Well I just couldn’t stay away from comics could I? I consider myself a big fan of superheroes, and was always into both DC Comics and Marvel, with there being 3 Heroes in Marvel that really stood above the rest for me, one being Ghost Rider who I have already covered, another being The Incredible Hulk, and by far my favorite Marvel Heroine, and the topic of today's blog, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl herself! Squirrel Girl is an incredible and inspiring hero in a large variety of ways, she may sound like a joke character but unironically she is one of my favorite hero characters in all of fiction, Eating Nuts, Kicking Butts and saving the day! After reading every single appearance she's had for the past 30 years, I think it's time we broke down what she’s really capable of!
Background:
Doreen Allene Green was born in Los Angeles, California to the American Dorian Green and his Canadian wife Maureen. For currently mysterious reasons, the infant Doreen was biologically infused with Squirrel DNA, turning her into a Mutate with an adorable Squirrel Tail and Attributes. Although, despite this, Doreen actually had a pretty normal and healthy childhood living happily with her parents and friends, albeit her parents warned her she should hide her tail and her abilities, to not give away any family secrets. When Doreen was 10 years old, she discovered she had the ability to talk to Squirrels and met a Wise old Eastern Fox Squirrel named Monkey Joe, who she promptly saved from a Corgi Attack.
After his rescue, Monkey Joe lovingly thanked and praised Doreen, believing her to be one of those superheroes he always sees and hears of. Doreen was a huge fan of superheroes and was quick to correct him saying she wasn’t a superhero, but just a humble little girl with a tail and couldn’t compare herself to brave heroes who help others like Spider-Man, Thor or Captain America.
But the wise Squirrel informed Doreen that she's already proven she's someone who helps people too, and hit her with the truth bomb everyone needs to hear at least once, you have your whole life ahead of you, Why are you Already Deciding what you cannot do? Doreen isn’t like other superheroes. She doesn’t have some tragic backstory where her parents died or she was persecuted or something to teach her responsibility. Her childhood was totally normal other than the fact she had goofy Squirrel powers that made her feel self conscious and struggle making friends. But all it took was this one Squirrel believing in her to convince her she can be so much more than she once thought.
Inspired by Monkey Joe’s words, from that day forward Doreen Green decided to become something more than she previously thought possible, with Monkey Joe by her side, she vowed to fight for justice as the new superhero, Squirrel Girl. After befriending lots of Squirrels and having her mom hand make her her own superhero outfit, Squirrel Girl traveled to New York City, where she met up with her all time favorite superhero, Iron Man.
And by met up, I mean she ambushed him in the woods while he was testing some new gear and gave him a long pitch about why she should be his New Sidekick and join the Avengers. Tony was cool with it but wasn’t very impressed with her abilities.
That is until freaking Doctor Doom showed up and tried to kill them both. But miraculously, despite her goofy looking outfit, powers and name, Squirrel Girl actually managed to Defeat Doom and save them. While Tony still wouldn’t allow her to join the Avengers because she was 14, he did become her friend, and supported her in becoming a hero in the future.
After doing some small time herowork for awhile, Doreen was soon approached by The Great Lakes Avengers, a team of misfit superheroes defending the Great Lakes region. With the GLA, Doreen helped to stop the powerful Supervillain Maelstrom from destroying the entire Marvel Multiverse, but at a terrible price, as Monkey Joe along with countless other Squirrels laid down their lives to save the day. But Doreen did manage to save one Squirrel that day, a Female, Eastern Gray Squirrel she named Tippy Toe.
Tippy became Squirrel Girl’s Pet, Best Friend, and Partner in Crime Fighting. She’s quick witted, heroic, sassy and believes in Doreen’s cause. Anyway, before long it became apparent that Squirrel Girl outclassed the rest of her team, and wanting to help them grow to become heroes in their own right, rather than relying on her alone, Doreen left the group and returned to the superhero capital of the world, New York City.
Once there, Doreen enrolled at Empire State University and became a Computer Science major, making friends with her awesome roommate Nancy Whitehead and soon even forming her own sort of superhero team with fellow college hero’s Chipmunk Hunk, Koi Boi and and the redeemed villain Brain Drain, all while under her new moniker, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
Since taking the moniker, Doreen has become one of the biggest names in Marvel Earth when it comes to Kicking Butts (and Eating Nuts). She’s ended numerous extremely powerful threats including an invasion from Galactus, stopping her Evil Clone from conquering the Earth and beating her arch Nemesis, The Norse God of Chaos, Ratatoskr. Squirrel Girl has beaten Thanos, saved The Savage Land from extinction, and most importantly, redeemed lots of former supervillains and showed them all the good they can do, including making Kraven The Hunter turn to the side of Good. Even her secret identity being outed was not enough to hinder Squirrel Girl, as at the end of the day, her civilian self and hero self are one and the same.
Those who come to make trouble in Marvel beware, for though she may not sound like much, Squirrel Girl will always be there to make the day better and brighter, and find the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
Personality:
Doreen is a charming, sweet, spunky, charismatic and endlessly likable hero with a big heart whose optimistic attitude is palpable to all those around her as well as the Readers themselves. She is endlessly curious about both the world and those that live in it, enjoying studying science and philosophy, learning other's stories and wanting to understand their actions. While she is somewhat of an Enthusiastic Dork with heavy Midwestern energy, she genuinely loves people, life, doing good, helping others and superheroics. One of Doreen’s biggest qualities is her completely unshakable positive attitude. She doesn’t have an ounce of cynicism in her body and approaches every situation with love and excitement, refusing to fall into despair, wanting to embrace every aspect of this flawed but beautiful and goofy comics world she lives in. Doreen’s optimism doesn’t come from being Naive or ignoring the numerous problems of the world, as a matter of fact she is more aware of the world's problems than most, but rather she sees that everyone she interacts with has great potential for good and views these flaws as things that we can eventually work to fix.
