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In Marvel Super Heroes volume 2 #8 (December 1991), Squirrel Girl defeated Dr. Doom by overwhelming him with a massive amount of Squirrels. How did this overwhelm Dr. Doom, who has been established as one of the premier villains in the Marvel Universe? Or more to the point, why did multiple squirrels attacking him distract him?

Also she has canonically defeated various other super villains; how?

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Well, as to Dr. Doom, she overwhelmed him with something he wasn't ready for (think a zerg rush in your favorite MMORPG).. When you are armed to shoot down a bomber, 500,000 mosquitoes showing up instead can be an issue...

From the Marvel Wiki entry:

Hundreds of squirrels answered her call and flooded Doom's ship, chewing through the wires, and swamping the evil dictator with their furry bodies. Doom exclaimed "Confound these wretched rodents! For every one I fling away, a dozen more vex me!"

AS to other villains? Yep..

Also from her entry:

Thus far, Squirrel Girl has beaten: Doctor Doom, Mandarin, Giganto, M.O.D.O.K., Thanos, Terrax, Bug-Eyed Voice, Bi-Beast, Deadpool and Pluto.

And... lest you wonder if her victories couldn't be explained away (Doombots, dreams, etc...) the authors like to engage in Lampshade Hanging with them, while clearly documenting their canon status. enter image description here

Also, see her entry at TvTropes, which contains one my favorite SG moments...

It also creates a Crowning Moment of Funny when she goes to Latveria to borrow Dr. Doom's time machine. Doom just sighs and points her to the room, not even bothering to try and stop her.

Incidentally, if you check out her power stats on the official Marvel.com page for her - they are ALL maxed; this puts her stats on par with various god-like beings such as the Living Tribunal. (Marvel.com, in this case, being about as solidly canon as can be hoped for.)

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    I've read those already, but they don't really give much in the way of explaining why that worked. I'd have thought someone like Doom or Thanos would have outclassed her in someway.
    – AncientSwordRage
    Jan 3, 2012 at 15:42
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    Yep; that's why they do it off screen.. It's never clearly indicated HOW she does it.. just that she does it.. She's a bit of a parody / throw back to Silver Age Comics / favorite of the writers.... so she accomplishes all sorts of stuff, but usually off-camera.
    – K-H-W
    Jan 3, 2012 at 15:46
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    It's a universal rule of storytelling that the hero(ine) with the fewest advantages will always be the most likely to win. (Exception: the hero(ine) who deliberately tries to take advantage of this rule will always fail.) Jan 18, 2012 at 15:57
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    I don't think you can zerg rush people in an MMORPG. Isn't that something you do in a very specific RTS?
    – Paul
    Apr 1, 2014 at 22:40
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    How many billions of squirrels would have died to defeat Thanos... DAMN ULTRA SQUIRREL GENOCIDE!! She's a monster!
    – Daft
    Feb 20, 2015 at 11:12

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