In my constant quest to lure C deeper and deeper into a love of comics, I wanted to find a Marvel or DC super-hero series that she could call her own. Luckily, as it happens, Marvel have been going through something of a radical reinvention over the past ten years, switching comics from being solely the 'territory' of white male stay-at-homes obsessed with boob windows and ultra-violence, more into the realms of super-kick-ass girl comics with clever heroes at their core.

"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" series may now be done and dusted (waahhhhh, boo!!!!) but over the course of Ryan North, Erica Henderson and Derek Charm's run, they've produced one of the best comic series Marvel have ever run.

Doreen Green, the squirrel-loving squirrel-powered superhero at the heart of the comic is exactly the sort of girl superhero I wanted C to seek out, and after picking up the first volume (the brilliant "Squirrel Power") she was hooked almost instantly. Doreen isn't some glamour-puss clad in Lycra, but she is unbeatable, sassy, utterly charming and completely wonderful in every way (we're still completely baffled why she doesn't have her own MCU movie but, yeah, Hollywood males failing to cast Shannon Purser in her own SG movie is one of the greatest injustices ever done to comic moviedom).

When we first meet Doreen she's enrolling in college for the first time, where she meets her bestie (and regular awesome comic sidekick) Nancy Whitehead, forming a friendship that also leads to some real heartstring-tugging moments later on once the series beds in (one story where Squirrel Girl and Nancy enter 'hypertime' and age rapidly / move more quickly than the world around them leads to one of the most touching moments I think I've ever seen in any Marvel comic full stop).

The other lure of this series is how Doreen interacts with and quite often bounces off other characters in the Marvel comics universe. Her Twitter exchanges with Tony Stark (Iron Man) are worth the entry fee alone, as is the adventure where Doreen's slightly evil but well meaning clone actually duffs up the entire Marvel universe is just sheer brilliance.

As we've said in these articles, kids are spoilt for choice for brilliant comics - and the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics have a wide ranging fan base of all ages (including loads of kids like my daughter) who just can't get enough of whip-smart writing and gorgeous illustrations at the very highest level such as you'll find here.

Unbeatable? Unmissable more like!

Original Review Links:

ReadItDaddy's Book(s) of the Week - Week Ending 24th February 2017 - "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volumes 1 and 2" by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Marvel)

Powering up with four recent comic acquisitions featuring thoroughly mighty women.

ReadItDaddy's Comic of the Week - Week Ending 10th August 2018: "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 8: My Best Friend's Squirrel" by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Marvel)

ReadItDaddy's Comic of the Week - Week Ending 13th April 2018 - "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 7: "I've been waiting for a Squirrel like you" by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Marvel Comics)

ReadItDaddy's Comic / Graphic Novel of the Week - Week Ending 16th August 2019: "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 10: Life Is Too Short, Squirrel" by Ryan North, Erica Henderson (cover) and Derek Charm (interior and comic artwork) (Marvel Comics)

ReadItDaddy's Comic of the Week - Week Ending 1st February 2019: "Marvel Rising Volume 1" by Devin Grayson, Ryan North, G Willow Wilson, Gurihiru and various artists (Marvel)

80 (seriously!!) years ago, the entire landscape of comics changed and in our third Book of the Week this week we're celebrating the mighty Marvel universe - not the billion-dollar money machine that is the Marvel Movie Universe - but the very comics that captured my imagination as a kid, and have been inspiring comic fans for generations.

"Marvel Museum: The Story of the Comics" is a colossal book packed with amazing information about the Marvel Comics Universe - and the pivotal figures that shaped characters that have now become such a huge part of our pop culture, that even non-comics folk know who they are (yep, even my wife could probably name a handful of MCU characters purely on sight, but confesses that her deep love for Wolverine is possibly largely to do with a certain Mr Jackman owning that role).

Comics aficionado Ned Hartley has brought his immense knowledge of all things Marvel into a book filled with gorgeous colour plates of comic covers and panels, here presented in a large format book that really brings those stunning early colour comics to life in a whole new way.

Along with Stan Lee, Jack "King" Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others, Marvel became a force to be reckoned with, producing comics like nothing anyone had ever seen before, and a diverse universe of characters that truly represented something for everyone, quite often championing causes and equality in a way that is still reverberating in importance today.

I love you 3000, Iron Man!

As a pair of self-confessed Marvel geeks, C and I absolutely loved this book, filled with amazing information and anecdotal nuggets that feed into the mythos that has sprung up around the "Bullpen" (as Stan Lee's studio of talent became known), with fascinating early glimpses of characters, timelines and tons more.

