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Characters / The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

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Title Character

    Squirrel Girl 

Doreen Allene Green / Squirrel Girl

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squirrel_girl_oum.png
Ready to eat nuts and kick butts.

Notable Aliases: Rodent, The Anti-Life, The Slayer of All That Breathes, Lady Crimepocalypse, Nutcase Girl, Tail Girl, Nutball, Bass Lass

Editorial Names: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Team Affiliations: Great Lakes Initiative, Avengers Idea Mechanics, New Avengers, American Intelligence Mechanics

Nationality: American, Canadian

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 2) #8 (December, 1991)

"Maybe it's just me, but I'm not crazy about super hero stories where everything's all dark and moody. Personally, I like the ones where good guys fight giant apes on the moon and stuff. Remember those? I do. That was back when comic book worlds were places you wanted to escape to... not from."

The girl/squirrel herself, who gained tree-rodent-based superpowers (proportional strength of a squirrel, razor-sharp nails, the innate ability to speak squirrelese, and, of course, the bushy tail) after her mother ended up going through squirrel-and-nut-themed versions of just about every Disposable Superhero Maker imaginable while pregnant with her. Doreen would go on to attempt a crime-fighting career in her mid-teens, with some... moderate success, most famously defeating Doctor Doom during her first appearance. She's drifted through many gigs over her career: member of the Great Lakes Avengers, nanny to Danielle Cage, before deciding to enroll in Empire State University's Computer Science program...

Despite the silly name, Squirrel Girl is one of the most canonically powerful superheroes in the entire Marvel Universe. According to her official Marvel powergrid, all of Doreen's stats are through the roof, putting her at the same level as the Living Tribunal. Stats aside, her powers include enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, agility, and leaping ability "proportionate to that of a squirrel". She has also small, sharp claws rather than fingernails and retractable knuckle spikes—both principally used for climbing. She can speak with squirrels, who tend to do her bidding because of how well she treats them. Oh, and she has a semi-prehensile squirrel tail and her lips taste like hazelnuts.

Squirrel Girl was specifically written as a response to the Darker and Edgier comics of the '90s. She basically serves as a litmus test for those who take comics too seriously, particularly those who think darker and edgier is automatically better. If you're the kind of fan who gets upset when a happy-go-lucky girl with the powers of a squirrel defeats god-level threats, you're exactly the kind of fan Squirrel Girl was written to upset.

In her first appearance, she took down Doctor Doom without the help of a nearby Iron Man, who refused her request to become his new sidekick earlier that day. Since the art and plot had a Silver Age touch that did not take itself seriously—and because the story was published in the Dark Age that marked The '90s—Doreen's debut was essentially a comedic one-off that attracted little attention.

Well over a decade later, scans of comic books on the Internet became commonplace. And once Doreen's debut was scanned and shared, her story gained many more readers. The fact that Doctor Doom was defeated by such a ridiculous character (and in an equally ridiculous fashion), combined with the fact that said defeat was one of the few Doom losses never retconned as being Actually a Doombot, allowed Squirrel Girl to become a popular Memetic Badass in Internet fight threads. This was despite her having only appeared once in a story that virtually no one had read before the mid-2000s. She became an Ascended Meme in 2005 when Dan Slott put her on the Great Lakes Avengers in the Great Lakes Avengers: Misassembled mini-series. She did little of note besides being generally cute and fighting alongside a bunch of superheroes who seemed equally as odd as her; if anything, she came off as a Naïve Newcomer.

Her appearance in the GLX-Mas Special follow-up, however, brought back her most defining trait. In that one-off special, Doreen defeated M.O.D.O.K., Terrax, and even Thanos himself, all while evidence was presented that proved she had already defeated Giganto and The Mandarin. She soon began to show up in other comics, cementing her status as an invincible hero by defeating Bi-Beast, Pluto, and even Deadpool ("you evil, evil man!"). In the Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular crossover special, Doctor Doom is shown as being completely afraid to confront her—especially after she infiltrates Latveria on her own.

After working with the Great Lakes Avengers for a while, Squirrel Girl came to the conclusion that she was holding them back from becoming a great team; while she defeated the likes of Fin Fang Foom, they sat around playing cards. So in Marvel's Age of Heroes #3, she announced that she was leaving the GLA and striking out on her own. A short two-page item in I Am An Avenger #1 showed Doreen arriving back in New York City, and in the New Avengers, she was hired as the nanny for Danielle, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Since Danielle had been the target of supervillain kidnapping, demonic possession, and other similar threats in the past, someone like Squirrel Girl was necessary to protect the toddler.

