Mortlake on the Schuylkill

Since recently re-reading the "First Kiss" feature in I Heart Marvel: Masked Intentions #1, I've been giving some serious thought to Marvel's Civil War.

And I've concluded that Squirrel Girl is the key to the entire thing. There's no mistaking the fact that she's got independant and deep connections to (not one but) two of the main players at the heart of the event, and I'd bet that, like Kevin Bacon, one we started thinking about it, we'd find even more.

Squirrel Girl carries a major torch for Speedball, the young man whose actions sparked the whole affair. And though her passion for the camera-hungry youth could be discounted as a mere schoolgirl's crush, Squirrel Girl did receive a large measure of reciprocation from Speedball on the final page of "First Kiss."


Call me a starry-eyed fangirl, but I simply cannot imagine that Squirrel Girl is going to allow a de-powered Speedball to rot in some Federal prison on her watch, the punching bag of venal guards and enraged convicts. (And, to add insult to injury, the recipient of relentlessly lame legal advice from Jennifer Walters.) Given these circumstances, inaction on Squirrel Girl's part would be most uncharacteristic. Mark my words, she will act, eager to mete out the necessary payback to those responsible for placing Speedball in his present situation.

In addition, Squirrel Girl has tangled with Iron Man in the past. In introducing herself to Tony Stark as a teen-aged mutant and would-be superhero, she put a small portion of her skills on display.


In that encounter, Stark foolishly spurned her offer to become his partner, though he later accepted her assistance in taking down Dr. Doom.

And though the ways of the squirrel are both subtle and strange, there can be no mistaking that Squirrel Girl gets the job done.


All I can say is: Iron Man, you better be watching your back.