Squirrel Girl

Doreen Green has a prehensile tail, retractable claws, the ability to talk to squirrels, and an unbroken record against some of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. She beat Doctor Doom in her very first appearance in 1992. She has since talked down Galactus, defeated Thanos, and been used by Marvel as the running joke that keeps turning out to be a genuinely great character.

Ryan North and Erica Henderson's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl from 2015 is why she is famous. It played her powers absolutely straight, gave her a computer science degree, a squirrel sidekick named Tippy-Toe and a habit of defeating villains by understanding them, and ran fifty-eight issues on charm and structural cleverness. She is Marvel's best argument that a silly premise executed with total commitment beats a serious one executed lazily.

Will Murray and Steve Ditko created Doreen in Marvel Super-Heroes #8, an anthology issue in which she teams with Iron Man and defeats Doctor Doom. She spent a decade as an in-joke before Dan Slott's Great Lakes Avengers gave her a home and a growing reputation for beating people she should not be able to beat.

Ryan North, Erica Henderson and Rico Renzi's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl in 2015 transformed her. Running fifty-eight issues, it made her a computer science student at Empire State University, gave her Tippy-Toe, and built stories around outthinking villains rather than punching them, including a widely praised issue in which she defeats Galactus by finding him a better planet.

She has since served with the New Avengers, the Champions and the U.S. Avengers, and her win record against top-tier threats has become a genuine piece of Marvel canon rather than a gag.