Nearly twenty-five years after her first appearance, Doreen finally received her own solo comic: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, written by Ryan North and drawn by Erica Henderson. The series starts after Doreen leaves her job as Danielle's nanny; rather than stick around at Avengers Mansion as a freeloader, Doreen enrolls at a local university while juggling her life as Squirrel Girl, her days swinging from attending classes and making new friends to handling all kind of various villains (often by befriending them). After an initial run of eight issues, Unbeatable was re-launched with a new volume (the cover of the inaugural Volume 2 issue cheerfully announces, "Only Our Second #1 Issue This Year!") following Secret Wars. It ended in 2019 after 58 issues across both volumes. The series also had its own original graphic novel, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe, in which...well, the title really does say it all, here.

During the Unbeatable era, Doreen became an active member of Sunspot's Avengers Idea Mechanics. When Avengers Standoff split the team up, she—alongside Tippy-Toe, Wiccan, and Hulkling—formed their own splinter faction of the New Avengers. After the divided roster reunited during the events of Civil War II, she remained with A.I.M. during its transition into the American Intelligence Mechanics.

Thanks in part to her surge in popularity as a Memetic Badass, Squirrel Girl has also started to appear in other media: She has a supporting role in the cartoon Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), and she has made several appearances in Marvel-licensed games, often as a playable character. She came extremely close to joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the leader of the New Warriors, (which would be loosely based on "The Great Lake Avengers") note  played by Milana Vayntrub, though the series was indefinitely postponed and ultimately cancelled.

No relation to Squirrel Boy.

Squirrel Girl has appeared in the following works:

Notable Comics

Live-Action Television

  • New Warriors (Cancelled), stated to be played by Milana Vayntrub. Ultimately became a What Could Have Been example as the series was cancelled when Freeform passed on it. note 

Literature

  • Marvel: Avengers Assembly, by Preeti Chhibber and James Lancett
    • Orientation (2020)
    • The Sinister Substitute (2021)
    • X-Change Students (2022)
  • The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
    • Squirrel Meets World (2017)
    • 2 Fuzzy, 2 Furious (2018)

Podcast

  • Marvel’s Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show! (2022)

Video Games

Western Animation

Squirrel Girl's appearances in various comics contain the following tropes:

