Final Squirrel

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #8

The monstrous mind-controlling Norse squirrel goddess Ratatoskr has turned everyone against Squirrel Girl, including Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi! Luckily, she stole Spider-Man’s web-shooters, and she manages to subdue her former allies and Ratatoskr, too! And then the rest of New York shows up and frees them all. Meanwhile, Doreen’s roommate Nancy Whitehead has traveled to Asgard to help Thor and Odinson find out how Ratatoskr escaped from captivity. And it turns out it was Loki! After winning Nancy’s eternal loyalty by turning himself into her fanfic cartoon character Cat Thor, Loki agrees to help round the monstrous squirrel back up. But will they be able to stop her murderous rampage in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is an incredibly dialogue-heavy issue, and it’s still so much fun that you barely notice how talky everything is. Most of the fun goes on in Asgard, where Loki — or Cat Thor — provides the best of this issue’s laughs. I am disappointed that this series is getting the axe already, but it’s good that it’ll be back again in another couple of months.

Starfire #3

Key West is facing a couple deadly threats — an unknown castaway with mind control powers who manages to kill all the crew in a out-of-commission cruise ship and an underground monster who likes to eat random people on the beach. Can Starfire defeat these villains? Will she learn that you can’t drink baking soda? Will she find an unexpected ally?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Super-cool art and super-cool writing. The humor is quite wonderful — the aforementioned baking soda joke was pretty fantastic. And our special guest star is someone I should’ve expected, especially considering the writers, but it was still great to see her again.