The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2

Galactus is coming, and only Squirrel Girl can save the world! But first she has to check out some campus clubs and realize that she has a crush on Tomas! When Tippy-Toe reveals that Galactus will arrive on Earth in just two hours, Doreen has to figure out a way to get into space fast — so she turns to her oldest ally, Iron Man — but Tony Stark is out of town, so she has to break into Stark Tower. But can she get past a horde of robot Iron Man suits?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Funny and adorable — and still filled with action and adventure! We go from punny club names and corny monologues between SG and Tippy-Toe to deliriously great splash pages of Squirrel Girl dodging lasers and later outwitting robots. This is, so far, an incredibly fun series — and it’s still early enough in its run for you to jump on board for the whole thing!

Hawkeye #21

The Bros and their pet assassin, the Clown, are about to invade Clint Barton’s apartment building, and the only thing standing in the way are Clint, his brother Barney, and just about everyone else living in the apartment, who’ve banded together to boobytrap the building to keep the Bros out. But what can one low-rent superhero, a low-rent kinda-supervillain, and a bunch of civilians do against a full-scale attack by the Tracksuit Mafia? Maybe bleed, and maybe die…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a great story, wonderful characterizations and dialogue and action, everything you want from a great siege story. Looks like we’re working our way to the end of Matt Fraction’s and David Aja’s amazing run on this comic.

Today’s Cool Links:

• This punk band with Down Syndrome plans to go to Eurovision. I hope they win, ’cause they’re badass.
• Every metalhead I know who’s seen these t-shirts wants them. Too bad they don’t seem to be for sale.
• Are we sure we want to create robot preachers? If they get God on their side, the inevitable robot revolt won’t go well for us…

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1

Squirrel Girl finally gets her own solo series, written by Ryan North, creator of “Dinosaur Comics,” and illustrated by Erica Henderson, creator of “Subatomic Party Girls.” The mutant girl with squirrel powers who’s somehow beaten the snot out of almost every major Marvel supervillain decides to attend Empire State University. To do that, she has to work out how to maintain a secret identity — she hides her tail by tucking it into her pants, but she mostly fails to remember not to talk to her squirrel pal Tippy-Toe and mostly forgets that she’s not supposed to show off her squirrel strength. Still she meets a few new friends, including her intensely weird roommate Nancy and a potential love interest Tomas. And she has to battle Kraven the Hunter! But can a mere squirrel-powered college student hope to defeat the perfect hunter? Ha ha ha! We are, of course, talking about Squirrel Girl!

Verdict: Thumbs up. There’s a lot of stuff to love in this first issue. The art is nicely fun, the writing is a winner, and there are a vast number of wonderful jokes, from the “Squirrel Girl” theme song to Deadpool’s trading cards to Doreen’s tail stuffing technique giving her “a conspicuously large and conspicuously awesome butt” — which is immediately checked out by a passing guy in the very next panel. And Doreen defeats Kraven in a fairly cool way, too. I’m hoping this series runs for a nice long time.

X-Men #23

I dropped this series when former writer Brian Wood got outed as a colossal douchegoblin, but with G. Willow Wilson working on the comic, I figured I should give it a try again. This new storyarc seems to be a mostly Storm-centric one — when a sinkhole and superstorm start up at the same time in the Utah desert, Gambit just happens to be on hand and phones up the X-Men for help. While the X-team works on solving that issue, Jubilee discovers that Krakoa (the Living Island now turned Living Landscape of the Jean Grey School) has gotten oddly ill. Hmmm, could there be some sort of disease affecting the Earth itself? Anyway, Storm tries to shut the unusual hurricane down, but it somehow turns against her and leaves her buried deep underground with only a hallucination of Wolverine to keep her company.

Verdict: Ehh, I dunno. It’s not that bad. But the art is severely wonky, especially compared to the great Terry Dodson cover. I’m also less-than-keen on the way Gambit completely vanishes from the story after he phones the X-Mansion, and the way Storm just randomly dreams up Dead Wolverine to comfort her. Too much Wolverine worship going around in comics right now, to be honest.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a great tribute to the awesomeness of “Astro City.”
• What was behind the terrorist attacks in Paris? It was less about hating cartoonists and more about trying to trick non-radical Muslims into supporting terrorism.
• Speaking of terrorists, Bill Donohue of the Catholic “League” strikes me as the type of person who really wishes he was in Paris to help pull the triggers.

Okay, time to get the weekend going with another round of FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS! And SpaceBooger is giving us a quick theme for tonight — the final blow has to take place either off panel or by surprise.

So tonight, we’re going with just one single panel where all we see — in fact, the only image we see of the entire battle — is just the image of the hero’s victory.

From February 2006’s GLX-Mas Special by Dan Slott, Georges Jeanty, and Drew Geraci, here’s Squirrel Girl vs. Thanos.

(Click to embiggen)

So run on over to SpaceBooger’s joint and vote for your favorite fight — the winner this time gets a small prize, so be sure to pick the one you think most deserves an Amazon card. But I’m pretty sure Squirrel Girl wants you to vote for me. Not like Uatu will interfere, right?

Okay, kids, let’s get right into it — it’s Friday, and we’re all feeling punchy, so that means it’s time for… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes to us from October 2011’s The New Avengers #15 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato, Wolverine has to face off against the Marvel Universe’s most unstoppable badass.

Winner and still champeen — Squirrel Girl!

Listen, kiddios, right now, it’s 4:36 p.m., Central time, Friday, April 6, 2012, Planet Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe Designation Theta-L88Z-Omega-92, and I think we should just go ahead and get the weekend started early. Let’s get going with a little… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Let’s go with the biggest, baddest badass in comics, a’ight? From January 1992’s Marvel Super-Heroes #8 by the one and only Steve Ditko and Will Murray, here’s the grand debut of Squirrel Girl as she helps Iron Man take down Doctor Doom.

Hope you have a great weekend — everyone go out there and get nutty.

Well, Bahlactus has requested all black-and-white battles for the current round of Friday Night Fights, which is too bad, ’cause I keep running across great fights that look awesome in color and just awful in monochrome. Still, one must persevere, and I found one this week that didn’t look too muddy…

From 2007’s Deadpool-GLI Summer Fun Spectacular by Dan Slott, Fabian Nicieza, and Kieron Dwyer: the mighty Squirrel Girl boots Deadpool in the butt.

 

Love that “SPANQ” sound effect…

Man alive, I am one lazy, lazy comics reviewer. You’d think these were hard reviews. But they ain’t. I’m just lazy.

Let’s get after it.

 

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #5

The conclusion of this storyline. Not quite as many spooky scares, but much, much more of Abe Sapien unleashing the forces of scaly-fishman whup-ass on the freaky oldsters in their steampunk armor and on Edward, the oversized muscleman.

It also includes the following panel.

 

That may not be the coolest cow in the world, but it’s sure close to the top of the list.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice thrill-ride to finish off all the horror. Grand fun.

 

Countdown #42

Piper and Trickster have been captured and shackled together with manacles that could kill them if they try to break them. Holly Robinson, former Catwoman, is hanging out Harley Quinn and a bunch of Amazons. Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and the renegade Monitor get the current Atom, Ryan Choi, to take them to the hyper-miniaturized “Palmerverse” to find the previous Atom, Ray Palmer. Mary Marvel meets up with the Riddler, then sends Clayface into orbit. And way too many of the pictures of Mary in this issue are upskirt shots. Siiiigh. Fine, fine, I recognize that there’s not much of a way to avoid it with that costume, but after a certain point, it just seems creepy.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Boring.

 

Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular

Cute, fun, and funny. I’ve never much seen the point of Deadpool, but the Great Lakes Avengers (now calling themselves the Great Lakes Initiative) are always good for a larf. Squirrel Girl meets up with her ex-boyfriend Speedball, who’s now grim and gritty and spiky and calling himself Penance. A.I.M uses the Greek god Dionysus to get every superhero in the world drunk. Flatman shows off his Origami-Fu. Mr. Immortal dies a lot. Squirrel Girl also visits the future, and we get nearly-official confirmation that she is indeed the baddest badass in the Marvel Universe.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Squirrel Girl rocks. Deal with it, fanboy.

 

Green Lantern #21

The aftermath of the Green Lantern Corps’ first battle with the Sinestro Corps. Hal Jordan fights the Parallaxized Kyle Rayner. Hal is confronted with his only real fear. Ready for it? Ready? He’s afraid… that when his father died in a jet crash… that he was afraid.

That’s it? That’s the great fear?

Where’s my Whackin’ Stick?

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Verdict: It’s WHACK!

 

Martha Washington Dies

Martha Washington, Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ futuristic soldier and freedom fighter from the classic “Give Me Liberty,” is now 100 years old. She dies.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Way, way too short. Half the comic is devoted to promos for next year’s collection of all the Martha Washington stories.

Okay, that’s all of ’em I got. New comics coming in tomorrow.