  • Action Girl: She is a superb hand-to-hand combatant capable of taking down Wolverine in a one-to-one no-claws fight.
  • The Adjectival Superhero: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
  • Ambiguously Bi: She's definitely got an eye for the boys, as demonstrated by her crush on Speedball, but in her own comic it's repeatedly hinted that there's something going on between her and her friend Nancy. At least two alternate futures depicted in the comic sees elderly versions of Doreen and Nancy living together and acting like a couple.
  • And This Is for...: Squirrel Girl lets her squirrel army defeat a mook in the name of Monkey Joe (whose ghost did not care one bit).
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing: Aside from the obvious, she's also routinely teaming up with her friends Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi.
  • Armed with Canon: In her first appearance, Squirrel Girl defeated Doctor Doom. Another writer showed Doom explaining that it was actually a Doombot. Yet, in GLX-Mas, we are told that she really did defeat Doctor Doom (we are also presented with a new picture, thus hinting that she has defeated Doctor Doom at least twice). And to really hammer in the point, in Deadpool/GLI, Squirrel Girl invades Latveria by herself, and Doctor Doom is afraid to even think about challenging her (with an accommodating statement by Tippy-Toe that since her first victory against Doctor Doom was written in by Steve Ditko, it's fully canon — "So deal with it, fanboy.")
    Deadpool: Oh c'mon, those stories can't actually count in continuity!
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: While the evil, evil man fought Daredevil, he warned him about the walking nukes such as the Iron Mans, the Thors, and the Squirrel Girls. And then when he fought Cable, he warned him about the psychos such as himself, Doctor Doom, and Squirrel Girl. This is an inverted trope in that Squirrel Girl really is that dangerous, but it is also averted in that she rarely causes any sort of collateral damage (and, in her stand-alone series, tries her best to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence).
  • Ascended Extra: She went from being a one-shot joke character to an Avenger and a character with her own solo book.
  • Ascended Meme: Squirrel Girl's original one-shot appearance became a meme in Internet forums, which led to her becoming a permanent recurring character in the Marvel universe as part of the Great Lakes Avengers, before ultimately gaining her own solo series.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: She is perfectly capable of opening up cans of whoop-ass, as Wolverine can attest. And that is without getting to the animal empathy thing (Logan is reasonably wary of the army of squirrels she summons when he manages to get her in an armlock).
  • Badass Adorable: She is positively cute (and positively hot in Mike Deodato's New Avengers run), can talk to squirrels, and can kick more ass than all of Marvel's other heroes combined.
  • Badass Boast: While saying goodbye to Iron Man:
    I don't need luck. I eat nuts.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Superhero with a silly premise and a ridiculous amount of power.
  • Beyond the Impossible:
    • She explains that the actual word impossible isn't part of her personal lexicon, since she feels that the word is very disempowering.
    • Despite her reputation as one of Marvel's most powerful characters, an infected Luke Cage actually managed to kill hernote . Click here for proof.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: While her knuckle spikes aren't as powerful (or as long) as Wolverine's, she is able to carve through solid wood with them, and her fingernails can cut through reinforced tempered glass.
  • Blithe Spirit: Squirrel Girl is upbeat, optimistic, and (justifiably) full of self-confidence. With a few exceptions—mostly criminals who are being punched—people get along well with her.
  • Brought Down to Badass: On the Marvel Wiki, her power level used to be maxed out in every category. At the moment, it's been brought down to consistently above average across the board (except energy projection), with higher stats in Strength and Fighting Skills.
  • Call-Back: The new comic book references previous lines from Squirrel Girl:
    • In issue 2, she repeats "I don't need luck, I have nuts!"
    • Issue 3's cover has her fighting giant apes on the moon!
    • In Volume 2 Issue 5, she defeats Doctor Doom again, this time with a swarm of Squirrel Girls, in a reference to her original win over Doom using a swarm of squirrels.
  • Catchphrase: "Eat nuts and kick butts!"
  • Celeb Crush: She had one on Speedball for awhile. They did interact a few times (even sharing a kiss), but the crush disappeared after he became Penance.
  • Comically Invincible Hero: This is her entire purpose for existing now.
  • Crack Pairing: Mostly jokingly, some authors have paired her off with very random characters in Noodle Incidents, including Wolverine and the Mac Gargan incarnation of Venom.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She is cute. She talks to squirrels. She has also defeated Doctor Doom (twice!), The Mandarin, Giganto, MODOK, Thanos, Terrax, Bug-Eyed Voice, Bi-Beast, Deadpool (twice!), Pluto, Fin Fang Foom, Baron Mordo, Korvac, Ultron, the Avengers (all at once in 26 seconds), and Ego the Living Planet.
  • Darker and Edgier: She has her whimsical moments, but her appearances in the main Avengers title are this, from her hinted affair with Wolverine◊, to the more dramatic moments◊ ever since she came to New York City. Compare this cover◊ to this panel◊ to see the shift in tone.
    • This is reversed completely in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, where all the darker character traits disappear and she returns to her comedic roots.
      • And it turns out her sordid history with Wolverine is that he simply stole a cab from her once.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Squirrels vs. Doctor Doom.
  • Determinator: She's the unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and she's not about to let herself become the sorta-beatable-if-you-try-really-hard Squirrel Girl.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Squirrel Girl's usual methodology in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Squirrel Girl until The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
  • The Dreaded:
    • Doctor Doom has shown great fear in having a rematch with her—though, after their legendary first tussle, can you really blame him? He has referred to her as his "sixth most dreaded nemesis" at one point.
