Best Squirrel Girl Comics: Where to Start, Key Issues and First Appearance

Squirrel Girl was a footnote joke for a long time. Created in the early 1990s and picked up as a gag by writers who enjoyed her reputation, she became the lead of a fifty-eight-issue ongoing series that held on for nearly five years. The path is unusual, and it explains why the best entry point is not her first issue.

As always in this guide, we only state verified information (creators, issue numbers, dates); the analysis is our own, with no reproduction of protected artwork or dialogue.

Her first appearance

Doreen Green first appears in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 2 #8, a winter special published in the early 1990s. The story, titled "The Coming of Squirrel Girl," is conceived and drawn by Steve Ditko, from a script by Will Murray, who imagined the character with him. Iron Man and Doctor Doom appear alongside the newcomer.

This issue is the collectors' landmark, but not the reading entry point: the character is a curiosity in it. Its interest is historical. It explains how Squirrel Girl could later serve as a running gag for other writers, before a creative team took her seriously, in the sense of building an entire series around her.

1: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, first collected edition Squirrel Power, Ryan North and Erica Henderson (2015)

The series starts on January 7, 2015, with Ryan North writing and Erica Henderson drawing, Rico Renzi on colors. Doreen is a computer science student here, surrounded by her roommate Nancy and her squirrel Tippy-Toe, and Kraven the Hunter is among the villains of the first issues. The first volume lasts only eight issues before a relaunch.

What this brings to the character comes down to a reversal: Doreen wins by talking, thinking and refusing pointless violence more than by hitting. The series thus reuses the founding joke (she beats formidable enemies) and turns it into a method. It is aimed at any reader, including the newcomer, and even more at those who find superheroes heavy.

How should you read it? In a collected edition, Squirrel Power first, in order. The writer's footnotes are part of the fun and get lost in quick readings.

2: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, the relaunched series, Ryan North, Erica Henderson, then Derek Charm (2015 to 2019)

After the opening eight issues, the title is relaunched in October 2015 with new numbering, which runs to issue #50 in November 2019, for fifty-eight issues in all. Ryan North writes the entire series. Erica Henderson draws most of the period, then Derek Charm takes over in 2018. The twelfth and last collected edition came out in March 2020.

This entry tells you whether the series holds up over time, and it does. You meet Brain Drain, an enemy the heroes rehabilitate rather than destroy, and Tomas, a love interest who turns out to be Chipmunk Hunk. Doctor Doom and Howard the Duck drop by as well. The sixth collected edition is titled Who Run the World? Squirrels.

It is aimed at the reader who has finished Squirrel Power and wants more; each collected edition opens on the same characters, which lets you stop anywhere without losing the thread. Read it in collected editions, in one go: the writing works by accumulating recurring details, and spaced-out reading loses the effect. For those who prefer big volumes, an omnibus came out in February 2023.

3: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe!, Ryan North and Erica Henderson (2016)

Published in October 2016, this 120-page original graphic novel reunites the series' creators. Doreen faces a double of herself, the product of a badly controlled science experiment, who judges humanity unfit to rule and goes after the hero community. The story takes the title's joke and turns it into a serious question: what happens when someone has Doreen's powers without her restraint?

It puts the character's method to the test. It is aimed at those who know the series, and it reads independently of the monthly thread, in one sitting, once you have finished the first collected editions. For the collector, it is also a separate object: a bound 120-page format, outside the numbering, that shelves next to the trade paperbacks rather than with the single issues. The two creators of the monthly series sign a complete story together here, which makes it the best demonstration of their style in a single volume.

4: GLA (Misassembled), Dan Slott and Paul Pelletier (2005)

The Great Lakes Avengers first appear in West Coast Avengers #46, in July 1989, created by John Byrne. In 2005, Dan Slott gives them a four-issue miniseries, with Paul Pelletier on art from the first issue. Doreen joins the team over the course of the miniseries, alongside Mister Immortal, Big Bertha and Grasshopper, among others.

For Doreen, this is the moment when humor catches up with her without crushing her: Slott treats her with sympathy in a group of second-tier heroes. The series is aimed at the reader already won over by North, curious to see where the character comes from, and at those who enjoy situational comedy. Read it after the ongoing series. Our guide to West Coast Avengers sheds light on the original team, and the Dan Slott hub collects the writer's work.

5: GLX-Mas Special, Dan Slott with several artists (2006)

This one-shot holiday issue follows GLA; Dan Slott writes it, and it is illustrated by several hands including Matt Haley, Georges Jeanty, Mike Wieringo, Ty Templeton and Paul Grist. It is in this issue that the legend that Doreen defeated Thanos is built, a fact the story presents without showing.

Its importance for the character is major: the joke of "Squirrel Girl beat Thanos" becomes a piece of the Marvel universe. The entry is aimed at fans of anecdotes, not at readers looking for a deep story. Read it after GLA, as a light epilogue. The format, a collection of short stories handed to several artists, explains the variety of tone: each artist brings a reading of the group, and it is Slott's thread that holds the whole together. The Thanos hub gives the context of the adversary.

6: Squirrel Meets World, Shannon Hale and Dean Hale (2017)

Published on February 7, 2017 by Marvel Press, this novel for young readers is not a comic: it sits at the edge of the collection, and that is what makes it interesting. It extends the spirit of North's series for an audience that may not open a single issue.

It is aimed at the reader who wants to give Doreen to a teenager, or who enjoys the universe without looking for comic art. Read it separately, as a complement, after the collected editions. For a collection of comics in the strict sense, it remains optional. The text, more than the image, makes the value of the object.

Where to start based on your profile

The complete newcomer starts with Squirrel Power, which Ryan North made accessible with no prior reading. If you are coming from the character's recent news or from the podcast produced in 2022, the same collected edition is still the right starting point. The archive reader who likes curiosities will go to Dan Slott's GLA, before coming back to North.

The single-issue collector will read in collected editions first, then decide which issues to hunt. Whoever wants to follow everything takes publication order: Marvel Super-Heroes #8, GLA and the GLX-Mas Special (2005 to 2006), the Deadpool appearances in 2006 and 2007, then North's series, the 2016 graphic novel and the 2017 novel.

A word on the overall reading: North and Henderson's series depends largely on its recurring details, on the writer's footnotes, on enemies rehabilitated rather than defeated and on the constant presence of Tippy-Toe. Reading GLA before the 2015 series gives you the character's history, but reading the 2015 series before GLA gives you her reason for being. The second order is the one we recommend to anyone discovering Doreen.

For someone building a collection, the 2015 series raises a question of method specific to recent titles: the numbering restarts in October 2015, so there are two first issues to tell apart and two sets of collected editions. Note when you buy which volume each single issue belongs to, before cross-checking your gaps against the collected editions you have already read.

The key issues to know

Method matters more than the number: for each issue, distinguish the first appearance, the launch and the turning point, then compare completed sales before deciding.

• Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 2 #8: the first appearance, by Will Murray and Steve Ditko.
• West Coast Avengers #46 (July 1989): the first appearance of the Great Lakes Avengers team, created by John Byrne.
• GLA #1 (2005): the opening of Dan Slott and Paul Pelletier's miniseries.
• GLX-Mas Special #1: the issue where the myth of the victory over Thanos is fixed.
• New Avengers (2010 to 2013): Squirrel Girl appears intermittently from #7 to #34, as a nanny for Luke Cage's daughter; the decision is credited to Brian Michael Bendis, but the role remains minor.
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (January 2015): the launch of North and Henderson's series.
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol. 2 #1 (October 2015): the relaunch, starting point of the long numbering.
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe! (October 2016): the original graphic novel.

A first appearance is not everything: an issue keeps its value if the character stays. For Doreen, the 2015 series gave that weight to Marvel Super-Heroes #8. The guide on condition and American grading helps decipher the label of an already graded copy.

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