I'm genuinely sad to say that this may be the final collected "Squirrel Girl" volume where we get to enjoy the genius team-up between writer and illustrator Ryan North and Erica Henderson, and their spectacular reinvention of a Marvel Superhero who always deserved as much attention as possible.
Squirrel Girl is a joyous, sometimes riotous celebration of all the great stuff going on in comics at the moment where legions of fans (both male and female) are enjoying super-powerful feminist-led stories with the sort of heroes you can comfortable let your sons and daughters look up to.
C fell completely in love with "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" way back in volume one and the series never wavered in quality from the get-go of this reinvention.
Now we're at Volume 7 for a hilarious romp riffing on just about every Doug McClure movie you've ever seen (and several you haven't). Yep, somehow Doreen Green and Nancy Whitehead (AKA Squirrel Girl and...er...strange cat-person room mate) win a mysterious programming competition.
The prize is an all expenses paid trip to THE SAVAGE LAND, a lost kingdom slap bang in the middle of Antartica, lush and green and inhabited by huge stomping dinosaurs.
The whole area has been turned into something of a theme park / conservation area but when Doreen and Nancy arrive, they realise they're booked in with a whole stack of other competition winners who just happen to hail from Dr Doom's newly founded fiefdom. Awkward!
What's more, Nancy begins to fall head over heels with one of the exchange students, despite his obsession with ol' metal-face.
Throw in a classic Marvel super-villain (who somehow manages to retain James Spader's plummy voice even in comic form in my head), a superb sub-comic featuring Kraven the Hunter, and you've got another utterly brilliant and superbly observed chunk of Marvel madness that pulls out all the stops.
It's just brilliant from start to finish, from the always hilarious UnbeatableSG Twitter feed (which, hey, we featured in not so long back when SG herself faved one of my portraits of her - possibly the finest Twitter moment to date!) through to the story itself, and poor Nancy's awkward on-off crushromance usually interrupted by the none too subtle Doreen.
Sublime. Truly sublime. I'll be so sorry to see the breakup of North and Henderson, but I wish them both the very best in whatever they turn to next, and hope that The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is left in safe hands.
GO NUTS!! KICK BUTTS!
"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 7" by North, Henderson and Renzi is out now, published by Marvel Comics (self purchased)