    • She has been canonically referred to as "The Anti-Life" and "The Slayer Of All That Breathes".
    • Once, when the Plunderer was out plundering, Squirrel Girl appeared. Plunderer's reaction? "Oh. Her." He immediately tried to run away.
  • Double Entendre: She carries around nuts for her squirrel friends in "nut sacks" on her utility belt.
  • Endearingly Dorky: Described as such in her Marvel Heroes bio:
    "You'd think that young Doreen Green's mutant power was Super-Adorability, but her abilities go far beyond simple cuteness. Her semi-prehensile tail allows her to display amazing feats of agility...well, yeah, that tail IS pretty adorable. How about the empathic bond she shares with squirrels? That's a good power! But, yeah, it's also kind of adorable."
  • Fastball Special: She threw Tippy-Toe at M.O.D.O.K. this way. She even called it "the Fuzzball Special". Alley-Oop!
  • Flanderization: Her infamous defeat of Doctor Doom was accomplished by a creative use of her powers—that is, she commanded an army of squirrels to sabotage all of his equipment from the inside. Thanks to Memetic Mutation, she became able to beat everyone, even Thanos, by creative power uses or just punching them (usually off panel). This is very much Played for Laughs, though.
  • Flight, Strength, Heart: Super-strength and agility, sharp claws, and the ability to talk to squirrels. That last one is the most dangerous.
  • Forgot About Her Knuckle Spikes: For about twenty-five years, since her first appearance. She admits she doesn't think about them because she has absolutely no interest in stabbing people whatsoever, anyway. (Also, retracting them when they're covered with blood would be a serious health risk without Wolverine-like healing factor.)
  • Fun Personified: She is arguably the flagship character of this trope. Considering the rest of the 616 universe, this is what makes her really out of place.
  • The Gloves Come Off: Defied. Her friend Nancy makes a speech in the hopes that Squirrel Girl will stop holding back and really cut loose against Ultron, but she insists that she's not really that strong.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: In one issue of his own comic, the evil, evil man is looking for his Squirrel Girl underwear.
  • Got the Call on Speed Dial: Squirrel Girl's greatest ambition has always been to use her powers to help mankind. And squirrel-kind. At the age of 14, Squirrel Girl attacked Doctor Doom in order to become Iron Man's sidekick. As a slightly older teenager in New York, she helped the police by catching muggers in Central Park. She joined the Great Lakes Avengers without giving it a second thought. She seems to have no emotional baggage about fighting crime or being abnormal. (This puts her in a substantial minority in the Marvel Universe.)
  • Greek Chorus: Fourth-Wall Observers Monkey Joe and Tippy-Toe (and even Squirrel Girl herself) discuss and use Tropes such as Armed with Canon, Biting-the-Hand Humor, Digital Piracy Is Evil, Stuffed in the Fridge, and This Loser Is You.
  • Guile Hero: Most notably in her own series, where her victories are actually seen by the readers; all too often, she does so by Talking the Monster to Death. Not that she can't do it the old fashioned way if she has to.
  • Hartman Hips: Invoked. To hide her large, fluffy tail while at college, Doreen stuffs the appendage into her pants. This gives her the illusion of having a massive butt which proves quite distracting for some background characters. That being said, she does admit to having a naturally large backside in her novel series independent of the tail.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: She gets a lot of mileage out of "communicate with squirrels". It may seem stupid at first, but once they manage to take out Doctor Doom...
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: As a member of the Avengers Ideas Mechanics team, since they were kind of working for A.I.M. at the time (but with most of the mad science removed, honest!) Not that Doreen's in it for the adulation.
  • Hypocritical Humor: In her I (Heart) Marvel appearance, Squirrel Girl accuses The Bug-Eyed Voice of committing a criminal offense because he is stalking Speedball. She does this while she is occupied in stalking Speedball.
  • Imagine Spotting: She can read Deadpool's little yellow boxes.
  • Impossible Task Instantly Accomplished: Just ask Thanos.
  • In a Single Bound: She can leap several stories up into the air.
  • Informed Attribute: Her alleged power level is this. She never actually displays powers beyond her increased (but still lower than, say, Spider-Man) strength and agility, her knuckle spikes, and her ability to talk with squirrels. She gets an amazing amount of mileage out of the squirrel control, but any villain that cannot be beaten by having a small, furry critter wriggle under their armor is often beaten offscreen (if at all; she has not actually appeared enough to be a true "power player" in the Marvel universe).
  • Invincible Hero: This has been the central gag behind Squirrel Girl's existence after her resurrection in Great Lakes Avengers: Misassembled. But various writers have played with the notion more than once.
    • The closest she has ever come to defeat was failing to convince Robbie "Penance" Baldwin to return to being Speedball. note 
    • In Unbeatable, Doreen often avoids fighting an opponent to stop them. She is a big believer in The Power of Friendship and has stopped numerous substantial threats by considering their point of view, offering other options, and generally treating them like reasonable people. (Galactus is invulnerable to all conventional forces, but he is still open to reason.) This kind of bait-and-switch alternates with more conventional victories—she does still have to punch villains sometimes—so you never know what kind of victory she will get.
  • Ironic Echo Cut: Squirrel Girl's victory over Thanos, who possessed the power to screw the Multiverse.
  • Lampshade Hanging: She is a universe-wide (or even genre-wide) lampshade, telling how ridiculous comparisons between heroes or villains are, and the power levels are moot before the whims of the writer of the current story.
  • Leotard of Power: Several depictions have this.
  • Lethal Joke Character: One of the silliest heroes in the Marvel universe, and also one of the most powerful.
  • Little Bit Beastly: Doreen is a human with pronounced squirrel-like features — an overbite, claws, and a big squirrel tail. The squirrel ears are an Animal-Eared Headband, though.
  • Logical Weakness: Despite having wrist-blades like Wolverine, she hardly ever uses them. Both because she dislikes hurting people, and because getting other people's blood - especially other superbeings' blood - into her bloodstream would be unhealthy, since she doesn't have Wolverine's healing factor.