Even when fighting against Supervillains, Squirrel Girl always approaches them as an Equal, and tries to understand where they are coming from and solve their problems through empathy, compassion and diplomacy. This certainly doesn’t work all the time, but she is really good at it, having earned the respect of, and even redeemed, countless Supervillains in the past. And in certain beautiful moments, even her old villains will come to her aid as allies to repay her kindness. This can even be seen with how her favorite Superhero is Iron Man. Obviously the scientific Doreen would like the self made super scientist that Tony is, but beyond that I think Doreen saw that Tony used to be a bad guy who flooded the world with weapons without a care for who they ended up hurting, but then redeemed himself when he saw what he caused first hand, becoming one of the greatest heroes on Earth, and affirming her belief in the adherent goodness everyone has inside.
The thing about Squirrel Girl to understand is she isn’t called Unbeatable because of how powerful she is or the characters she's beaten as is often Meme’d. She is very powerful yes, but it obviously isn’t true that she can defeat anyone and even in the comics there have been multiple instances where she fought foes she couldn’t overcome in battle. The real reason Doreen calls herself ‘Unbeatable’ is rather the fact that no matter how bad things get, regardless of what losses she suffers or how much the universe tells her otherwise, she will never stop believing in the Good and Potential of others. It is the strength of her Hope that will always carry her to the future, the knowledge that in the worst case scenario there is nowhere to go but Up, that makes her Truly Unbeatable. We may not always believe in ourselves in life, but you can rest assured, no matter who you might be, Doreen believes in You.
"For me as a Superhero the Core of it is this, You're there to help people, and since you are meeting people on the worst day of their life, The Day they got Caught Doing a Crime, I think you Need ....Empathy" (...) "You Have to have empathy, you have to believe that Everyone can do Better, can BE better."
Intellect & Skills:
Doreen is an extremely intelligent Computer Science major at Empire State University who often Teaches High Schools in the same subject, including this jaw dropping lecture about Binary Code that gave me new appreciation (1) (2). This is impressive but like, that doesn’t even remotely explain just how smart she really is. Doreen is a complete mathematical genius capable of executing complex physics equations while under fire. She can Pilot Spaceships and Mecha Suits, casually discern Ms. Marvel’s secret identity, repair the inner mechanics of a Doombot, and in one instance she and her roommate Nancy dismantled the body of the cyborg Brain Drain that was created by aliens and built him a significantly upgraded version of it in only 15 minutes. Doreen is specifically an expert on Binary and Computer Science to an unbelievable degree, and has even used it to figure out how to combat Nightmare, the concept of Dream’s powers, and when She was cloned, despite her and her clone having the exact same memories they both instantly knew who was the original using this logic. When Doreen was only 10 years old she was already smart enough to both Defuse a Bomb from the 41st Century, and much more impressively reverse engineer Kang The Conqueror’s time travel technology from scratch after just very briefly seeing his time travel remote disassembled once. This is something Doreen did as a child, and since then has also Programed a Time Machine, instantly discerned when she was randomly displaced in time in her sleep, learned how to avoid time paradoxes, and can even hack into a time machine to have it prevent time paradoxes from being erased. Time Travel Tech is considered Level 3 Technology on the Kardashev Scale, which would be a level of intelligence high enough to harness the energy of an entire galaxy. And that’s just her direct feats, Doreen is actually So skilled at Computer Science that Tony Stark and The Vision actually call Her for Software support when they can’t figure it out. She deduced how Toni was able to teleport her by hacking into an Intangibility Suit, outsmarted the likes of Doctor Doom and Iron Man’s AI and her clone Allene, (who by the way I would like to address now is a perfect clone of Doreen who possesses not only the same body and powers, but the same mind complete with identical memories and personality traits, therefore anything she does is something Doreen could also have done just as easily in those circumstances) was able to make working modifications to The High Evolutionary’s duplicator machine to alter the clones in specific ways, despite Tony Stark saying he could barely grasp the tech after studying it for over a month. Both Tony Stark and Doctor Doom have untold amounts of Level 5 intelligence feats, so Doreen being able to be relevant to them in any capacity is flipping Nuts.
Squirrel Girl is a fantastic Strategist able to find a foes weaknesses and think of unconventional methods of victory. She once led The Avengers to defeat an Event villain with her attack strategy, and managed to defeat Doctor Doom without the aid of any squirrels by using his own time travel tech to multiply herself. She has ‘borrowed’ equipment from downed foes to aid her in battle on multiple occasions, and her clone was able to infiltrate and lure The Avengers into a trap, as well as take down the Global Powergrid with an organized Squirrel Attack. In fact, Doreen’s perfect clone Allene was so crafty she was able to quickly devise a plan that would allow her to defeat literally every single Metahuman on Marvel Earth and seal them in an alternate dimension in under 3 Hours time, by beating them in a Specific order that would allow her steal weapons and equipment from defeated foes and use them to overwhelm much stronger ones. Then she executed this plan and it flawlessly worked with the only metahuman that was galaxy-brained enough to be able to get around it being Doreen herself.
Squirrel Girl is extremely stealthy, and was able to break into Avenger’s Mansion so casually that she used it’s attic as her temporary apartment for over a year. And that’s far from inconsistent for her, she also, completely undetected, was able to break into Stark Tower, Thunderbolt Mountain, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ and even freaking Latveria.
