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Hold onto your nuts!
With super squirrel powers and help from her squirrel friends,
the astonishing Doreen Green battles the baddest baddies in the universe!
Yes, Squirrel Girl. Possibly the most successful character ever created by Steve Ditko.[citation needed] She's been a member of the Great Lakes Avengers X-Men Defenders Champions Initiative. She has, by herself, beaten Kraven, MODOK, Wolverine, Dr. Doom, Thanos, Fin Fang Foom, and Galactus (The Watcher has watched and verified all these, by the way). AIM calls her "the slayer of all that breathes." She calls herself "Earth's mightiest nanny." She's a mutant with the proportional strength, speed, and agility of a squirrel. Except for that brief period where she wasn't a mutant, but instead a "human mutate," which is totally a different thing you guys, we swear! The fact that it would have allowed Marvel to use the ultra-popular Squirrel Girl in any movie or TV projects they wanted to without complaints from Fox was surely just a coincidence! Point's moot now anyway.
This figure does not depict SG in her original, Ditko-designed costume. What, you thought we were kidding about that? We weren't;
her first appearance was plotted and drawn by the Steve Ditko. This, though, is a more modern look, the one designed by Erica Henderson. It's a super cute outfit, with a dark brown bolero jacket worn over a lighter brown jumpsuit, grey leggings, and darker brown boots, all of those with their own fur trim. The base of the figure is Hasbro's teen body, though the boots, thighs, bust, and biceps are all new pieces (typically so they can have the fur sculpted on). She's also wearing the utility belt with the pockets she uses to carry around treats for her sciurine companions - you know, her nut sacks. Her hands are not new molds, meaning they don't have her sharp fingernails or the knuckle-spikes that come out the back of her hands. Yes, like Wolverine. But smaller.
The costume may be based on the comicbook art, but thankfully, the face isn't. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was the "fun writing, bad art"
counterpart of Batgirl's "bad writing, fun art." Oh, if only those two creative teams could have swapped one member! The face looks more adult than Doreen usually does: she was 14 when she first appeared in 1990, and these days has made it to college-age, but this looks like a grown-up. Her squirrel-ear headband is sculpted in her short hair, and her big smile at least kind of hints at the huge buck teeth she's meant to have, but apparently they've decided that the dark markings around her eyes were makeup, not natural. On the other hand, she does have her acorn earrings.
Squirrel Girl has swivel/hinge ankles, swivel boot tops, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a balljointed
chest, swivel/hinged wrists, swivel/hinged elbows, swivel/hinged shoulders, a hinged neck, and a balljointed head - all the usual points of articulation. But it's tricky to get her to stand up, thanks to the giant tail. Yes, it's a natural part of her mutation, not just something she wears. It's plugged into the toy's back, and isn't poseable - it's just big, heavy plastic that will make her fall over backwards unless you lean her forward just enough. Or have her sit down. On a bike, perhaps.
As we predicted, Squirrel Girl reuses Deadpool's scooter, just done in teal and white instead of red and black. Did someone really just hit "ctrl-i" on a picture of the Deadpool set when they were picking the colorscheme? Or is it, as some have theorized, inspired by the Vespa seen among Skurge's treasures? Because it's not really based on anything she rode in the comics, but does suit her personality - especially since they replaced the DP logo on the front with a wicker basket that's perfect for carrying squirrels. A little bit of assembly is required: the mirrors and horn are packaged separately, and will need to be snapped into place. The wheels roll, the handlebars actually turn the scooter, and the kickstand can be folded down when she's not zipping around the streets.
Doreen doesn't have any extra heads or hands (not even ones that would be shaped to hold onto the scooter's handlebars), but the set does include three squirrels - including Tippy-Toe, her current sidekick!
She's the one with the pink bow. With her are two unidentified squirrels, one sitting up and snacking on a nut, the other down on all fours. They're all brown, rather than grey, because... reasons? She lives in Manhattan and the midwest, gray squirrels would make more sense. Who keeps coloring all her squirrels brown? They're also all about twice the size a real squirrel would be, so maybe they're mutants, too. No articulation, sadly; we were spoiled by Squirrelpool!
Would it have been better to get Squirrel Girl in a normal series, without having to buy a superfluous scooter she's never really ridden? Of course it would! But regardless, Hasbro has given us both our second Squirrel Girl action figure, and our second Great Lakes Avenger. [Second and third, actually: Tippy-Toe was an official member of the team --ed.] She may have some balance issues, but this is a fun figure we've been long awaiting.
-- 03/16/20
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