  • Master of All: Squirrel Girl's official ratings have every stat maxed out. It is a Running Gag that she keeps defeating Marvel's most powerful villains, including cosmic entities such as Galactus, either off-camera or in ridiculous ways. Often with the help of squirrels.
  • Medium Awareness: Squirrel Girl is fully aware that she is in a comic book; due to contractual issues, she is only allowed to break the fourth wall during the recaps. But Monkey Joe and Tippy-Toe didn't sign any contract (why would they?), so for them, there is no fourth wall.
  • Mutants: Doreen claimed to be a mutant in her first appearance. Unbeatable retconned this to put her in the same "accidentally received powers" category as, say, Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Specifically, she is medically and legally not a Mutant, and the doctor who birthed her said this could never be taken back ever. Guess that answers that one.
  • Nice Girl: Above everything else, Doreen is a genuinely good person. She's amiable and friendly, she has a knack for getting along with just about everyone (even Deadpool, after a couple of false starts), and she genuinely wants to help people whenever she can.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: While Doreen can talk to any squirrel she wants, her longtime sidekick is Tippy-Toe, who got the job after Monkey Joe's death in Great Lakes Avengers: Misassembled.
  • Noodle Incident: Aside from her various scorecards against prominent villains, New Avengers showed that Doreen has an unspecified "past" with Wolverine, of all people. In that appearance, the two of them refer to each other by their given first names, and Logan reminds her "we promised never to see each other again".
    • In a letters column on Unbeatable, Ryan North "explained" that she was mad at him for stealing a cab from her. Take that as you will.
  • Odd Friendship: "Odd" is an understatement after Squirrel Girl befriends Galactus, Devourer of Worlds.
    Galactus: I like you, Squirrel Girl. You don't fear me. In all my travels, you are the first to approach me...as a peer.
    Squirrel Girl: I like you too, Galactus.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Most of her victories are off-panel and we only see the results, not the actual fights. At least until Unbeatable, anyway.
  • Parody Sue: Squirrel Girl has stats up to Physical God level and villains of the caliber of Doctor Doom fear her, yet most of her victories are off-screen and her superpowers are based on squrriels.
  • Progressively Prettier: In her first appearance, Squirrel Girl looked...really weird. Her art has flip-flopped a lot thanks to being drawn by a number of different artists, but she is generally depicted as being much cuter than she looked in her first appearance. This is lampshaded in an issue of Unbeatable that shows a brief flashback to her first appearance. She concludes that everyone makes questionable fashion choices at fourteen.
    • The general trend is reversed in Unbeatable—Erica Henderson draws Doreen as round-faced, buck-toothed, and with a much chubbier physique than is usual for superheroines. This design was the one used for her in the "Rising" and "Avengers Assembly" series as well.
  • Rage Against the Readers: Squirrel Girl was upset with all of us after Monkey Joe's death.
  • Reconstruction: What would you call a Silver-Age-appropriate character in the age of Deconstruction?
  • Retcon:
    • Her knuckle spikes have not been seen or mentioned after her first appearance in 1991.
      • They finally appeared in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl II 25◊, with lampshading by North in the footnotes.◊
    • The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl has ignored her mutant origins, instead saying multiple times that she has "partially squirrel blood". It has been speculated (but not confirmed) that this particular retcon was the result of the feud between Fox (who controlled the X-Men film rights) and Marvel.
    • Unbeatable also did away with the "her lips taste like hazelnut" attribute mentioned in her I (Heart) Marvel appearance.
    Ryan North: It just strikes me as such a sexualized thing to attach to the character. Like, do Spider-Man's lips taste like insects? We don't know, because nobody cares. I think there's a lot more really interesting things to talk about when you talk about Squirrel Girl than what this woman's lips taste like.
  • Rule of Funny: This is literally the reason she can get away with being so overpowered.
  • Secret Identity: In Unbeatable, she does a horrible job of hiding her civilian identity, yet one of her biggest fears is that someone will make the connection despite her efforts. This is played for laughs in Deadpool: Too Soon, where Deadpool tries to hold this secret over her for blackmail...only for everyone else in the room to say they'd already figured it out—including The Punisher, Rocket Raccoon (who had never met Doreen before), and Spider-Ham (who isn't even from their dimension). It is revealed in the final storyline of that series, and she ultimately decides to not have the reveal undone.
  • Serial Escalation: She used to be prone to this on a habitual basis. Unbeatable took her in other directions, but not before she had made some of Marvel's biggest villains feel pretty silly.
  • Showy Invincible Hero: Particularly her squirrels, who like to discuss how she manages to surpass unbelievable odds.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: There is a certain species of animal she can communicate with. Can you guess which one? In All-New Wolverine, she is surprised to learn that other Animal-Themed Superbeing types cannot do the same with their namesakes.
    • In Unbeatable she teaches her friends how to speak squirrel as well, and it's later revealed there are even different dialects of "squirrelese".
    • She can also speak rat, once managing to turn all of Vermin's rat minions against him (with some help from Tippy Toe).
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: This is both acknowledged and mocked when she decided to leave the GLA. With her around, the other Great Lakes Avengers never saw any action—or screen time—because her Memetic Badass status had grown to the point where they played cards while she defeated such uber-baddies as Fin Fang Foom, Baron Mordo, and Ego the Living Planet. Doreen felt she had been "holding back" the team as a result, and thus she returned to New York.
  • Squirrels in My Pants: This is the basic tactic behind her first big victory. She still uses it from time to time.
