Erica Henderson departed as regular artist after 31 issues (though she continued to be the primary cover artist, and drew parts of a few issues after that), and Derek Charm took over for the remainder of the run. Charm's style was much smoother, in some respects less detailed than Henderson's, but also clearer at times as well. Renzi's colors occasionally overwhelmed Henderson's linework, making things appear muddied, rushed, or half-finished. That wasn't an issue with Charm, but he also didn't vary characters' clothes, hair or general appearance as much as Henderson. Doreen went back to the conventional furry jacket costume look at stayed with it. Nancy basically stuck to one hairstyle.
One theme that North seems to turn to more over these final 18 issues is the fact that Doreen keeps befriending super-villains, and the possible consequences of that. The first story Charm draws involves her inviting Kraven the Hunter on a friend outing to an escape room. Doreen had dissuaded him first from hunting Spider-Man, then from hunting innocent creatures at all (Kraven became a "hunter of hunters"), and seemed to consider the matter settled. Then she's confronted with all the stuff he did - like killing Spider-Man - before she ever met him, and the fact Spider-Man might not be all that convinced Kraven's changed.
Later on, there's a Skrull refugee that first impersonates Squirrel Girl and appears to die (as part of a plan to convince the Skrulls she herself is dead and they don't need to come looking), then kidnaps Tony Stark when the plan goes sideways. Once he's rescued, Stark is understandably reluctant to believe the Skrull girl's claims that she just wants to live peacefully on Earth. Well, kidnapping and attacking a person's friends will have that effect.
The book seems to default to the notion that people can change, so you should therefore keep giving them opportunities. The final story arc is about an enemy Doreen hadn't convinced to change gathering an entire team of villains, outing Squirrel Girl's secret identity, destroying her apartment, hurting her friends, and Doreen still insists Galactus not just eat all the villains when he makes a last-second save. Because if they're dead, they can't change. This seems to sidestep the question of how many people you're going to give them the chance to hurt while you're giving them chances to change, but perhaps too heavy of a subject matter for the intended audience.
It isn't all questions of the human capacity for change and discussions of mercy. There's an all-silent issue about the over-zealous ghost of a librarian, plus an issue where Kang fights the Squirrel Girls of three different eras, each drawn by different artists (Naomi Franquiz for Old Lady Squirrel Girl, Charm for Present Day Squirrel Girl, and Henderson for Awkward Neophyte Squirrel Girl). Plus, the book gets it's one and only official tie-in to an event!
Sure, it's a tie-in to War of the Realms (the event so lame Malekith is the main bad guy), but it involves Squirrel Girl teaming up with Ratatoskr, the trickster Norse squirrel, to liberate Canada from frost giants. There's Ultron as a tree, rudimentary whale speak, and the line, "Food has backfired, somehow!" It's a good time all around, even if you care not a bit about the event itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment