By: Munira Ahmadad

‘Marvel Rivals’ is a 3rd person shooter game developed by NetEase Games. On December 6th, it was released on Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows. On release, ‘Marvel Rivals’ has 33 Marvel comic characters to play as, including the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Doreen Green, better known as Squirrel Girl, is a Canadian Marvel heroine in New York who debuted back in 1991. In her first appearance, she is a girl who has various squirrel-like abilities caused by a genetic mutation. Some of her powers are super strength, a strong bite force, retractable claws, and she’s good at tracking things. Similar to other characters like Wolverine, she has regenerative healing.

Squirrel Girl is a character readers find funny, as on her first appearance in the comics, she’s a 14-year-old who teams up with Iron Man, saves him, and defeats Doctor Doom. She didn’t defeat a Doombot, she defeated the actual Doctor Doom. Victor von Doom is one of the most threatening villains in the comics, so people found it a bit odd how a teenager with no training managed to beat him.

Unfortunately for Doreen, Iron Man did not take her as a sidekick and he tells her she’s too young to be a superhero.

Being a character who’s powers surround talking to squirrels and being a squirrel, she’s considered a silly and lighthearted hero. Her beating numerous characters who are definitely stronger than her is a recurring joke. They often work around the strength difference by making the fights off-page/only showing the aftermath. One of her most iconic victories would be her against Thanos, though later it’s revealed by Thanos she actually defeated a perfect clone of him (even though the Thanos who said that is a clone himself with altered memory). Another popular victory would be her convincing Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds, not to eat earth.

Squirrel Girl’s strength level has been a topic of discussion and personally, even though I’m not into her in the comics, she’s been one of my favorite characters since I played her in Lego Marvel Superheroes (2013) as a little kid. I haven’t played ‘Marvel Rivals’ yet but when I do, I’m planning on main-ing Doreen.