails about.

A dray of Squirrel Girls attack.

She forces him to promise he'll return them to their times, restore the future, return to his own time and not use his time machine to pull these shenanigans again  He says "you have my word as Doom".  So all the Squirrel Girls get off him.

The multiple Squirrel Girls are sent back in time so no paradox happens then all the Future Pals gather on Doom's time machine.  Old Squirrel Girl decides to stay, it's a nice time to retire to.   She also confiscates Cody's time machine gun.  Doom gets impatient with their lengthy goodbye and they return to the present.

Doom: "I have undone the alterations from the other time device and your 'friends' are no longer erased from the timeline."

Squirrel Girl: "What?  Don't put 'friends' in quotes!  Friendship is real yo, and it kicked your butt!"

Doom mutters that he'll put quotes round whatever he pleases.  They shake on Doom's promise not to disrupt the timeline, he says she has earned his respect, "pray that you don't lose it".

We finish this story with Squirrel Girl wondering still how Nancy remembered her.  Was it the Power of Friendship?  Or was it that when Cody tagged her in bed, Nancy got hit by the "protect from timeline changes" field instead.  They decide it was the power of friendship and what other students can say they "piled up on a Latverian dictator?"  Nancy says quite afew now.  Squirrel Girl says "the English Lit majors are gonna be mad jealous".

Meanwhile in the past Doom decides he made no promise that his Doombots wouldn't go back in time and starts ordering them to defeat her or be reduced to scrap.  But Old Squirrel Girl has got to them before him and all he can do is rage, "Blaaaast youuu Squiiiirrel Giiiirl!"  And that brings this arc to an end.

The next story is a two-part crossover with Howard The Duck, a 70's creation by the legendary grumpy-pants Steve Gerber, who functioned as a somewhat satirical commentator on the absurdities of life in general.   Squirrel Girl requests Nancy sew her a new hero costume which Nancy agrees to Squirrel Girl saying it'll be awesome to fight crime in a costume she made.  They have a discussion about heroes with multiple costumes then Squirrel Girl drifts off to sleep.

Then she wakes up to find Howard making a getaway with Nancy's cat Mew.   When challenged he accuses them of stealing the cat, Squirrel Girl then asks to see his powers. Nancy tosses him a Deadpool card on him and finds he can team up with one hundred normal ducks to make one big duck.   This surprises Howard who snatches the card off her, "I'm not a villain.  I'm a private detective." He crosses out the word "supervillain" on the card.  Nancy takes Mew back.

He say he's been hired to find a cat called "Biggs", which is turning into a pain because all cats look the same.  He calls them "hairy proto-apes" and Squirrel Girls starts a long explanation of the genomes of animals and humans, which gets her a long silent stare from Howard.

I have seen that stare so many times in my life.

Nancy returns to their flat with Mew, Squirrel Girl apologises for bursting through their window, but Nancy says she would have done the same thing.   Howard says he would have returned Mew when he was told it wasn't Biggs.  He insists "I'm not the bad guy here!"  Howard starts calling Biggs saying the sooner he finds him the sooner he can get away from Squirrel Girl.

They walk out of the alley and a van pulls up and Kraven the Hunter climbs out.  He greets Squirrel Girl and says he is pleased to see her, she asks if he wants to help find a cat.  But he says he is after different game tonight and scoops Howard into a sack.  He says he needs the money and his client will pay handsomely for him. Squirrel Girl says she can't let him take Howard.  But before she can summon her squirrel army he tosses far away and drives off.

She follows the van to a "weird creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere with insanely high security".   She leaps over the wall and heads towards the house.  Inside Howard is dumped out of the sack onto the floor.   The client turns out to be a woman called Shannon Sugarbaker who is a cosplay fanatic.  She has costumes and weapons of all the heroes, and the weapons work.

Cosplay Billionaire.

She goes on to say she brought some secondhanded Doombots from the secondary market and she intends to indulge her other passion, hunting. She plans to hunt humans but hunting anthropomorphic animals is a legal grey area.  Meanwhile upsatirs Squirrel Girl bumps into the Doombots.  The woman leads Howard past the cells, she has Rocket Raccoon, Beast and Biggs her cat, a cat in a mechanical killsuit.  Finally Weapon II, a squirrel with adamantium skeleton, claws and intelligence and healing factor.

Squirrel Girl is fighting the Doombots and Shannon hears thumping noises from them.   Squirrel Girl smashes through the ceiling and jumps down to where Howard and Shannon are.  Shannon orders Kraven to hunt her, but he says no, "She has my respect".  He apologises for tossing her in the air, an "unfortunate combination of habit, muscle memory and necessity" They shake hands and say no hard feelings.

Shannon gets her Mjolnir and fires it as Squirrel Girl then uses web shooters on her and covers her mouth before whacking her over the head with the hammer and knocking her out.  She wakes up in a cell with Howard, Biggs, Beast, Rocket Raccoon, Weapon II and Kraven.  Kraven admits he has now become the hunted as Howard bewails the fact he's in this mess because he was just looking for a cat, "I can't take it.  I can't take this entire planet."