  • Stalker with a Crush / Stalking is Love: These are arguably the best way to describe Squirrel Girl's crush over Speedball. She defeats his enemies for him, she breaks into dungeons for him, she invades sovereign countries for him, she even travels through time for him. Her fan letters to him are screened by the FBI! And ignoring that time when he was too deep for her (Doreen is not a fan of Penance), he has responded to her crush with what seems like equal attraction. (At the very least, she got a kiss from him.)
  • Super-Cute Superpowers: Squirrel Girl can summon a flurry of squirrels to Zerg Rush an opponent. They're so fluffy! And cute! And oh god they're everywhere!
  • Super-Speed / Super-Reflexes: Squirrel Girl has the proportionate speed, agility, and reflexes of a squirrel.
  • Super-Strength: She is strong enough to lift twenty-five tons. (Possibly more, seeing as that would not "max out" her stats as another source claims.)
  • Take a Third Option: One of her trademarks in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. While perfectly capable of kicking ass with the best of them, she is more likely to find alternate ways of dealing with opponents.
  • Take Our Word for It: For many years after her initial (justified) victory, every takedown of a top-tier villain fell into this category. Now that she has her own book (and has been in several others), writers have generally found ways for her to outfight, outsmart, distract, or even befriend her opponents.
    • In The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe, her own "jerky clone" (as opposed to her evil clone), who has all her power and none of her restraint, is shown taking down a number of top tier heroes and villains in a variety of creative ways. (In brief, she targets heroes with steal-able "powers" (like Tony Stark's armor) first and leverages those powers against other heroes in a Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors way.) The "jerky clone" was last seen beating up Annihilus in the Negative Zone.
  • Take That!: In a number of her pre-Unbeatable appearances, Squirrel Girl's dialogue and surrounding plot points were aimed at whatever the writer found annoying about comic books at the time (e.g., the escapism quote above, Batman's in-universe status as an urban legend, etc.). And just to make sure no one missed the reference, her squirrel sidekick pops up in a cut-out panel to state outright what it meant.
    • Penance—the Darker and Edgier post-Civil War persona of Robbie "Speedball" Baldwin—was a particular sore point. She tried to convince him he was not at fault for the events leading to Civil War by citing all the other stuff that other heroes have done that was so much worse (but managed not to get blamed for). Robbie yelled at her for not understanding his pain, and eventually smashed his (helmeted) head into a wall over and over to show off how "deep" he had become. As pointed out above, Doreen is not a fan of Penance.
  • Thememobile: She owns a squirrel shaped helicopter called the Squirrel-a-gig.
  • Time Travel: Doreen once tried to travel into the past so she could stop Civil War from happening (and thus stop Speedball from becoming Penance). Somehow, she traveled into the future. This bit doubles as a very sly reference: When Squirrel Girl tries to travel to the past, she sets the time machine to take her to "Speedball's second to last coordinates" (i.e., the last time Speedball was Speedball prior to the events of Civil War). Prior to Civil War, Speedball's last appearance in a Marvel comic was in a comic set in the year 2099.
    • It also creates a Funny Moment when she goes to Latveria so she can borrow Doctor Doom's time machine. Doom just sighs and points her to the room, not even bothering to try and stop her.
    • She also time traveled in Unbeatable, this time to face off against Doctor Doom (again). This is not the one of her present-day time period, where Doctor Doom is acting Reformed, but Not Tamed—this was a Doctor Doom who had time-travelled forward from minutes after she first defeated him.
      • This adventure also identified and sealed a plot hole in the Marvel Universe. It's well established that Doom mastered time travel in the early Silver Age. Why hasn't he taken over the world via time travel shenanigans? It's because this adventure left a retirement-age Squirrel Girl in the 60s with Doom. Every time he attempts to use his time platform maliciously, she drops by to blow up all his Doombots. this was shown in a cameo in The Unbelievable Gwenpool
  • Vague Age:
    • Doreen was originally 14 (the art made that hard to tell!), but now her age is intentionally left vague. In Unbeatable Volume 2, she is a second-year computer science student in college, which probably makes her 19 or 20 years old.
    • Finally averted in issue #47, where her age is specifically mentioned to be 20.
  • Weak, but Skilled: She can also talk to squirrels. She has retractable knuckle spikes that can slice wood and sharp claws on each finger. And she has the proportional speed, strength, and agility of a squirrel. Despite appearing to be a ridiculous character, Squirrel Girl has taken down numerous Marvel powerhouses—including Thanos and Galactus—by exploiting their one weakness, being just that good, or having Plot Armor. (Or by befriending them, as of Unbeatable.)
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Her attempt to un-Wangst Penance (aka Speedball) lands her in the future, where she meets an alternate Speedball who never turned wangsty, and tries to convince him to go back. Then Mr Immortal shows up (being immortal, he took The Slow Path) and tells her she's needed back in the present... for kicking out Deadpool from the GLA. After that, no mention of Speedball is made.
  • Wolverine Publicity: She was utilized in this capacity for a guest appearance in All-New Wolverine #7.
  • World's Strongest Woman: Her Super-Strength is fairly impressive, but it is far from the greatest on Earth, let alone within the entire Marvel Universe. In a much broader sense, however, she can safely be called this.
  • Xanatos Gambit: She may have been strangled by that E-List Mook during the big brawl in Great Lakes Avengers: Misassembled #4, but that was just to position him where she wanted him to be so the squirrel army could avenge the murder of Monkey Joe. She could have defeated him herself, but it was personal.
    • In an issue of Unbeatable, Doreen allows one of Mole Man's giant monsters to stomp on her several times. She could have defeated the monster, but she let the stomping happen so Mole Man would redirect his affections toward the monster—and away from Squirrel Girl, for whom Mole Man had become a Stalker with a Crush.

