Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters and time.
Speaker 2: Long time listeners to Stuff to Blow Your Mind know
Speaker 2: that we have an enduring fascination with squirrels, particularly the
Speaker 2: Eastern gray squirrel, because these are the creatures I observe
Speaker 2: every day, and I constantly find myself either just taking
Speaker 2: them for granted or just suddenly recognizing how weird and
Speaker 2: fierce they are. They're such survivors, and the same could
Speaker 2: be said for Marvel's squirrel Girl. At first glance, you
Speaker 2: might think this particular superhero is just here for acute
Speaker 2: pose and a few laughs, and yeah, she's totally down
Speaker 2: for all of that. But since her creation in the
Speaker 2: early nineties by Will Murray and Steve Ditko, Squirrel Girl
Speaker 2: has scored victories against such iconic villains as Ultron, Galactus,
Speaker 2: Doctor Doom, and Thanos. Okay, so what are her powers,
Speaker 2: you might be wondering if you're not familiar with the
Speaker 2: character already. Well, first of all, it's important to note
Speaker 2: that squirrel Girl is not technically a mutant, but rather
Speaker 2: a typical Canadian girl who just gradually began to exhibit
Speaker 2: an amazing ability to communicate with squirrels and developed the
Speaker 2: various squirrel like physical abilities as pointed out by Mark
Speaker 2: Sumrec and Daniel Wallace in the excellent book marvel Anatomy.
Speaker 2: She boasts large incisors and rugged climbing claws, both attributes
Speaker 2: of the real world furry grappling hooks that we call squirrels.
Speaker 2: She also boasts a full fluffy squirrel tale, which I
Speaker 2: assume offers a number of benefits enjoyed by her namesake, balance,
Speaker 2: shade communication, and locomotion assistance while leaping, falling, landing, or swimming.
Speaker 2: Sumeric and Wallace put her vertical jumping ability at thirty
Speaker 2: feet or more than nine meters, which feels like a
Speaker 2: decent scaling up of squirrel leaping ability. How high could
Speaker 2: we leap if we had the leaping ability of a squirrel?
Speaker 2: I think that's about accurate. The one head scratcher, however,
Speaker 2: is that squirrel Girl also boasts extendable bone knuckle spikes.
Speaker 2: They extend wolverine style through the back of her palms.
Speaker 2: Jutting out just above her knuckles, enabling her to punch
Speaker 2: and carve through wood as well as through ultron drones. Obviously,
Speaker 2: rule of cool applies here, and the bone knuckle spikes
Speaker 2: are indeed cool, no doubt about it, but they do
Speaker 2: seem kind of unnecessary if we're comparing her to squirrels.
Speaker 2: Actual squirrels don't have them because they can handle all
Speaker 2: their woodworking and robot thrashing with teeth and claws alone.
Speaker 2: For natural world analogs to squirrel Girl's knuckle spikes or
Speaker 2: Wolverine's famous claus for that matter, we have to leave
Speaker 2: the mammal world behind and head into the amphibian world. First,
Speaker 2: we can look to the hairy frog or Tricobetracus robustus,
Speaker 2: which can break its own toe bones and extend them
Speaker 2: through the flesh as makeshift defensive claws, which may later retract,
Speaker 2: allowing the flesh to heal back over again. Male autumn
Speaker 2: frogs or Babina subaspera, also boast a different form of
Speaker 2: retractable spike that extends from under the thumb. Both of
Speaker 2: these species are commonly compared to the fictional wolverine, though
Speaker 2: his namesake animal also makes do with just teeth and
Speaker 2: finger claws alone, no extendable or retractable claws required. Now,
Speaker 2: I know there are frog based superheroes and supervillains in
Speaker 2: the Marvel world, but do any of them have extendable
Speaker 2: horror clause? I don't think that they do, at least
Speaker 2: not yet, so I do put the question out there
Speaker 2: for any of you comic book fans and especially in
Speaker 2: of you hardcore Marvel geeks. If you have an answer
Speaker 2: to this question right in, I would love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster
Speaker 2: Fact the Artifact for Animalius Dupendium each week. As always,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at Stuffdblow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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