Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #6
Writers: Brandon Montclare & Amy Reeder
Artist: Natacha Bustos
Colourist: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
Editors: Mark Paniccia & Emily Shaw
Publisher: Marvel
A review by Amelia Wellman
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is exactly what it sounds like while also being so much more than what it sounds like! It’s a definite good thing. The comic follows a little girl obsessed with science and a red dinosaur with flaming eyes. What more does a comic need?
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are in part six of their “BFF” story line. Over the last six issues we’ve learned that Lunella Lafayette is a strange little girl in a few ways. She’s a young black girl that’s an outcast because she’s a scientific genius and because she’s inherited the inhuman gene. She is one terrigen mist away from it being activated and that’s the last thing she wants. She’s on a search for the omni-wave projector, a piece of Kree alien technology that she believes will stop the transformation and help everyone with the inhuman gene. Enter Devil Dinosaur. He goes where the omni-wave projector goes and, through a series of time travelling escapades, ends up in New York with Lunella.
Lunella, since issue one, has had the omni-wave projector almost in her grasps. Unfortunately, when Devil Dinosaur comes through the time travel portal, so do a brutish group of proto-humans that call themselves the Killer Folk. They revere the omni-wave like a god and offer it a blood sacrifice every full moon. They get their hands on the omni-wave and begin terrorizing Lunella’s neighbourhood, so Lunella takes matters into her own hands by teaming up with Devil Dinosaur and becoming Moon Girl.
I think what’s so compelling about the story of Moon Girl is that she’s a kid. Who knew that comics could ever be as simple as that? But this isn’t just a story for children. Anyone who ever felt like an outsider is going to relate to Lunella. She’s a little girl that’s incredibly gifted and wise beyond her years. While those around her are telling her to slow down and just act like a kid, she’s taking it upon herself to determine her own path. She doesn’t want her inhuman gene to activate so she studies alien technologies, she builds her own secret lab, she researches and invents devices. She even fights the Hulk at one point! But, since she’s a kid she does run into a few problems. The biggest one being that no one takes her seriously. The adults around her tell her to leave her problems to them to solve. Being the person that she is though, she doesn’t. And it’s amazing to watch this little girl take on the world!
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur’s art is as child friendly as the story. It’s cartoony, colourful, and very expressive: there’s never going to be a panel where you don’t know how a character is feeling. The action is laid out nicely as well and pages are never cluttered or confusing. Plus, Lunella is just so freaking adorable in her Moon Girl costume!
The Verdict
Buy it! Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is about science, discovery, technology, and opens with a quote from a scientist every issue. It stars, not only a little girl, but a little girl of colour! Lunella Lafayette is black and this is a good step towards diversifying comics! She’s smart, brave, and stands up for herself and her beliefs! She’s a role model for children and is a child herself. Mind = blown! This series has got gadgets, alien technology, a dinosaur, and diversity. Like I said before, what more does a comic need?