In terms of combat skills and abilities, Doreen is extremely nimble and well rounded, with stamina so impressive she can do acrobatic flips for over 12 straight hours. In a purely sparring match she handily out-skilled Wolverine, who had just defeated Iron Fist in a similar sparring battle, and also defeated Deadpool just as easily. Against foes she doesn’t have the Stat advantage against, Squirrel Girl has gotten into multiple prolonged fights with the Norse God of Chaos Ratatoskr and more than held her own. Ratatoskr is over a Billion years old and has defeated characters like Thor and Loki and combat who have also fought entire armies of enemies for Thousands of years at a time.
Though beyond that is probably just how impressive a Diplomat Squirrel Girl is. Doreen has turned a Witch’s own summons against her, gained an audience with the Celestial Galactus and convinced him to eat a planet besides Earth, and has redeemed COUNTLESS supervillains. Though probably the most impressive example is the time she Ended an intergalactic war, by sitting down all 76 different involved species and, in only minutes, managed to work out literally every single problem every one of the species had with every other species from blood feuds to political issues to even minor pet peeves until they completely ran out of obstacles to Galactic Peace. (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)
Powers:
Squirrel Girl is a member of a subspecies of humans known as a Mutate, unlike Mutants who naturally possess an X Gene that gives them abilities, Mutates are normal humans who had their DNA Permanently modified to give them abilities. Some other notable examples of Mutates include Deadpool, She-Hulk and Luke Cage. Anyway as a Mutate, Doreen has the benefit of being immune to Anti-Mutant weapons, poisons, nullifiers and even The Scarlet Witch’s No More Mutants spell from House of M. Doreen’s specific mutate modification merged her DNA with that of a Squirrel, giving her Partially Squirrel blood and as a result many Squirrel-like abilities and attributes. To go into her Powers;
Squirrel Agility:
Squirrel Girl can do anything a Squirrel can, and if there is one thing that they are known for it is being one of the most athletic and well balanced animals around with incredible jumping capabilities. Squirrel Girl can perform precise, targeted long distance jumps and use multiple consecutive leaps to easily clear a city in seconds even with passengers. In one instance, she even casually leapt from Earth all the way to Olympus, which is a different universe, while carrying the Greek God, Dionysus who was casually Eight times her size.
In addition to her hops, Doreen has an incredibly strong Kinesthetic sense that allows her to easily move through obstacles with extreme flexibility. She once nimbly cleared an obstacle course that even the Elastic Ms. Marvel could not.
Weight Manipulation:
Doreen has the strange ability to alter her weight to be similar to that of an actual Squirrel when interacting with objects, allowing her to walk on Wires and other weak footholds that could not support a human like an exclusive pathway.
Prehensile Tail:
Squirrel Girl’s most notable physical feature is her giant Squirrel Tail which you just Know is unbelievably fluffy. But despite that, it actually makes an incredibly good weapon, able to knock people away or hit foes with similar power to her own punches. Doreen can control her Tail like a 5th Limb and has vastly increased her fighting skill, allowing her to strike when all her normal limbs are restrained in adamantium, or outskill Taskmaster using Tail attacks that he physically could not replicate with his powers. Her Tail is able to support her entire body allowing her to hook onto things with it. It is powerful enough to be used as a shield to block attacks from numerous villains at once, yet dexterous enough to pick up a pin from the floor and pick locks. Also when she's in her civilian disguise she rolls it up into her pants, making her appear to have a WAY rounder butt then she actually does.
Claws:
Doreen has retractable Squirrel Claws on her fingers and toes that allow her to dig into and grip things with incredible strength. These enable her to climb structures just as proficiently as her rodent namesake, and even grip onto Iron Man’s armor to the point he is completely unable to shake her off. In combat, Doreen has used these as powerful slashing weapons to incapacitate Deadpool, they are So Sharp that she can use them to casually cut through the “nigh-unbreakable glass” designed by Tony Stark to armor the Avengers Tower.
Buckteeth:
Squirrel Girl also has a large pair of adorable Squirrel Teeth in her jaw, which have the bite force of a Squirrel scaled up to humans, which if you are curious would be 1,085,000 Pounds Per Square Inch, nearly 50 times the bite force of a Saltwater Crocodile. Doreen’s Durable teeth can quickly cut straight through most solid materials and are even capable of breaking material she wasn’t otherwise able to break with her normal strength. (1) (2).
Healing-Factor:
Squirrel Girl is officially stated to have a Regenerative Healing Factor in multiple canonical guidebooks and subsequent material, despite not really having major showings in the comics themselves, but given just how common it is for Marvel to give every single one of their Heros some form of Regen, this is just par for the course. Squirrel Girl’s durability is so high she doesn’t actually end up suffering battle damage very often, however the worst injuries she has ever received was when her body was riddled with numerous large gash wounds while protecting a baby. Doreen did heal from this without medical attention, and clearly has no resulting scars from it, so it seems fair game to say her Regen was enough to deal with this. This would give Squirrel Girl a High-Low Healing Factor, able to regenerate small body parts and wounds that would normally create large scars.
Super Senses:
Doreen possesses the keen animal super senses of a Squirrel which are always active, she can detect approaching people with her sense of smell and even memorize specific scents and match it to previous occasions to find her target. Her eyesight allows her to see things perfectly from a very long distance, and she has great Night Vision that can even let her see in total darkness. She also has “Science Vision” that can let her notice scientific inaccuracies to tell authentic things from fakes.
Sonic Screech:
Doreen and her Squirrel’s are able to make a loud Squeeing sonic attack powerful enough to Defeat the concept of Dream’s, Nightmare while he was amped with a Venom Symbiote. Symbiotes have over the years gained some level of resistance to Sonic attacks, enough to endure an attack from Gremlins that shattered all glass in a 10 mile Radius, yet Doreen’s can easily surpass this.
