Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl vs. Dr. Doom, which feels like the longest absurd battle of all time. It just seemed like it was going to go on forever. This issue makes it all worth it, this issue has North bringing all the elements together–and there are a lot of them and he creates more problems to solve here–and presenting them to the reader. There’s so much time travel stuff. North is thoughtful about it but not overly serious about it. It’s a great time travel storyline. In Squirrel Girl. Involving Dr. Doom.

Henderson has a lot of different stuff to draw, but she’s got to keep up an insane pace. North is hurrying the reader. He’s not in a hurry, he’s intentionally hurrying the reader to control expectation. It requires Henderson to convey a lot of information without taking up room, both on the page and in the reader’s imagination.

I really like this comic. It started pretty strong and North and Henderson just work to make it better and better. Even with a silly villain like Dr. Doom, they’re able to turn in some excellent mainstream work.

I’m only going to complain a little but I am going to complain. North really can’t handle this arc; I mean, this issue isn’t a bridging issue, it isn’t an anything issue. It’s too much a part of the story arc–Squirrel Girl back in time trying to stop Dr. Doom from taking over the future–so nothing else really builds. There’s also not much to do build in the past. Or at least North isn’t going that route.

Instead, he’s got a lot of talking heads. Lots of planning, lots of Doom ranting. Just lots of talking. There’s some good art–Henderson can keep up with the talking, but she also gets to do a bit of variety–future Doom-world, 1960s New York. Henderson is really pushing things here, which is good. The book needs energy from somewhere.

Some of the issue might just be Dr. Doom saturation. He’s such a “fun” villain, but he’s got limited character possibilities. While North gets to a good cliffhanger with Doom this issue, he takes forever to get there.

There’s something so great about Dr. Doom as buffoon. Maybe because Dr. Doom as loquacious villain gets boring fast. But does anyone actually use him as anything but a buffoon anymore? Squirrel Girl marks the second thing I’ve read from Marvel in the last year featuring Doom–and I’m pretty sure I’ve only read three Marvel series–so he appears, as comic relief, in two-thirds of the Marvel comics I read.

And they’re better for it.

The thing about North is he loves his characters. He loves Doreen, he loves Nancy, he loves Tippy. He loses track of himself with the characters, even when he has this rather complex time travel story with Doom. It’s not present Doom, it’s past Doom, going into even further past, pre-Marvel Age era. I’m not even sure I get it all. But it’s cool North has this much thought for his time travel paradox. It’s care. Squirrel Girl is made with care.

Henderson’s art does a great job with the flashback setting. She initially conveys the era just through clothing (before opening up to exteriors for the fight scene) and it’s awesome.

Squirrel Girl is a good comic.

I’m not an expert on time travel stories. I like them, with all their in-jokes and so on, but I don’t really care. They’re a special event and should be rare ones. So I wasn’t expecting Ryan North to write the best time travel story, in terms of in-jokes, references and so on, since Back to the Future. Doreen and Tippy get sent back in time to just before the dawn of the Marvel Age. Maybe by Dr. Doom. Doesn’t matter; the details are never going to be as awesome as North’s execution.

Henderson’s art is essential–the mood and pace of the time travel tropes North acknowledges, utilizes, and ignores get conveyed more in how Henderson breaks out the page than in how North scripts the scene. It’s action-packed talking heads.

But North also has Nancy in the present trying to find her. Amid the great time travel story, there’s this neat (not as exceptional, but really neat) look at how technology has changed since the Internet. Squirrel Girl is a comic with real constraint–it’s about Squirrel Girl–but North and Henderson do deliver a very modern “retro” comic. It’s sixties Marvel done for the Twitter age.

It’s quite good.

I didn’t finish the last Squirrel Girl series, which is getting a very soft reboot here. I think there was a Secret Wars crossover. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish it. No good reason.

Doreen, Tippy and the whole gang are back. Including a couple new people who must’ve come into the comic after I stopped reading it.

The first third of the comic is setting up the new ground situation. Doreen is a sophomore, she’s living with Nancy in an apartment. She has a crimefighting partner who controls chipmunks or something. It’s cute. Ryan North writes some gently funny, amiable dialogue for the characters and it’s fine. Erica Henderson’s art’s good.

But it feels very perfunctory. Until the third act, after Doreen’s mom shows up and there’s a superhero fight scene. Not between Doreen and her mom, but between Squirrel Girl and a Hellboy villain. The fight scene isn’t even the good part. It’s after the fight scene, when North shows why Squirrel Girl is a different kind of book.

North and Henderson are fully aware of where they can go for the joke, but they don’t want to go for the low-hanging gags. They work until they get somewhere with the comic. There’s an infectious, precious sincerity to Squirrel Girl.