Close Friends

    Monkey Joe 

Monkey Joe

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/300474_63369_monkey_joe.jpg

Nationality: American

Species: Squirrel

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 2) #8 (December, 1991)

Monkey Joe was the constant companion, sidekick, and best friend of Squirrel Girl, who made the GLA accept him as member.

  • Killed Off for Real: Leather Boy, an ex-GLA member bitter at the team's decision to reject him due to his lack of powers, murdered Monkey Joe violently while dressed up in a leather Doctor Doom outfit in Great Lakes Avengers #3
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Squirrel Girl's first squirrel companion.

    Tippy-Toe 

Tippy-Toe

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/96355_22453_tippy_toe.PNG

Notable Aliases: Monkey Joe 2, Tip, Tippy, T-Toe, TT, The Most Electrifying Squirrel in Comics, Tippy-Toe T. T-Toes, Tippy-Toe the Squirrel, Silver Squirrel

Nationality: American

Species: Squirrel

First Appearance: G.L.A. #4 (September, 2005)

Squirrel Girl's pet sidekick who took the mantle from the deceased Monkey Joe. Doreen’s best squirrel friend, who usually spreads the word to other squirrels about Doreen’s requests. Wears a distinctive pink bow around her neck.

  • And Then John Was a Zombie: When part of the A.I.M.vengers, Tippy Toe (along with Doreen) was turned into a neohedron (basically, they had crystals for heads).
  • Gadgeteer Genius: She can help make a time machine. ... just don't ask her to do any of the parts requiring color-coordination because, as a squirrel, she's colorblind.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: The newest and most consistent squirrel partner of Squirrel Girl.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Took Monkey Joe's place as Squirrel Girl's partner after his death.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Wears a pink ribbon to remind us she's female and different from the male Monkey Joe.

    Nancy Whitehead 

Nancy Whitehead

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nancy_whitehead_earth_616_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_50_001.jpg

Notable Aliases: Nautical Nancy, Fish Miss

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (March, 2015)

Doreen’s roommate and best human friend, who is in the same Computer Science program as she is. Her cat, Mew, is very important to her. Due to a lie told by Squirrel Girl, Tony Stark’s database has her recorded as “Nautical Nancy” with the ability to talk to boats.

  • Ambiguously Gay: She claims that she has no interest in dating, but gets along very well with Doreen.
  • Odd Friendship: She gets along very well with Loki of all people.
  • Only Sane Man: She tends to be more grounded in comparison to her super-powered friends, and is the only one who isn't fooled by Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi's paper-thin disguises. She's also pretty good at offering rational solutions to problems.
    Nancy: (In response to a suggestion to burn waste in volcanoes) Actually, Volcanoes don't so much "destroy matter" as they "spew matter upwards during eruptions". All you'd be doing is creating a radioactive volcano: arguably a much greater threat than a regular volcano??

    Chipmunk Hunk 

Tomas Lara-Perez / Chipmunk Hunk

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tomas_lara_perez_earth_616_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_1_6_001.jpg

Notable Aliases: Handsome Puncher, Chiphunk, Chippy the Hunk, Zorro 2: Better Than Zorro

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (March, 2015)

Tomas Lara-Perez is another student in Empire State University’s Computer Science program. Has the same abilities as Doreen, except with chipmunks.

  • Domino Mask: Wears a white domino mask. Nancy points out this is not an effective disguise.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: As indicated by his name, he speaks to chipmunks.

    Koi Boi 

Ken Shiga / Koi Boi

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ken_shiga_earth_616_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_39_001.jpg

Notable Aliases: Unsinkable Koi Boi, Khoi Boi, Captain Crimehater

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2 (April, 2015)

Ken Shiga is another student in Empire State University’s Computer Science program. Can actually communicate with any marine life, but “marine life” doesn’t rhyme with “boi”. Also has a variety of other Koi related powers, most of which are largely useless.

    Mary Mahajan 

Mary Mahajan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mary_mahajan_earth_616_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_39_001.jpg

Notable Aliases: Super-Power Woman, Spy Mary

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 2 #2 (January, 2016)

An incredibly intelligent student at ESU, also a computer science student. Fascinated with various super-villain-like devices. Dating Tomas Lara-Perez as of the end of the series. Typing her name into google auto-completes to “Mary Mahayan Doomsday Scorpion Tank”.