Tunneling Powers:
So did you know there's an entire subset of Squirrels called Ground Squirrels which dig burrows into the Earth instead of climbing trees? Seriously Groundhogs are even a part of it. But anyway as a hero representing all Squirrels, Squirrel Girl has amazing burrowing abilities with her claws that let her move through the Earth like it's nothing but air. She was able to dig a hole from the surface all the way to Mole Man’s subterranean Kingdom in only a few seconds.
Knuckle Blades:
One of Squirrel Girl’s weirder, but most classic abilities is her Knuckle Blades. These large, bladed retractable spikes can pop out from Doreen’s knuckles like Wolverine’s claws, and, I checked, scientifically have nothing to do with Squirrels, but hey, they are pretty awesome looking so they are cool with me. Squirrel Girl doesn’t often use this power on account of not wanting to Stab people and stuff, but it works wonders on inorganic foes, and every time she Does use them they yield really impressive results. The Knuckle Spikes have been compared to the Divine Claws of White Tiger in terms of cutting ability, and were able to slice clean through the armor of a Ultron T-Rex, which is Exactly as Awesome as it sounds. Plus, since her spikes are made of Bone, Electricity doesn’t travel through it, allowing her to punch electrified things.
Squirrel Manipulation:
Squirrel Girl’s most Iconic as well as most broken power is her ability to Manipulate Squirrel’s. Ever since Doreen was a child she was able to communicate with Squirrels using the language Squirrelese. Every subspecies of Squirrel has their own variant of this language and Doreen can fluently speak ALL of them, able to summon an entire Scurry of Squirrels with ease and give them complex tasks. Doreen has established she can actually psychically Control Squirrels if she wants too, but prefers to ask for their willing aid, reserving this only for if someone else is Mind Controlling her Squirrels. Generally she doesn’t need to control Squirrels as they all love and are extremely loyal to Doreen, never failing to respond and provide aid to her, but this ability has allowed her to speak to them in English and relay telepathic messages to them with them still understanding.
But what good is controlling an army of Squirrels in a Superhero battle, one might ask. Well there is a lot more to it than that, the Squirrel’s under Doreen’s direct control receive a dramatic increase in Stats thanks to Doreen’s power. Even individual Squirrel’s like Tippy Toe have been able to deal Damage to MODOK or single handedly defeat the Ghost Rider Villain, Deathurge in combat when under the effects of Doreen’s power. Generally speaking Doreen’s Squirrels each gain physical stats nearly on par with Doreen’s own, so summoning an army of Squirrels yields a similar effect to creating an army of herself via duplication. Even when she was 14, her Squirrels have kept up with the Doomcraft as it traveled across continent, overcame the durability of The Abomination one of Hulks strongest adversaries, and dealt the most thorough ass kicking to Doctor Doom I have ever seen, literally Destroying his Armor and forcing him to jump into a river, ditch his outfit and swim away in an embarrassing retreat. (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). That being said, even in this state her Squirrel’s are not invincible and have been hurt of killed before, although generally only by things like an attack from an Evil Celestial or the collapse of Malstrom’s Doomsday Machine which was so powerful it was destroying the Entire Marvel Multiverse. Squirrel Girl’s Squirrel Friends aren’t just powerhouses though, but also remarkably intelligent, able to Hack into a Car while it’s moving, be Doreen’s guy in a chair and do computer research for her while she's patrolling, or even play as her wingman. The Squirrel’s can run along electrical weapons without being shocked, and be so adorable that they can defeat the Hulk via calming him back into being Bruce Banner. But one of their best talents is infiltration, with their small flexible bodies being able to wriggle into even Mech Suits and take the pilot down from the inside. They have causally broken into Avengers Tower, Stolen one of Iron Man's armors and used it to impersonate him via controlling it and its voice, and Allene has even used them to take down the entire world’s power grid. The Range of Doreen’s Squirrel Manipulation ability is really insane and has allowed her to protect pretty much everyone she’s friends with through surrounding Squirrels. Her Clone, Allene, stated she can easily control Squirrels across the entire planet to do anything from perform humanitarian duties to get her snacks. But her actual range makes even that look childish, Doreen was once able to empower a group of Squirrels to patrol New York while she was meeting with Galactus on the moon, which would signify her range would be at least good enough to control all the Squirrels on a planet 27,000 times the size of Earth.
All this gives Squirrel Girl access to The Squirrel Information Network, picture this, if a squirrel calls out, other squirrels can hear it, and if they call out squirrels even further away can hear it, and so on and so on allowing information to travel between them insanely quickly. As Squirrels are found in every populated country on Earth in large supply, The Squirrel Information Network basically functions as a Global Scale Neighborhood Watch, spreading global news by word of mouth at an absolutely massive pace. This allows Squirrel Girl to be nigh-instantly alerted to threats across the globe and formulate strategies as if she has planet wise surveillance, she claims it is impossible to hide from Squirrels. She can use this to learn of and stop Crimes in progress, let her track people and objects down to the point her Squirrels once located a mans ring he lost somewhere in all of New York City and bring it to him live on her radio show in seconds, and even alert her to interstellar threats coming to Earth, as Squirrels stargaze. The Squirrel’s were not only to alert Doreen to an incoming Galactus invasion, but calculate the exact timeframe he’d get there, despite none of the other heroes knowing he was coming at all.
Doreen’s Squirrels are so organized they, much like ants, are capable of forming constructs out of their bodies to accomplish tasks. She has used squirrels to create handcuffs and other restraints, freaking perfect Decoys of herself and others that can speak and fight, or even a logia monster made of Squirrels that can fire squirrels as projectiles and wrap around people like armor to empower them. Squirrel Girl can also summon more specifically powerful Squirrels, such as Legions of Flying Squirrels for Aerial Attacks, or a Squirrel that was genetically altered to have all the powers of Wolverine. This is because Squirrel Girl’s power isn’t really to have power over Squirrels the animal, but actually in the concept of Squirrels as a whole. Discovering this has allowed her to learn how to do some insane things like how she is able to summon an Army of undead Ghost Squirrels, who have ghost powers like intangibility, possession and flight, to defeat Dormammu, or the time she took control of Undead Skeleton Squirrels from a Videogame a Supervillain created and trapped her in, despite them being programming.
