Disclaimer: a fair amount of us at CBR like Squirrel Girl quite a bit! Overall, however, we can all agree that her memetic status has gotten out of hand. Much like Deadpool or Ambush Bug from the DC Universe, Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl, probably gets more credit than she deserves. Yet, there are countless forum boards filled with people swearing that she could beat the Hulk or Sentry in a one-on-one fight!
Squirrel Girl is a fun and fascinating character in her own right, but she's become fairly overrated in recent years. Before Doreen can make her way into the MCU, Marvel Studios' writers might need to address the following ten problems.
10 Inconsistent Writing
Once upon a time, Squirrel Girl's stats were all maxed out - a trend that typically only applies to cosmic beings and abstract entities! Doreen's power level varies from writer to writer, however, and drastically so; one minute, she and her squirrels are single-handedly beating M.O.D.O.K. in a battle! The next, she's struggling to take out a Sentinel.
Here's the thing: Squirrel Girl's a joke character who is supposed to highlight the inconsistencies inherent in comic books. Her writers purposely play with her power levels as a means of suggesting that power grids as a concept are moot. We respect that aspect of SG's character, but we also feel that it rules her out of any theoretical battles with other superheroes and villains.
9 Marvel Can't Decide If She Genuinely Beat Thanos
One of Squirrel Girl's most infamous feats revolves around her beating Thanos off-panel! That's right, during the events of GLX-MAS #1, Doreen faces off against the Mad Titan. We don't see how SG manages to beat a foe that's stronger than all the Avengers combined! However, we see the aftermath - with SG standing over Thanos triumphantly, dusting her hands after beating him between panels.
For years, Marvel couldn't decide if this feat was legitimate or not. For a time, writers swore that Squirrel Girl beat a Thanos clone - not the genuine article! The writers later reversed that claim and suggested that SG genuinely defeated Thanos - but only because the Overmaster wasn't feeling himself at the time. To this day, writers continue ping-ponging on the validity of this feat.
8 The Same Goes For Doctor Doom
Doreen's victory over Doctor Doom is what put her on the map; when she was merely fourteen years old, Squirrel Girl took out Victor von Doom with nothing but an army of squirrels at her command! The Fantastic Four and Avengers still struggle to beat Doom, even when they fight him all at once. Apparently, they should've just sent a swarm of rodents after him.
Much like Thanos, Squirrel Girl's victory over Doom is either canon or non-canon depending on the writer. Some say that SG merely defeated a Doom-bot, while others suggest that her win is authentic. The Marvel Universe may never settle on a definitive answer, but that's par for the course with Doreen.
7 She Genuinely Was Too OP For A Time
The last two feats aren't stand-alone instances either - Squirrel Girl's battled Doctor Doom and Thanos multiple times, only to still come out on top! Doreen's also fought Wolverine, Deadpool, and Fin Fang Foom - winning each time. As a cherry on top of the proverbial sundae, SG stopped Galactus from doing his thing by talking to him!
Squirrel Girl's cool for dismantling the notion that power grids and character stats matter most, but also problematic in that her mere presence sucks away all the tension from a story. So far, Marvel's largely solved this issue by giving her a stand-alone comic series. We do wonder, however, how the MCU would handle such an unwieldy character.
6 Most Of Her Wins Occur Off-Panel
Another factor that discredits Squirrel Girl is that we typically don't see her in action. Most of the time, we only see the aftermath - Thanos or Fin Fang Foom sprawled out on the ground with their tongues sticking out! This automatically disqualifies Doreen from most 'versus battles,' because we don't know the methods to her madness. At least we see Saitama (a joke character who's similar to SG in many ways) decimate his enemies with one punch!
It's not that we don't think that Squirrel Girl defeating powerful foes off-panel isn't funny - it just gets old after a while. Think of a gag from any TV show or movies that went on far too long, and you'll start to see how some of us view SG as a whole.
5 Doreen Got Mad At Us When Monkey Joe Died
Doreen might seem like she's invincible at times, but her squirrels certainly aren't. Monkey Joe was the first squirrel that Doreen befriended as a little girl. She and Joe were inseparable and grew very close over the years. Their friendship came to a tragic end, however, when the villainous Leather Boy murdered Joe! Squirrel Girl was devasted when she found her friend's remains - as any of us would be.
To our surprise, Doreen blamed us - the readers - for Joe's death! Squirrel Girl claimed that our desire for bloodshed and carnage in comics drove the writers to kill off Joe. While we sympathize with Doreen, she isn't the only Avenger to lose a loved one.
4 ONE Deemed Her A 'Low Threat'
Somewhat in line with our inconsistent writing gripe, Squirrel Girl's in-universe ratings aren't very impressive either. The Office of National Emergency (or O*N*E for short) assess the power levels of all mutants and meta-humans, then rank them according to their lethality. If a character is exceedingly powerful, O*N*E will consider sending Sentinels after them!
O*N*E's rankings are typically on the money - ranking characters like Professor X and Jean Grey as high-level threats. When it came to Squirrel Girl, however, the Office of National Emergency deemed her a "low threat." Again, this organization fights the X-Men regularly. You'd figure they'd know how to discern a juggernaut from a jugger-not.
3 Doreen's Way Too Chipper Too Often
One of the most appealing aspects of Squirrel Girl's character can also be one of her most off-putting. On one the hand, we respect Doreen for always trying to adopt a positive outlook on situations. Conversely, SG can come off as one-note or one-dimensional. In a universe in which fearsome villains like the Green Goblin, Nimrod, and Dormammu exist - it doesn't make sense to be perpetually cheerful.
Again, Squirrel Girl's presence prohibits stories from preserving any dramatic tension; if you like stories in which the odds don't look good for the heroes, and they have to fight tooth and nail to win, don't read an SG comic.
2 You Need A Slew Of Theories To Justify Her Existence
There are just as many theories that justify Squirrel Girl's existence to cope with the years of writing inconsistencies - some of which become canon, and others get left by the wayside. When Doreen somehow survived M-Day, theories sprang up that she wasn't a mutant. That eventually became canon, promoting SG to "human with squirrel blood" status.
Theories also exist to justify Squirrel Girl's 'comic awareness,' as well as her ability to beat so many powerful foes; some believe that Doreen's a latent reality-warper like Franklin Richards. Others believe that she meets up with Marvel's writers offscreen and fixes her fights! Moreover, other theories suggest that she's the One-Above-All in disguise.
1 You're Not Supposed To Take Her Seriously (But People Do)
Perhaps the most overrated aspect of Squirrel Girl is the sect of her fanbase that takes her too seriously; most SG fans love the character for hearkening back to the fun and adventurous comics of yesteryear. They don't care about how many villains Doreen's defeated, they care about the whimsical tone of her stories and her optimistic outlook.
There are some Squirrel Girl fans, however, who only seem to like her because she might be "the strongest being in the Marvel Universe." We didn't know we were supposed to like characters based solely on their power levels. We guess we ought to ditch Captain America, Jessica Jones, Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, and Daredevil because they don't have maxed out stats. If SG represents anything, it's the notion that numbers shouldn't matter - not the number of villains you beat or what your official rank is.