Our favourite Marvel character struts his webby stuff - The Amazing Spider-Man

Luxuriously bound in hardback, with fantastic chapter and end-papers, this is a fabulous gift for any Marvel or comics fan, one that you'll keep dipping into again and again.

Sum this book up in a sentence: Absolutely essential for the Marvel fans in your life, a superbly written and beautifully presented history of the mighty Marvel comic studio that spawned a billion dollar movie industry.

"Marvel Museum: The Story of the Comics" by Ned Hartley is out now, published by Studio Press (kindly supplied for review). 

THE DEATH OF SQUIRREL GIRL! Yeah, thought that might grab your attention but in the fantastic 10th collected volume of "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Life is Too Short, Squirrel" North and Charm kick you right in the hooblies from the get-go, opening things at SG's funeral.

But wait a second, who are those two mysterious guests dressed as giant bass?

Why is Tony Stark delivering a rather odd eulogy?

...and just where the hootin' heck did Brain Drain get that bloody awesome Human League T Shirt.

As you've probably guessed, and it's not much of a spoiler (I mean it's right there on the cover, for frick's sake!), there's an impostor at work and it's up to The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to figure out this unholy mess.

Dovetailing quite nicely with recent events in the Marvel Movie Universe (and if that isn't a big enough spoilery-hint at who's really masquerading as SG), North and Charm pour on the brilliant in Marvel's flagship comic-that-still-stuns-us-that-it-hasn't-been-made-into-a-frickin'-movie-yet.

Both of us literally inhaled this comic in one glorious breath, and though we keep hearing those vicious rumours that The Unbeatable SG may well be hanging up her squirrely headband, and tucking her tail firmly into her pants for good at some point in the future, we're going to continue to enjoy these awesome comics as long as we can.

Sum this comic up in a sentence: Utterly brilliant from start to finish, one of the most intelligent and brilliantly written / drawn kid-friendly comic series out there just gets better and better (but yeah we still miss Erica Henderson, how could we not!)

"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 10: Life is too short, Squirrel" by Ryan North and Derek Charm is out now, published by Marvel Comics (self purchased - not provided for review). 

Marvel pretty much have "Mighty Girl" all sewn up, and if you want a truly fantastic example of how much work they've put in to providing one of the most diverse and brilliantly feminist comic universes in the world, take a look at our second book of the week this week, the stunning "Powers of a Girl: 65 Marvel Women who Changed the Universe" by Lorraine Cink and Alice X. Zhang.

For a long time, C has definitely been a "Marvel" girl and has soaked up a huge number of comics from the MCU, nearly all of them featuring truly kick-ass and brilliant female characters, all of which feature in this book.

Fabulous bios written by self-confessed Marvel fangirl Lorraine Cink, with stunning new illustrations for the book by comic artist supreme Alice X. Zhang gather together a whopping roster of female Marvel superheroes you may have heard of, and a truckload you may not have (but definitely need to find out more about, trust us on this).

C's favourite characters Spider-Gwen (Ghost Spider) and Squirrel Girl are just two of the characters detailed in here, and there are brilliant sections on superhero power couples and supermoms too!

Let's take a look at a couple of spreads:

Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Ace pilot, kickass fighter, not to be messed with whether you're Kree or not!

Each character bio digs into their comic and movie history, and gives you tons of juicy nuggets of information about them from their nicknames to their known aliases, supporting characters and of course their superpowers.

Thor. No, not the one with the massive beergut, the cooler one!

Girls and boys will love reading about these hugely inspirational and influential characters, and there's no better way of seeing just how amazingly diverse comics have become in the last decade or so.

Make ours Marvel, nuff said!

Sum this book up a sentence: A truly stellar line-up of incredible female comic characters from the Marvel comics and movie universes, showing just how brilliant their current roster is.

"Powers of a Girl" by Lorraine Cink and Alice X. Zhang is out now, published by Studio Press / Marvel Comics (kindly supplied for review). 

Oh my, what a mistake-a to make-a. The problem with consuming comics in a non-serialised scattergun way, is that sometimes that scattergun can spectacularly backfire on you, resulting in you coming away from a particular volume with a nasty taste in your mouth.

I've been trying to gee C up to get ready to go and watch the MCU's awesome "Captain Marvel" film and noticed "Civil War II" on offer on ComiXology. So yes, I have no one but myself to blame for this one.

Civil War II is the follow up to the original Marvel Civil War comic by Mark Millar, the first volume to set superhero against superhero, against the backdrop of dovetailing comic series all leading to a singular moment in the Marvel Comic Universe.