Metafictional Abilities:
So yeah, Squirrel Girl also has some pretty blatant showings of Meta Powers. For Starters, she is aware of the 4th wall and can directly talk to the audience both in introductions to the story, and within the story itself. She can read ahead in the comics to gain knowledge of the future, empower her Squirrels to have meta powers, and interact with Meta objects like the comic licensing. In her fight with Deadpool, she was able to see and Read the speech bubbles of his internal monologue to read his mind. She can actually read other Marvel Comics she isn’t in to get up to date on other story lines, directly talk to the comic book writers, and even see and influence Flashbacks which would be Meta Time Abilities. In the official Marvel Youtube Series Marvel TL;DR, Squirrel Girl even directly talked to the narrator and influenced the episode, and after checking every other episode of that series, yeah the only other Marvel Characters that were able to do this were other character with Meta powers like Deadpool and Gwenpool.
Charismatic Ability:
Squirrel Girl is so kind, charming, optimistic and good that it actually comes off as somewhat of a superpower and has allowed her to do some supernatural things. She once fought a Rat King who had the Power to Control Rats and made his entire Rat Army turn on him for her. On another occasion she was attacked by the Evil Concept of Dreams, Nightmare and despite his best efforts her optimism turned his dark nightmare into a pleasant dream and filled him with Hope.
Resistances:
Squirrel Girl has some handy Resistances that allow her to fight on equal footing with some of her haxier opponents. She was able to resist mental attacks from the likes of Quoggoth, a being on similar par with the Multiverse threatening Doctor Strange villain Shuma-Gorath. When she got attacked by the Conceptual Dream manipulator Nightmare, Doreen was able to resist his attacks by manipulating the Dream herself to travel against his will. She was even able to resist Doctor Doom going back in time and making countless changes to her own Timeline.
Vacuum Adaptation:
Squirrel Girl was also gifted the ability to Breathe and Survive in the vacuum of space by Galactus, as it was inconvenient for him that she didn’t have that. This ability has been seen after the fact so it's safe to say it was permanent.
Equipment:
Squirrel Suit:
Doreen’s Squirrel Suit started off as a simple leotard covered in fake animal fur, but over her near decade of crime fighting it has been upgraded numerous times to be much more fashionable and useful with several fancy features.
The original Squirrel Suit that Doreen wore only had one notable feature, a belt of numerous large pouches that she dubbed her Nutsack as a bit of immature humor at the time. This feature has remained a consistent feature of all her outfits since, and strangely has the ability to store objects larger than the pouch itself, similar to Hammerspace, even able to store other complete outfits and boots. Most of the time, Doreen stores Nuts in there to use as snacks for her Squirrels, but even these have proved useful as she can use them to reveal invisible objects.
Her modern Costumes have an expanded utility belt and have incorporated AIM Technology to further increase her versatility. With her Gravity Belt, Doreen can manipulate her personal gravity, allowing her to levitate and nullify Gravitational force and with her Stealth Tech, she can project a field around her body that makes her completely Invisible and Inaudible.
Eventually her suit was even given the ability to produce a retractable jetpack and wings to enter Flying Squirrel Mode and allow her to fly. This can even let her fly uninhibited when carrying foes as large as The Rhino. Also Doreen typically carries a Purse Full of Squirrels, just in case she needs to bust out a Squirrel Attack.
Time Remote:
She also invented a literal Time Travel Remote that lets her travel through time without any paradox risk. It is possible she doesn’t carry this as standard equipment, but she has shown the ability to invent this as a 10 year old so could likely make one from scratch with only brief prep anyway.
Deadpool’s Guide Cards:
She’s also got the Full collection of Deadpool’s Guide to Super Villains Cards, informational cards written by Deadpool that lay out the Strengths and Weaknesses of every Villain in Marvel, from the big names, to even really obscure goons. Doreen uses these to quickly get up to date on whatever villain she runs into to think of the best possible strategy to Redeem or Combat them. Her exact duplicate Allene even used these to make a complex plan to beat every super being in Marvel. For some reason this also details all the heroes as well, plus Doreen will also make her own cards in the rare instance she doesn’t have one for the character. Anyway I think these cards are pretty funny so I took the liberty of compiling every single one for you to check out. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26).
Squirrel-A-Gig:
Doreen also has her own personal Helicopter called the Squirrel-A-Gig, which was gifted to her by her former GLA Teammate, Big Bertha. Despite its size, it is able to casually fly intercontinental distances at a rapid pace, and even broke through the Defenses of Latveria to reach the headquarters of Doctor Doom.
Feats:
Strength:
Doreen has routinely stated she possesses the proportional strength and agility of a Squirrel. Squirrel’s proportionally are some of the most muscular and athletic creatures in the Mammal classification, and scaled up to Doreen’s size they would be able to run past Mach 2 and lift 2 Elephants over their head. Impressive, but yeah that isn’t nearly enough to explain how strong she is going by feats so let’s get to those.
When Doreen was only 14 years old, she was already powerful enough to take on serious Heavy Hitters like Doctor Doom, having fought him head to head off screen, and later that same issue completely stomp him ON screen, her Squirrel’s completely destroying his armor and humiliating him. This is confirmed to be The Real Doctor Doom and not a Doombot, and it gets brought up a LOT in the comics, with Doom actually seeming to Fear her. (1)(2) Doreen has also fought evenly with Doom multiple times since then specifically without assistance from Squirrels. Doctor Doom is incredibly powerful, he has shattered full body restraints made of Adamantine, an Asgardian Metal even Stronger than Adamantium which can tank Universe Destroying power. Plus Doom has had his fair share of even scraps with The Hulk, Thor and even Sentry.
