As the MCU's Phase 4 struggles to move past The Infinity Saga, the answer to the franchise could lie with Squirrel Girl, the one Marvel hero who single-handedly defeated Thanos. The Infinity Saga, which revolved around Thanos as the villain, played out over 11 years of movies. Now the specter of Kang the Conqueror and the introduction of the multiverse in Phase 4 feel like a retread of Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet, and just how much patience audiences have for another decade of interconnected Marvel movies, plus additional Disney+ MCU series, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the success of the series Moon Knight, with its limited MCU connections, proves that audiences are keen to watch something new and independent of the overarching franchise narrative. And Squirrel Girl is another obscure Marvel creation that could really freshen up the MCU. Since making her comic book debut as a keen young superhero wishing to become Iron Man's sidekick, she has defeated such major Marvel villains as Doctor Doom, MODOK, and Thanos. Squirrel Girl also saved the planet from Galactus with her powers of conflict resolution. She and her squirrel sidekick, Tippy Toe, simply talked the planet-eating god out of devouring the Earth by providing him with an uninhabited planet of nuts to eat instead.

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Introducing Squirrel Girl into the MCU, preferably with her own show capturing the same breezy tone of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics, would offer a goofy subversion of the doom-laden portent that has come to define the franchise post-Infinity Saga. An Unbeatable Squirrel Girl MCU series could be akin to Star Trek: Lower Decks. Both the Squirrel Girl comics and that meta Star Trek animated spinoff focus on less-championed characters in their respective canons. Because Star Trek is rarely interested in the lives of those not in command roles, Lower Decks stands out while standing on its own. Similarly, Squirrel Girl has been a bit of a joke for decades, existing on the periphery of the huge events tackled by the various Avengers, and she too could be an antidote to the relentless foreboding and arc-building elsewhere in the MCU.

Like Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl tells satisfying stories that balance irreverence with a strong literacy in its franchise's lore. Some of the best Squirrel Girl comics bring fresh takes on long-running Marvel characters. For example, in one issue, Kraven the Hunter was convinced to instead hunt the hunters, culminating in a hilarious visual gag involving him and an unsuspecting fisherman. There is over a decade worth of material to draw from in the MCU alone (look at how the What If...? animated series already mined from that material in service to the greater multiverse angle of Phase 4) that provides an enormous creative sandbox for a metafictional series like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to play in.

Whether they're in canon or just outside of it, affectionate parodies like Star Trek: Lower Decks and DC's Teen Titans Go! (plus the in-the-works animated series spinoff X-Files: Albuquerque) deliver something familiar yet divergent and full of levity for their fanbases to enjoy. In lovingly poking fun at itself with a playful Squirrel Girl show or movie, Phase 4 of the MCU could finally move beyond the enormous success of the Infinity Saga and puncture some of the more pompous aspects of their wider cinematic universe.

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