Cosplay Billionaire's prey.

The story concludes in Howard the Duck #6.  Ryan North is joined by Chip ZDarsky as writers and Joe Quinones, Joe Rivera and Marc Deering as artists. They have been released in the forest so Shannon can hunt them.  Her holographic head tells them the rules, if they make it to the southern gate she'll let them go.  She counts down to one, while Squirrel Girl says Kraven can get inside the head of this Cosplay Billionaire.

Beast doesn't want to trust a villain, he says he is the best choice for a leader.   He says hunting him would result in the full wrath of the mutant population.   He is going back to the mansion to tell her this.   Howard says he's crazy, they should be running and they are out of time.  Shannon appears sporting a pair of wings and firing a laser at them.

The hunt begins.

She brains Beast with her Mjolnir and he is sucked underground, the rest of them make haste away from there.  And I just realised that Biggs in his robot suit looks like Tinker the cat from We3, which is a cute shout-out to an amazing story.   Howard shushes the confused Biggs then says he can close the case because he found him.  Howard asks how Kraven caught Rocket Raccoon, turns they were both buying guns in the same store.

Kraven then comforts Biggs, "you are a fine specimen and deserve better than this."  Meanwhile Weapon II is battling Shannon and also gets knocked out and sucked underground. This gives Howard and idea, he tells Biggs to dig a hole.  Raccoon and Kraven go to fight her to buy time for the hole to be dug.

He digs down until he hits some metal, and Howard tells Squirrel Girl to pry the hatch open with her super strength.   The hole is too small for Biggs so he stands guard while Squirrel Girl and Howard descend inside.   They are unsure where to go, so Howard gets out his phone. Squirrel Girl says he had it all the time and didn't call for help?  He didn't think of it and he is getting no signal as well.

They spot a Doombot carrying an unconcious Kraven and sneakily following them. They arrive back in the mansion but Howard's phone is dead. They are in a library and they search for something, anything they can use against her.  Howard pulls out a book on cosplaying.

We then see Shannon standing with Beast, Rocket Raccoon, Kraven, Weapon II and Beast firmly tied up.   She is pointing a hand blaster at Kraven and orders Squirrel Girl and Howard to come out or she'll blast him.   As she counts down we hear Squirrel Girl and Howard arguing then he comes out in cosplay himself swinging a mace and in a suit of electronic armour.

Howard goes into battle.

They start fighting and Howard says she kidnapped Biggs to spite her ex and turned him into a robocat, "that's my case!  And I'm closing it... oof!"  He fires eyebeams at her, she dodges and punches him.  Squirrel Girl unties the others and they all pile into the fight.  Biggs has appeared as well.  Squirrel Girl gets Kraven to hurl her at Shannon and knocks her over Biggs.  The mansion is on fire and with Shannon out of it, they make their escape.  Outside Kraven apologises again and says his life is not one that's been well lived.  He decides that from now on he'll be Kraven The Hunter of Hunters.   Squirrel Girl says that's a heroic improvement.

Three weeks later Squirrel Girl and Nancy are walking in the park  with Mew on a leash and bump into Howard.   He has taken ownership of Biggs now who is in a smaller robotsuit after his owner freaked out at the sight of him, "so I guess I own a weird cat now".  Squirrel Girl makes a fuss of him and says cats are her second favourite animal, Howard asks if her favourite is ducks?  "Sure Howard. Sure" comes the response and that brings this story to an end.

Yay, happy endings all round!

From embarrassing parents to time travel shenanigans to missing cats, this is one packed volume of adventure.  Squirrel Girl actually reminds me a lot of Goku from Dragonball.  She is very kind and always tries to see the best in people even if they are trying to kill her, and she's always adding to her circle of friends.  The writing by Ryan North is crisp and funny as hell while the stories are imaginative and just the right side of silly.  Erica Henderson's art continues to be a delight, it's deceptively simple line work actually makes people look more emotive than more "realistic" styles.  Nancy continues to be one of the greatest supporting characters in all of comics.  Brave enough to stand up to Doctor Doom, clever enough to figure out how to find Squirrel Girl in the past and I like to think it was the Power of Friendship that let her be the one who remembered who Squirrel Girl was.  Revisting Doom's original defeat by Squirrel Girl using a horde of her instead of a horde of squirrels like the first time was a nice continuity nod and it was cool to see she remains just as badass even as an old lady.  I like how when she realises she is in the past she doesn't panic she goes with the flow and very cleverly gathers together her fellow time displaced students. The two-parter with Howard the Duck was a nice bit of fluff, Howard's always been a bit of an odd fit with the wider Marvel Universe but seeing him alongside other animal themed heroes stops him sticking out quite so much.  Also robocats are awesome.  Squirrel Girl remains one of the delights of Marvel currently and I am looking forward to reading what comes next.