Leapt into Mt. Olympus and helped Zeus defeat Pluto, a God who is powerful enough to destroy the Universe.
Had a funny running joke where she’d just Knock Out The Punisher every time he was being an asshole.
She has casually Lifted an entire Log Cabin, caught a bulldozer, held a massive boulder with one arm, and completely collapsed Tony’s Penthouse with her physical strike.
She was able to battle and defeat an Avengers team in only 26 seconds, although their rooster was not very impressive at the time. However, her Clone Allene was later able to battle and defeat an Avengers team in only 22 seconds, and this team had much stronger characters like She-Thor.
Can tear through Giant Hydra Nazi Mecha like tissue. (1)(2)(3)(4).
Has Kicked MODOK’s Ass.
Was able to just indefinitely toss Kraven The Hunter into the Air until she figured out a way to solve his personal problems.
According to Tony Stark, Squirrel Girl’s Clone, Allene, tore off his best armor as if it were made of cardboard, and that even with the Avengers they’d need all the help they can get to stop her. Allene later that issue was even able to Rip the Head off of Tony’s Squirrel-buster Armor, which he specifically designed to counter Squirrel Girl.
Can actually Spar with Dozens of her own Amped Squirrels at once in training.
Helped Gwenpool Defeat Mephisto in his own realm.
She Single Handedly Fought the Mad Titan, Thanos and absolutely kicked his ass while the rest of the GLX were fighting some lame Christmas tree villain. She beat him offscreen and a Literal Watcher was there to confirm it was indeed the actual Thanos, meaning it this is 100% legitimate, important to the story of Marvel and cannot be retconned by the writers (NTM they bring it up ALL the time). Thanos is a being capable of overpowering Blackheart, and fighting the Allfather Odin to a stalemate. (1)(2)(3)(4). Odin is so strong that his battle with Surtur would have destroyed all 9 Universe Sized realms of Yggdrasil. (1)(2).
Ya know talking about Doreen’s Wins, she has Defeated a Lot of insanely powerful villains in her more obscure appearances, including Fin Fang Foom, Baron Mordo, Korvac, Ego The Living Planet, Terrax, Whiplash, The Mandarin, Giganto and Doctor Doom (again).
Doreen’s exact clone Allene also adds her own totally insane Wins to the mix as again, Doreen would have been able to win those fights just as easily. Allene has defeated Spider-Man, Black Cat, Mysterio, HobGoblin, Lady Octopus, The Thing, Magneto, Cyclops, Shadowcat, The Purple Man, Doctor Strange, The Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider, Black Panther, Storm, Miles Morales, X-23, Gewnpool, Deadpool, Wolverine, Daredevil, Beast, Captain Marvel, Shocker, Vision, Juggernaut, Starlord, Jean Grey, and the Negative Zone Warlord, Annihilus.
She was also able to battle and fight evenly with the Asgadian God of Chaos, Ratatoskr, who could threaten all the realms and has personally bested Thor and Loki in the past.
Durability:
She once saved a Train full of people by using her own body to replace the broken rail and letting it run her over.
Kang the Conqueror once rigged an entire Communications Satellite to fall from orbit and had it crash right on top of her, and she was fine.
She was able to carry The Rhino into the sky while he was repeatedly punching her and it didn’t phase her at all.
Has directly endured full powered blasts from Doctor Doom on multiple occasions.
Her clone Allene took direct blows from a Very Angry Hulk and was basically fine.
Presumably took hits from Numerous of the Villains she has bested off-screen such as Baron Mordo, Ego The Living Planet and Thanos without injury.
That said Her most impressive feat of Durability would be the time that Doctor Doom, a Type 5 Intellect Scientist and Sorcerer Supreme Candidate btw, after painstakingly researching every single battle Doreen has ever been in, used that data to create a Bomb so powerful that he believed it would not only Kill Doreen, but all of her allies and the villains he had teamed up with to beat her, which included super powerful characters like Dormammu. Ever the Hero, Doreen jumped onto of the bomb and smothered the bomb with her own body to protect everyone else from the blast. Yet Doreen still managed to survive the explosion without any serious or debilitating injuries. This essentially means that Doreen’s Physical Durability must scale ridiculously higher than what even her best feats of power have displayed.
Speed:
In one Instance Doreen was sitting at a window seat in a restaurant having lunch when she noticed Doctor Octopus walking past her window. She then proceeded to completely change into her Superhero outfits and jump straight through the window so quickly he was basically frozen in time by comparison.
She then Easily outsped Doc Ock in their fight while doing complex math in her head at the same time.
She has Casually blitzed Kraven The Hunter and was practically impossible for Whiplash to hit, and that guy can speed scale to Iron Man.
Dodged The Thing falling from the sky at speeds fast enough to smash into the ground like a meteorite.
Can avoid Laser fire from MODOK, or two different Iron Man Armors Repulsor Blasts at the same time from different directions.
She can repeatedly dodge around Doctor Doom’s energy attacks, which have been able to hit Ghost Rider before, and even run so fast that she can intercept them when fired at her friends from close range.
Is also able to fight Kang head to head and dodge repeated attacks from Doctor Doom when she is an elderly woman.
She was able to Jump up high into the atmosphere and straight up Sucker Punch The Silver Surfer in the face before he could react. The Silver Surfer is a being so fast he can casually travel between galaxies in only one panel, and crossed the entire universe at speeds so fast we humans couldn’t comprehend it, which even lowballed would be well over 100 Quintillion times the speed of light.
