Squirrels, Samurais, and Shapeshifters

Looking at Ratatoskr in the most recent issue of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, I commented he looked more goofy than menacing, that his weird, bulging eyes reminded me of early Daffy Duck. I can easily picture him going "whoo hoo hoo hoo" and running around crazily.

But there's another character that Ratatoskr's design reminded me of, at least a little. One more sinister than Daffy Duck.

It's probably the flame patterns around the eyes. Aku, the main villain of Samurai Jack. His color scheme is mostly black, with some red and green (plus the whites of his eyes). Ratatoskr has more orange because of that mane, but otherwise, mostly black, with green and orange.

They're both shapeshifters. Aku's never become a squirrel to my knowledge - he usually prefers larger, more dangerous creatures - but he's become gnawing mammals before. Usually when Jack has hacked him down to almost nothing. After this most recent issue of Squirrel Girl, they've both disguised themselves as women to team-up with the hero*.

 I was initially thinking they'd make an interesting villain team-up, but thinking about it, you'd run into the same set of problems that have led to Ratatoskr teaming up with Squirrel Girl. Ratatoskr loves chaos. Aku wants the entire world subservient to him. Not a whole lot different from what Malekith is trying.

But there is a difference. Aku wants everyone to remember who is in charge, to bring him tribute, kiss his butt and so on. But he's not omnipotent, and he's not meddling everywhere. Jack had plenty of adventures that did not involve Aku at all. Demons, aggressive gorilla clans, mechanical cannibals, on and on. There is still a lot of chaos, still struggle, strife, and mayhem all over the world that Aku has no apparent involvement with. Because Aku doesn't perceive it as impacting him from his perch as King of the World.

If Ratatoskr could be convinced that the world would become boring if "the Samurai" succeeds in returning to his own time and destroying Aku, I could see the Squirrel Chaos God getting involved. If nothing else, Ratatoskr might really enjoy messing with Jack. More likely to trick innocent people into attacking Jack, recognizing Jack won't strike back at them. Or maybe just follow Jack around like his version of the Cheshire Cat. Act annoying, place obstacles in his path, but do things that lead Jack to people in danger, or help him to achieve a goal every once in a while. Just enough to confuse him as to what is going on with this strange, giant squirrel (that will not shut the hell up). It's too powerful and clever for him to kill it, maybe he shouldn't even try to kill it. It did help him that one time with *insert particular instance of help*.

Doreen and her friends could eventually arrive to help and/or confuse Jack even more. A relentlessly upbeat girl who talks to squirrels, a talking brain in a jar on a robot body, Koi Boi and his relentless awful fish puns. Although Jack's seen stranger things than a brain in a robot body. Actually, I doubt Jack would react all that much to any of them. He's seen so much since being thrown to the future, this crew wouldn't rank in the top 100 weird things he's encountered. But there could still be problems if they show up and try to fight Ratatoskr when he's in the middle of helping Jack. Things would probably calm down pretty quickly, though. Shortest misunderstanding fight ever.

* Although Aku only did that so Jack would lead him to yet another possible way home for the samurai, so Aku could keep it away from Jack. Doreen should probably watch her back.