  • Alliterative Name: Mary Mahajan
  • Ascended Extra: She started out as a minor character in the time travel arc, but became one of Doreen's closest friends.
  • Failed a Spot Check: When she and the other students got back from the past, she briefly freaks out that they forgot Doreen. While describing her, she realizes that Doreen looks almost exactly like Squirrel Girl, but with slightly larger bottom, and then realizes it.

    Brain Drain 

Werner Schmidt / Brain Drain

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/werner_schmidt_brain_drain_earth_616_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_26_002.jpg

Notable Aliases: Brian Drayne, Doctor Musclefists

Nationality: German

Species: Human cyborg

First Appearance: Invaders #2 (October, 1975)

A nihilist robot man and computer sciences student who was once a member of Hydra and is now a hero.

  • The Anti-Nihilist: The guy keeps ranting about the futility of life and hopelessness of the human situation. But he's just so damn happy about it.
  • Brain/Computer Interface: How he operates his robot body, provided by aliens. The degree of re-activeness is something reverse engineered and exploited by Iron Ring for her purposes.
  • Brain in a Jar: He lost his body and now he's a human brain and eyes in a vat which controls a robot body.
  • Clark Kenting: In public he just wears a trench coat.
  • Forced into Evil: Because the aliens that rebuilt his body only had a bunch of Nazi propaganda to go on, he was programmed to be a genocidal maniac against his will. Doreen and Nancy manage to undo the programming, and he becomes much more personable afterward.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Has become a good person thanks to Squirrel Girl.
  • Mind Manipulation: Schmidt has the psionic ability to control minds.
  • Secondary Color Nemesis: Has a purple suit.
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: His civilian name is just a variation on his hero name.
  • Token Nonhuman: The only one of Doreen's friends who isn't a human (other than all the squirrels), though he did start out as a human.

Allies

    Iron Man 

Iron Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squirrelgirl_3.jpg

Became an ally of Squirrel Girl after their first meeting, in which Doreen defeated Dr Doom single-handedly.

See Iron Man

    Howard the Duck 

Howard the Duck

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/howard0.jpg

See Howard the Duck

Villains (who often end up as more friends and allies)

    Ratatoskr 

Ratatoskr

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ratatoskr_earth_616_human_form_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_44_002.jpg

Notable Aliases: Rachel Oskar, Rattatosk, Storyteller, Girl Squirrel, Meeko, Drill-Tooth, Bore-Tooth, Fine Art

Nationality: Asgardian

Species: God-squirrel

First Appearance: Thor (Vol 2) #83 (October, 2004)

A giant squirrel from Norse myth who used to travel across Yggdrasil the World Tree as a messenger. However, she found her job boring and decided to leave her job and have some fun messing around on Earth.

  • Adaptational Villainy: Ratatoskr in Norse myth was, at worst, a mischiefmaker. Here, she's an outright villain.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Like many other foes of Squirrel Girl, she has reformed and now works as a reporter in Ontario, Canada.
  • Intrepid Reporter: What she became after her reformation. Her stock and trade is ruining people's lives through gossip, after all.
  • Meaningful Name: She takes on the name of Rachel Oskar.
  • Noodle Incident: According to Loki, she caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: One of her forms is a gigantic one-horned black squirrel.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Though she belongs to Thor's pantheon, she eventually ends up a rival to Squirrel Girl.
  • Screwball Squirrel: More on the zany side rather than anything outrageous.
  • Shapeshifter: She can change her form easily.
  • Unwanted Assistance: In the podcast, she takes the identity of supervillain Fine Art in an effort to help Doreen's struggling radio show. Doreen had put a lot of pressure on herself to succeed at it and was obviously distressed at it not going well, but still — a city wide crime spree was not the way to help, as Doreen eventually makes clear.

    Kraven the Hunter 

Kraven the Hunter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kraven_6.jpg

Doreen helped Kraven find new purpose in his life after his disillusionment as a result of his unending battle with Spider-Man.

See Kraven the Hunter

    Galactus 

Galactus

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squirrel_girl_galactus.jpg

The Devourer of Worlds, and Doreen’s close personal friend. Has a standing invitation to Doreen to become his new herald.

See Galactus

    Melissa Morbeck 

Melissa Morbeck / Iron Ring

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/melissa_morbeck_28earth_61629_from_unbeatable_squirrel_girl_vol_2_47_001.jpg

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Vol. 2) #17 (February, 2017)

A former teacher of Doreen's turned Supervillain.

  • Alliterative Name: Melissa Morbeck
  • Big Bad: While not the most reoccurring villain, she is the biggest threat to Squirrel Girl and her friends, and is treated the most seriously.
  • Broken Pedestal: Before her plan was revealed, she was a respected mentor figure and teacher to Doreen.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Squirrel Girl. She is what Doreen would be if she never cared for others, or the animals she talked to.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Her plan to expose Squirrel Girl led to her stealing Iron Man's armor, and nearly destroying the avengers. She would have won if not for Galactus's interference.

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