This time it's all about one's perspective of interpreting future events as we find the key Marvel heroes facing off against each other over a particular mutant supe who can foresee the future. Ths time Tony Stark and Captain Marvel are at loggerheads as TS believes that the visions are subjective at best, while Captain Marvel takes them at face value, believing the only way to prevent the horrible things that happen in the visions from actually happening, she and her team must take direct action. Action that often involves imprisoning, or in some cases killing other supes.

I meant this as a way of getting C up to speed with Captain Marvel, before coming to the horrific conclusion that everyone who reads this comes to - that Bendis' depiction of an awesome superhero (Captain Marvel) is flawed, and that Carol Danvers comes across as a colossal a-hole, whichever way you fall in the Stark vs Cap Marv debate. Not quite the character introduction I imagined!! Oops!

So it was swiftly rectified by diving back to ComiXology to instead hoover up one of the greatest sets of "Origin Stories" comics created for Captain Marvel, from the hugely talented team of Kelly Sue De Connick and David Lopez, who really give us the "Higher, Further, Faster, More" supe we deserve.

This is far more what you're after if you want something that previews the version of Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel that appears in the movie.

The problem with playing catch-up with well-loved comic series is that you feel duty bound to try and slot everyting you read into some sort of linear timeline - and when it comes to Marvel Comics and series fragmentation, that's a purely impossible task.

So our Comic of the Week this week, "Spider-Man: Miles Morales Volume 1" by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli might now be two years old, and Bendis may have jumped ship to DC Comics from Marvel (lucky old DC, Bendis is an IMMENSE talent) but this series is undoubtedly one of the best if you've been looking for stuff that has interesting paralells that run comfortably alongside the behemoth "Into the Spider-Verse" movie.

Miles Morales here is a bit older than he's depicted in the movie, with even more of the same issues he encountered in the flick.

Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a teenager who also happens to be Spider-Man, has just been drafted into the Avengers AND has a Grandma who is convinced he's on drugs or running around with questionable young ladies is quite another matter entirely.

So poor Miles. Alongside his long-suffering (but utterly brilliant, in our opinion) friend Ganke Lee, the dude's trying to cope with nefarious demons who want to turn the world to ashes, kicking the Avengers' collective asses in the process (thankfully Miles is around to add a little sting here or there to the invader) - but also trying to cope with plumetting school grades and a love life that careers from non-existent to completely disastrous.

With the addition of a new pupil at his part-board school, Miles also has to deal with his secret identity accidentally being blurted out to "Golden Balls" - a mutant ex X-Men member who can summon golden spheres from...well, we never quite find out where from (thankfully).

We love Ganke Lee!

As the story begins to unfold at breakneck pace, Miles soon realises that a new super-criminal cadre would rather this new Spider-Man was hung up by his webs - permanently.

Pichelli's artwork combined with Bendis' superb plotting, fantastic observational eye for teen angst - and a ton of tongue-in-cheek jokes, cameos and utterly KILLER lines, this is a total win of a comic. We've devoured Volumes 1 and 2 and are just waiting for Volume 3 to arrive so if you're on Team Miles and haven't read this yet, this is a truly awesome jumping-in point for more of his ace comic run.

Sum this comic up in a sentence: It's not easy being Spidey!

"Spider-Man: Miles Morales Volume 1" by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli is out now, published by Marvel Comics (self purchased, not provided for review)

Our comic of the week this week is the sort of smart, sassy and brilliantly female-focused comic that both of us just can't get enough of at the moment...

This week's Comic of the Week was the inspiration for our super-hero movie of the year last year, the superb "Into the Spider-Verse"...

In our quest to own as many "Mighty Girl" comics as possible, we've been hugely impressed by what's been going on over at Marvel Comics for a number of years now...

Our Comic of the week this week is, of course, "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" volume 7: "I've been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You". Sadly, all good things come to an end...

Comics have changed for the better, and it's about bloomin' time. Despite the continued issues we have with fragmentation of story arcs and the general confused mess that sometimes confronts you when you show interest in a particular series, it's sometimes worth doing a bit of digging and picking up a few titles regardless.

We've been huge fans of "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" for a long time on the blog, finally hoovering up the missing volumes and 'catching up' with this fantastic series.

Doreen Green AKA Squirrel Girl just happens to be a super-powered college student who can talk to squirrels, can pretty much duff up anyone else in the Marvel Universe - but quite often finds her foes throw in a curve ball to keep her on her tippy-toes (sorry, terrible pun there) with each and every collected issue.

Recently we've seen her taking a holiday with her room-mate to stay in a remote cabin in Canada ("NO WI FI? NO INTERNET? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TAUNT TONY STARK OVER TWITTER?") only to find the cabin sits on top of a bizarre colony of mini criminals who can break apart and reform into bigger / smaller versions of themselves at will. As they begin to slowly take over the world, it's up to Squirrel Girl, Nancy, Squirrel Girl's mum and...er...Ant Man to stop this nefarious menace.