Doreen also obviously speed scales to other characters she has defeated including the likes of Mephisto and Thanos, who both can scale directly to Odin as previously discussed. Who was so fast he was able to Pull dozens of planet from the very Edge of the Marvel Universe to him in a small fraction of a Second. A speed feat in the low Sextillions of times the speed of light.
Although possibly beyond that, Doreen has regularly got into Hand to Hand brawls with the Norse god of Chaos Ratatoskr. Ratatoskr is a being who can traverse the entire World Tree, which holds 9 different universes on its branches in seconds, spreading her lies across every single one of them.
General:
Was able to Befriend Galactus, as she was not only not afraid of him, but the only one who willingly approached him as a peer instead of a threat.
She made Doctor Doom Fear her, then even more impressively, Made Doctor Doom Respect her.
Is such a noble and purely heroic human being that she is one of the few Marvel heroes that has been Deemed Worthy to Wield Mjolnir.
According to S.H.I.E.L.D. she has taken down some of the world's biggest threats and they consider her to be The Best Superhuman Combatant they’ve ever seen.
A.I.M. Refers to her with titles such as ‘The Anti-Life’ and ‘The Slayer of All That Breathes.
Is Publicly recognized for being incredibly powerful and making everyone feel safe.
Singlehandedly fought off an Entire Hydra invasion of Paris.
Was clever enough to Beat Kang the Conqueror in such a way that he could not use Time Travel to undo his defeat.
Managed to overcome her own Evil Clone Self, Allene, who single handedly Beat Up The Marvel Universe.
Becomes the Leader of the Avengers when she turns 25.
Summary:
Advantages:
Low-Multiversal+ DC & Durability.
Massively Faster Than Light+. (Sextillions)
Level 3+ Intelligence.
High A Tier Skill.
Extra-Planetary Range Conceptual Control Over Squirrels.
Can raise the Stats of Squirrels to Equal her own.
Solar System Scale Squirrel Surveillance.
Squirrel Constructs.
Squirrel Decoys.
Can Summon Intangible Ghost Squirrels.
Super Leaping. (Even Into Other Dimensions)
Superhuman Agility & Flexibility.
Super Climbing & Wall Crawling.
Super Senses.
Night Vision.
Ultra Sharp Claws and Teeth.
Prehensile Tail.
Supernaturally Sharp Knuckle Spikes.
Superhuman Charisma.
Weight Manipulation.
High-Low Regeneration.
Sonic Attacks.
Rapid Tunneling Abilities.
Metafictional Awareness.
Can Hit The Absolute Plane.
Metafictional Mind Reading.
Metafictional Time Manipulation.
Metafictional Precognition and Clairvoyance.
Electrocution Resistance.
Mind Manipulation Resistance.
Time Manipulation Resistance.
Dream Manipulation Resistance.
Can Breathe in Space.
Invisibility.
Inaudibility.
Flight.
Personal Gravity Manipulation.
Hammerspace.
Anti-Invisibility Nut Powder.
Time Travel. (Possibly With Prep)
Disadvantages:
Extremely Merciful in Battle.
Her Hax Resistance isn’t that crazy for her tier.
Is Easily bored when Camping.
The Artstyle of the Marvel Rising series does NOT do her any favors.
Recommended Opponent:
Yachie Kicchou:
It wasn’t easy finding a perfect matchup for Doreen, she's Very powerful, but not overly hax, and kinda has thematics and personality that you would Not often see in her stat bracket, that said, I can’t think of any opponent better than Yachie from Touhou. Yachie is a powerful Dragon Beast Yokai who hails from Hell. She scales basically to the exact stat range Doreen has and is remarkably intelligent and good with tech. Her abilities are very thematic to Doreen, having the ability to summon and control legions of stat boosted Otters so you got a whole Mustelid VS Rodent theme, and literally having the power to nullify others will to fight which is something Doreen always tries to do. One of the more Interesting aspects about this fight however is how these two would majorly clash in personalities, Yachie being very achievement focused and elegant, being a manipulative schemer who often treats others as pawns on a chessboard and seeks to make Otters the dominant species. Yachie would remind Doreen a LOT of her past foes like Ratatoskr and Allene, while Doreen would remind Yachie a lot of her past foes like Keiki and Saki. Overall I think this would be a pretty exciting fight.
Adorable blog Thor! Squirrel Girl is a character I have to admit my first exposure to her were constant memes about how she beats any character which I found annoying but much like the distance between Memepool and actual Deadpool she's a lot more interesting and wholesome a character when you learn what she's really about. I like that she represents hope and optimism in the face of bleakness much like a certain bird-themed character I know you like.
ReplyDeleteI did know she was a ridiculously strong though I still wasn't quite prepared for Low Multiversal Sextillions of Times MFTL! Even more than her stats however what impressed me were her abilities. You say she's not really hax for her tier, and on some level that's probably true, she's not especially versatile in her haxes for her tier but I do think Metahax type abilities are something you always gotta respect because it's so generally hard to resist those type of abilities. Having one really strong ability is probably better than having lots of mediocre abilities. As the saying goes "I don't fear the one who has practiced 1,000 punches once, but the one who has practiced one punch 1,000 times."
I also found her intelligence and regen amusing just because Marvel seems fixated on making all their heroes super-geniuses and giving them all a regen factor. Her Squirrel Manipulation is her bread and butter, or rather nuts and nuts, in terms of powers and it is surprisingly OP. I knew vaguely she could amp their stats to be relevant threats to her physical tier but didn't expect ghost squirrel armies or conceptual squirrel manipulation. That said my favorite power of hers is probably her supernatural charisma, one of the most underrated powers in VS debating IMO since there isn't really conventional "resistance" to it. And it really fits well with the wholesome center to Doreen's personality as someone who always tries to look for the best in others and try to redeem them.
