What? The one with with the big tail who talks to squirrels?
—
Doreen Green, a.k.a. Squirrel Girl
Fanboy #1: Squirrel Girl is Marvel's
Batman. She beats people she shouldn't be able to beat.
Doreen Green is Squirrel Girl, aka either
The Anti-Life or the
Slayer Of All That Breathes. She is also
Marvel Comics' most powerful hero.
She first appeared in a one-shot story in 1992 in an
anthology series,
Marvel Super-Heroes Special, where after
explaining her powers to Iron Man, she showed her
invincibility by defeating both
Iron Man and
Dr. Doom. The story was written by Will Murray and drawn by Marvel Comics legend
Steve freakin' Ditko. Since the art and plot had an old
Silver Age touch that didn't take itself seriously and was it published in the
Dark Age that marked
The Nineties, the story was notable for how out of place it felt.
Few people actually read the story when it first came out, but after the scans were posted on the Internet, Squirrel Girl slowly became an
Internet meme. The fact that Dr. Doom was defeated in such a ridiculous manner, combined with the fact that it was one of the few Doom losses that was never
retconned as a
Doombot due to the obscurity and ridiculousness of the story, meant that Squirrel Girl became a popular
Memetic Badass in Internet fight threads despite having only appeared once in a story no one read. Finally, Squirrel Girl became an
Ascended Meme when Dan Slott let her join the
Great Lakes Avengers in the
Great Lakes Avengers: Misassembled mini-series published in 2005.
She didn't do anything of real importance during said mini-series other than being cute (and a
Naive Newcomer). In fact she faced a low point in her superheroine career by being strangled by a E-List Mook (fortunately, that was just a clever
Xanatos Gambit on her part). It wasn't until her next appearance in the
GLX-Mas Special that her most defining trait became known: in that special, she defeated M.O.D.O.K.,
Terrax, and even
Thanos himself, while giving us evidence that she had already defeated Giganto,
Mandarin and
Dr. Doom. Her next appearances strengthened her status as an invincible hero by having her defeat
Deadpool ("you evil, evil man!"),
Bi-Beast, and
Pluto. This culminated in the
Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular, where Dr. Doom was shown as being completely afraid to confront her, even after she infiltrated Latveria
on her own.
Among her powers are enhanced strength, speed, agility, and reflexes, as well as the ability to leap several stories. She possess small razor sharp claws in place of fingernails, and she's able to use small retractable knuckle spikes. She can communicate with squirrels, which she uses to attack and/or distract her enemies (as well as
breaking the fourth wall). Oh, and her lips taste like hazelnuts, and she can cuddle herself with her semi-prehensile tail. And according to her official Marvel powergrid,
all of her stats are through the roof.
Squirrel Girl is characterized as being a
Silver Age character being completely out of place in modern comics; she will frequently
break the fourth wall to mention this. The fact that she frequently wins against more powerful enemies using ridiculous means can also be seen as a throwback to the Silver Age.
This heroine provides examples of:
