Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, v. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now

Collects: Unbeatable Squirrel Girl v. 2 #1-6 and Howard the Duck v. 5 #6 (2015-6)

Released: May 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 168 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9780785196266

What is this?:

The culprits: Writer Ryan North, with help from Chip Zdarsky on both #6s, and artist Erica Henderson, with help from Joe Quinones on Howard the Duck #6

I’m a little surprised I haven’t reviewed a volume of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl yet. Let’s rectify that with the most recent release, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, v. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now.

Squirrel Girl (Doreen Green) was treated as a joke character for a couple of decades after she was created by Will Murray and Steve Ditko — yes, that Steve Ditko — in 1992 for Marvel Super-Heroes #8. In that issue, she defeated Dr. Doom, whose armor was not, it turns out, “squirrel proof.” When she was used after that, whether as a throwaway character or in the Great Lakes Avengers, the joke was that she could defeat anyone, despite her only real power being to communicate with squirrels. In the past few years, however, she’s been taken more seriously and given her own title and a spot on one of the many Avengers teams.

In You Really Got Me Now, that first victory vs. Dr. Doom becomes relevant in issue #2 as Doreen wakes up in 1962. No one but her roommate, Nancy, remembers her; in her attempts to get Tony Stark to rescue her, she runs into Dr. Doom — specifically the one who was just defeated by Squirrel Girl (and tangentially by Iron Man). She manages to convince Doom to take her to rescue Squirrel Girl, threatening that Squirrel Girl could be messing with Doom in the past at that moment.

Nancy preventing heroes from attacking Doom by claiming he’s a really good cosplayer rather than the real Victor von Doom gives you an excellent idea of the kind of book this is. Another joke emblematic of the book’s tone and subject matter: Doom has created his own computer programming language, in which all the commands are variations on the word “Doom.”

The time-travel story plays out like you might expect, and that’s not a bad thing. Doreen is appalled and enchanted, in turns, by the ‘60s; she’s always afraid she or one of her classmates — Doreen discovers a lot of Empire State University computer science students have been sent to the ‘60s — will mess up the timeline, but she’s not afraid to encourage the positive aspects. She hides a message for Nancy in a ridiculous fashion, and of course Nancy finds it immediately, since that’s how things happen in time-travel stories. Plus, there’s a dystopic Doom-future, with Doombots eating hotdogs, walking Doomdogs, and trying not to get pooped on by Doompigeons.

Writer Ryan North and artist Erica Henderson are totally not taking things seriously, decorating the plot with plenty of sly jokes. Henderson has fun with the ludicrous action and Squirrel Girl’s attempts to fit in in the ‘60s. North makes the story as ridiculous as possible; the man responsible for sending all ESU students back in time used his time-travel gun to get rid of all the people who were wrecking the curve in his computer science classes, and Doom is defeated by a pack of Squirrel Girls (caused by using the time-travel device over and over) in much the same way Doom was defeated by squirrels in Squirrel Girl’s first appearance.

In the first issue in the collection, Doreen is embarrassed by her mother telling stories to Nancy (who is enthralled) and later reprograms a Nazi robot. The former makes Doreen relatable in a way that’s unusual in superhero comics — Peter Parker’s never embarrassed by May, is he? — and latter is the kind of thing a heroic computer science student should do.

I mentioned the two issue Squirrel Girl / Howard the Duck crossover in my review of Howard the Duck, v. 1: Duck Hunt. It’s a great melding of two comedy books that are somehow even made better by combining them. Plus it features the Kra-Van, Kraven the Hunter’s customized van with airbrushed art on the side.

It’s hard to imagine Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with an artist other than Thompson. Her art fits the tone of the book perfectly: she doesn’t take the stories too seriously, but she allows the characters to retain their dignity. Even when a joke is at the expense of Dr. Doom, he never looks less than his regal self — not even when he’s being mobbed by Squirrels Girl. Doreen and Nancy look like real people, not the idealized people in superhero comics. (Although I admit one of the ways Nancy looks like a college student is that she has chosen a hair color that doesn’t suit her or her wardrobe very well.)

This opinion might be an outlier, but I think it’s time to discontinue reprinting the letters pages in the trade paperbacks. Their inclusion the first time was cute; the second time it came across as repetitive. In You Really Got Me Now, the cuteness has worn paper thin; there’s only so often I can read letters gushing about how much they like Squirrel Girl and informing the creators about their cosplay and cute kids. Neither costuming nor children appeal to me, really. By all means, Squirrel Girl fans, keep writing in to the comic! But I’m asking collections editor Jennifer Grunwald to please stop including them. Yes, I could skip the letters pages, but I would rather not pay for those pages — not even the miniscule amount of money, space on my bookshelves, or even mass those pages take.

The comments on the bottom of the pages, however, are not growing old. North has a humorous sentence or two on most pages that comment on some aspect of the page — a follow-up joke, development of a throwaway gag, a new throwaway gag. They slow my reading speed, but they are almost always worth it.

I’ve been unusually positive about You Really Got Me Now, and the previous two volumes are as good or even better. I can give Unbeatable Squirrel Girl an unqualified recommendation, provided you aren’t the kind of comics reader who is put out by the Tumblr crowd. (See cosplay comments above.)

Rating: (4.5 of 5)

Howard the Duck, v. 1: Duck Hunt

Collects: Howard the Duck #1-6, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #6 (2016)

Released: May 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 160 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9780785199380

What is this?: Howard looks for a way home but becomes a Living Nexus instead, with the entire cosmic pantheon searching for him; Howard and Squirrel Girl team up to defeat an insane cosplayer.

The culprits: Writer Chip Zdarsky, with help from Ryan North on both #6s, and penciler Joe Quinones, with help from Veronica Fish (#2) and Erica Henderson (Squirrel Girl #6)

Whenever I saw Howard the Duck was going to be revived, I had to remind myself that Steve Gerber’s not walking through that writing-room door. (Mostly because the creator of Howard the Duck has been dead since 2008.) Given that Howard has had received mixed reviews when not written by Gerber, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this new series.

It’s a relief to say that Howard the Duck, v. 1: Duck Hunt is very funny and well worth a read. It isn’t Gerber-esque — little is — but it’s still funny.

(The first Howard the Duck collection from this run, the confusingly numbered Howard the Duck, v. 0: What the Duck, is also funny, but I didn’t get around to reviewing it; in any event, I think Duck Hunt is superior.)

While this Howard lacks the satiric edge of Gerber’s writing, writer Chip Zdarsky’s work is still very funny, mixing Marvel jokes, pop culture references, and outstanding comic timing. Duck Hunt does follow the Gerber template of putting Howard into absurd situations and letting him react to them. In Duck Hunt, for instance, Howard just wants to return to Duckworld but has to deal with female clones of himself and Rocket Raccoon, all the people who try to capture him after he becomes a Living Nexus, a wannabe herald of Galactus, a woman who decides to hunt anthropomorphic animals because she wants to hunt the most dangerous game, and anthropomorphic animals are a legal gray area …

Howard handles all of it with his trademark puzzlement, disdain, and fear. His tattoo artist sidekick, Tara Tam, provides a layman’s view of his adventures, which — when it comes down to it — isn’t all that different from Howard’s point of view, but she is allowed to be confused in situations Howard finds tediously complicated.

Duck Hunt ranges through the Marvel Universe, from its cosmic bourns to the swamps around Citrusville, Fla., and New York. Zdarsky pulls in numerous characters, and I find it interesting which ones mesh with Howard’s comic ethos: the cosmic entities, strangely, as well as Dr. Strange (an old Defenders friend), Squirrel Girl, and the Wizard and Titania. The contrast between the most powerful of Marvel’s pantheon of villains and heroes (Galactus, Silver Surfer, and the Collector) and a tired duck never fails to be absurd, and Howard always works best as a character fighting against villains who aren’t the strongest adversaries, like the Wizard. (Usually, though, Howard villains are the seriously incompetent, like Dr. Bong.)

Not everyone Zdarsky puts into Duck Hunt works, though. I didn’t care for the appearance of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who seem shoehorned into the plot; they aren’t very funny, and I’m not sold on their lineup (Thing, Shadowcat, and Flash Thompson-Venom on the same team?). Aunt May’s continued presence feels like a continuity error, but I’m willing to overlook it.

The two-part Squirrel Girl / Howard story that ends the book is a natural crossover. Squirrel Girl writer Ryan North and Zdarsky work flawlessly together, even to the point of writing dialogues in Squirrel Girl’s trademark page-bottom asides. The two issues are hilarious, with Squirrel Girl’s optimism and hypercompetence complementing Howard’s pessimism and … well, not quite competence. The villain’s concept — a cosplaying villain who has decided hunting sentient anthropomorphic characters, like Rocket Raccoon, Howard, and Beast, is her life’s goal — is terrific, although I question the wisdom of making her a southern belle named Shannon Sugarbaker. (I don’t need implied crossovers between the Marvel Universe and Designing Women.) I also have trouble with Kraven’s characterization in the crossover; Kraven is easily cowed by Shannon in the story, and even though he regains some of his élan in the final issue, it still feels weird.

On the other hand, the crossover features Kraven’s airbrushed Kra-Van, and its presence forgives a lot of sins.

Artist Joe Quinones didn’t create the Kra-Van — that was Squirrel Girl artist Erica Henderson — but he is a solid complement for Zdarsky’s writing. Drawing Howard the Duck calls for a wide range; the book has both action and humor, and Howard himself needs a lot of subtlety of expression, which isn’t easy on a duck’s face. Quinones succeeds admirably, though. He has a tight line and he doesn’t exaggerate much, which I think is to the title’s advantage: the situations Howard gets into are absurd enough without the need for cartoon-y elements trying to ratchet up the silliness. Howard always has to be able to have a claim to keeping his dignity, and putting him in a story that turns him into a caricature robs him of that. The relatively realistic art makes Quinones sort of the book’s straight man, a role that is often underappreciated. Still, Quinones slips his own in-jokes into the story; for instance, Quinones places Soos from Gravity Falls into the book as an ignorant yokel. (Quinones changes the question mark on Soos’s shirt to an exclamation mark, but it’s definitely him.)

That being said, Duck Hunt is not all wacky adventures and jokes — and I mean that in a good way. I was genuinely moved by issue #2, drawn by guest artist Veronica Fish, which tells the life story of Linda (Howard’s female clone) and Shocket (Rocket’s female clone). It’s a tribute to Fish’s and Zdarsky’s skills that they could make me care about the distaff knockoffs of two second-tier characters within the space of a single issue, but it happens, and it doesn’t feel cheap. I never need to see the two again, but they work in this story.

As a side note, Duck Hunt does not have the three back-up Howard / Gwenpool stories that originally ran in Howard the Duck #1-3. As much as I might have appreciated the entirety of #1-3 being reprinted, I understand the space crunch the book was under: the book is seven issues long, and the Gwenpool stories would have added another issue’s worth of pages. But if they reduced the number of issues included, they would have had to remove the entire Howard / Squirrel Girl crossover. The lead Howard stories were full-length, anyway, so it’s not like readers are getting cheated.

On the other hand, cutting the book short after #5 would have left a heck of a cliffhanger … although one that wouldn’t be picked up again until the fourth story of the next trade. I suppose sometimes perfect choices are impossible.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend Howard the Duck to everyone, even those who don’t like the character. This Howard, although funny, is nothing like Gerber’s acerbic takes on ‘70s culture; this book is just trying to be funny — and succeeding.

Rating: (4.5 of 5)

Howard the Duck: Media Duckling

Collects: Howard the Duck v. 3 #1-4, Howard the Duck v. 1 #1 (1976, 2007-8)

Released: April 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 128 pages / color / $11.99 / ISBN: 9780785127765

Steve Gerber was, after Jack Kirby, probably the most outrageously imaginative people to ever work at Marvel Comics. Among the many strange (and almost always commercially unsuccessful) ideas he had was Howard the Duck, a duck-like humanoid who found himself in a world of hairless apes: “trapped in a world he never made,” as the oft-repeated tagline said. Gerber used Howard in the ‘70s as an outside observer to drive home his satires and occasionally to break through his own creative difficulties.

It is easy to argue Howard should have been retired after Gerber had a falling out with Marvel over the character; certainly, no one has ever really made Howard seem to matter like Gerber did, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone pulling off the outrageous setups Gerber wrote monthly without seeming cheesy or idiotic. Even when Gerber resurrected Howard for a miniseries with Marvel in 2002, it didn’t quite reclaim the magic.

But any character that has been good once is begging to be reused, and into this breach steps writer Ty Templeton and penciller Juan Bobillo. In Howard the Duck: Media Duckling, Templeton seems to have an idea why Howard is so perfect for satire: he can take himself seriously, but not the world of the hairless apes, and the hairless apes take themselves seriously but not Howard. So Templeton uses Howard to fire a scattershot of satire at media, pundits, human rights in the era of Homeland Security, and the Internet. Easy targets, for the most part, but Templeton gives Howard enough surly character to make it amusing.

Templeton also realizes Howard is part of the Marvel Universe but exists uneasily with it; accordingly, the only Marvel characters / concepts Howard interacts with are She-Hulk (a lawyer / gamma-irradiated Amazon) and MODOT (Mental Organism Designed Only for Talking, a creation of Advanced Idea Mechanics). The absurdity practically drips off the page.

I generally like Bobillo’s art, and I’m mostly pleased with his work here. His style is well suited for the book, with the lack of realism allowing him free rein, and he does a good job of capturing the general cloud of chaos around Howard. I suppose what I have trouble with is his design for Howard; oddly, Howard doesn’t look cartoony enough, and he looks like he’s either sick or wet throughout.

As a bonus, this trade paperback includes the first issue of the first volume of Howard the Duck, written by Gerber and with art by Frank Brunner. It’s interesting if you want to know how that series begins, but it doesn’t give the flavor of Howard as much as later issues of that series do. Brunner’s style is smooth and rounded, completely different from Bobillo’s, so the contrast makes Bobillo’s work look a little unpolished.

There’s also the Howard the Duck story from Civil War: Choosing Sides, which is a real treat. Written by Templeton, this amusing story captures Howard registering as a superhuman, despite having no superpowers. Those in charge tell Howard, appropriately enough, they aren’t interested. Roger Langridge’s art echoes Brunner’s quite well.

Gerber died on February 10, 2008, and Templeton dedicated this trade paperback to him.

Rating: (4 of 5)