Tons of action, loads of silly humour but a superb mighty girl feel, this series just gets better and better (as do Squirrel Girl's tweets about hanging around with superheroes / villains).

"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Like I'm the only Squirrel in the World" (Volume 5) by Ryan North and Erica Henderson is out now, published by Marvel Comics. 

Shifting gears slightly, we also took a look at "Gwenpool" by Christopher Hastings, Gurihiru, Danilo Beyruth and Tamra Bonvillain...

If you can imagine a universe where Deadpool is somehow gene-spliced with a candy-coloured version of Gwen Stacy from Spiderman, and given the same devil-may-care uber-violent but fun-loving personality of Mr Pool, that's where you'll find yourself with this quirky but fabulous comic.

Gwenpool is finding life in an alternate universe a bit tricky to say the least (have you ever tried to get a bank account when, according to every computer on the planet, you didn't exist before 2 months ago?)

Of course, this hampers this "Ms Merc with a Mouth" in her attempts to work her way into the criminal organisation of one of Marvel's nastiest supervillains, the big-headed bad-attitude dude Modok.

Weirdly, Gwenpool somehow manages to take out Modok's chief hitman, putting herself up for the job as his replacement. There is a snag though, Gwenpool doesn't actually have any discernible superpowers aside from an affinity with things that explode.

What's a girl to do?

This is a superb series, and we dipped into it only meaning to grab the one collected issue - but now want to read the rest. If you like the smart (and quite violent) side of Deadpool but want to do without all the ickiness, this could be the series for you.

"Gwenpool" by Christopher Hastings, Gurihiru, Danilo Beyruth and Tamra Bonvillain is out now, published by Marvel Comics. 

Moving on to a series that could've been MADE for us. A super-smart girl who loves science, but just happens to be the daughter of one of Marvel's biggest (smallest) heroes? What's not to like?

"The Unstoppable Wasp" by Jeremy Whitley and Elsa Charretier opens with the daughter of Hank Pym, Nadia, emigrating to the US. After years of growing up in the "Red Room" (the assassin academy regular Marvel fans will remember as also spawning Black Widow) Nadia is ready to embrace western culture, but also to set up a Science Academy for other superpowered girls like herself - girls who can bend science to their will in order to fight crime and injustice.

The first volume collects together issues 1-6 and sees Nadia on a recruitment drive that doesn't quite always go to plan.

We really loved this one, not least of all because of Nadia's effervescent enthusiasm for just about EVERYTHING, with some rather cool interactions early on with Ms Marvel (setting things up nicely for a complete EXPLOSION of all things Ms Marvel later on this year, watch the skies) and Moon Girl (the smartest pre-teen on the planet who also happens to be friendly with a colossal bloodthirsty dinosaur from beyond time).

It's whip-smart storytelling with glorious art, and another series we're in it for the long haul with.

"The Unstoppable Wasp" by Jeremy Whitley and Elsa Charretier is out now, published by Marvel Comics. 

Last but not least, the return of a familiar face in a brilliant comic series that just gets better and better...

"Star Wars: Princess Leia" Mark Waid and Terry Dodson pick up right where Star Wars Episode IV left off, in fact right there in the ceremony room where Luke, Han and Chewie all get their medals for blowing up the Death Star.

But we all know that even in the extended Star Wars universe, life is never as simple as it seems and Leia is swiftly drawn into a mission that will throw her into a team-up with a shadowy rebel pilot who really doesn't seem to like royals at all.

This is a fantastic romp, almost feeling at times like those cool saturday morning serials from the dawn of cinema.

It's chock-full of the atmosphere of the first movie trilogy, yet bang up to date with its treatment of female characters who can kick ass with the best of them

"Princess Leia" by Mark Waid and Terry Dodson is out now, published by Marvel Comics. 

(All four titles self-purchased)

Thanks to a recent subscription to Kindle Unlimited I've been steadily hoovering up a huge back catalogue of Marvel titles. Our Comic of the Week this week is impressive. Most impressive.

Our Book (or books) of the week this week collect together the first 'modern era' 8 issues of one of the greatest superheroes ever to nibble a filbert...

DC's new initiative to bring in more revenue from 6-12 year old girl comic and superhero move fans...It's like Lego Friends for Supes. Bleurrrrrrghhh!

We love comics. You know we love comics. So by rights, we should be doubly excited by the news that DC has launched a new initiative to bring in some coin from a largely untapped market (in their opinion at least). Girls who love superheroes and supervillains, girls aged 6-12 and who already work their way through the relatively 'safe' (slim pickings) comics in the DC range.