I was also really impressed by her feats of fighting big names like Kang and Doctor Doom when she was only 10 or 14 (or an old woman.) Really makes you wonder how far beyond them she has to be now in her prime. Additionally I thought the feat of her jumping into Olympus was a really cool super-leaping feat! I don't know that much about Yacchie at the moment, but from your description it sounds like a really good fight! That said I really gotta devote this next paragraph to your trailer.
That Next Time Trailer was incredible Thor! Maybe my favorite of the ones you've made so far (outside maybe the Baldur vs Siegfried trailer.) It was so incredibly cool to see so many verses put together, and it created huge speculation as to what it was. I'll tell you, I been considering doing monthly strategy guides, and even that seemed like a daunting ambitious task. But WEEKLY?! That's a showing of immense ambition! Though if anyone was going to show that kind of devotion to Halloween and its month, it was going to be you! I'm immensely excited for these guides!
Great Blog and I eagerly anticipate October now!
Fantastic blog Thor! It’s cool to see you dive back into comics again. Outside the occasional meme on how OP Squirrel Girl is, I knew absolutely nothing about her as a character. After reading this however, I see she is a very fun, goofy, adorable, and sometimes inspiring character.
ReplyDeleteI love her backstory of becoming a hero because this wise squirrel named Monkey Joe inspired her (that name makes me chuckle btw). Sure it’s goofy but it’s such a great moment that she got inspiration from the most unlikely of places. And I also love how much of her strategy is understanding the enemy’s point of view and trying to win them over to her side. I also like your little point on how she saw Tony Stark as having used to be the bad guy until he redeemed himself, and that may have influenced her. She just comes off as a positive, likable character throughout this blog so great job on that.
Her powers and feats are super absurd and it was fun reading through them. Stuff like logia squirrel monsters or conceptual squirrel powers is ridiculous lol. And there is also stuff like science vision, her insane intelligence feats, and metafictional powers were pretty great as well. And I also like that her defeats of supervillains weren’t forgotten about and were repeatedly brought up again just to show “yeah, that most definitely happened”.
Good choice on opponent; Yachie from Touhou sounds so perfect, that you would think she was made to fight Doreen. On a smaller note, it’s interesting to see the variety of artstyles she was drawn in. Also, good music choices throughout the blog; it’s funny that Crash music works as well as it does.
Finally, I think the Next Time trailer was well made. I look forward to the blogs you’ll publish next month.
This blog was NUTS! Sorry, I had to. Been holding that in the whole blog. I gotta level with ya bro, much like you touched on right at the very start, I was under the impression Doreen was more of a joke character, but man! She's gotta be one of the best heroes out there, and I really mean “hero”. She has a lot of inspirational, motivational stuff in her stories and makes an excellent role model. And she doesn't just save people in the conventional way (though she does tons of that too). I really like how she has a large focus on redeeming villains, not just stopping them, for that's the best way to truly stop crime. It sounds like she has one of the biggest hearts in Marvel and in comics overall and despite her incredible power (seriously blew my mind!), she also feels down to earth enough that I could hang out with her and be friends. So that's all a long way of saying this blog massively improved her standing in my eyes, thanks!
ReplyDeleteThose squirrel powers were astonishingly strong, particular the squirrels themselves! Love that communication network. Though out of all of them, the knuckle blades were the coolest ability! I love that sort of thing, and they were more badass than I expected from a goofy, lovable heroine. And speaking of lovable, her charisma is definitely strong enough to be a power in and of itself. I also really like how she got the power to breathe in space. Not being able to do so with cosmic beings around is so inconvenient! Digging her equipment too, you know I love weapons, armor and gadgets! Her suit is slick; great design and gravity and stealth powers baked in! The supervillain trading cards Deadpool made though, oh man! One of the highlights of this blog, thank you SO much for including all the ones you could find because they were positively hilarious! Definitely my favorite piece of equipment she carries and impressively useful, too!
Speaking of how she was proven to be able to defeat all the Marvel villains, her feat list was an incredible read. Her defeats of Doom, my favorite Marvel villain, blew my mind! And it was very nice to see it pointed out so obviously that it wasn't a Doombot any of those times to lay doubts to rest. Squirrels, man, freaking squirrels! And speaking of Doom, that special anti-Squirrel Girl bomb durability feat? One of the most nuts (just came out naturally there) feats I've seen. Shows us that she's probably still not even showing her true power! One of the coolest things about her is that she's not just an unbelievably strong powerhouse and speedster; her brain is her best weapon! Seriously smart, I love how often I was reading here that she solved problems through wits and cleverness. That lesson on binary was super cool too, I agree with ya.
Your suggested opponent is a Touhou character I've actually never heard of, but the matchup is fantastic! I wholeheartedly approve, you've found so many connections! Would love to see you tackle the fight, you'd be the perfect dude to cover it. Thanks for this incredible Squirrel Girl blog, you did her justice to the max and beyond! And the Next Time trailer was one of your best ever, I'm soooo stoked for Spooktober!!!
Squirrel Girl's feats are often disregarded as gag feats or outliers, so it's nice to actually back them up with continuity. It's hard to argue for it being a one-off joke when it's this consistent.
ReplyDeleteAnd considering Doom can tank an Infinity Gauntlet to the face yet loses to Doreen, it checks out.
Her level of intelligence definitely is a surprise to me and a character that's smart AND powerful makes them all that more formidable.
It's kind of hilarious that her strength seems to FAR surpass even the porportionate strength of a Squirrel, kind of reminds me of when Deadpool joked about how "porportionate strength of a Spider" didn't make sense or explain Spider-Man's immense strength. Kinda makes you wonder what mutated her.