"Behind me, the nine-foot tyrannosaurus rex... don't pretend you didn't notice him... That's Super Dinosaur. And he's my best friend."
The Evil Max Maximus wants to get to Inner-Earth! He wants the dinosaurs that live there! He wants the powerful DynOre mineral that originates there! SUPER DINOSAUR and DEREK DYNAMO are the only ones who can stop him! The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a ten year-old kid and his best friend, a nine-foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex who loves to play video games. — Official description
Super Dinosaur marks writer Robert Kirkman's first foray into family-friendly comic books. The Walking Dead and Invincible creator teams up with artist Jason Howard (having worked together previously on The Astounding Wolf-Man) to deliver a colorful, fun, and very comic-bookey series. Super Dinosaur as a series realizes its status as a comic book and revels in it. The villains ham it up, one liners abound, and there is a ton of action. While this may sound uninspired Kirkman gives us a number of intriguing characters and plotlines. Sometimes dealing with heavy emotional issues. Super Dinosaur is often referred to as a Saturday morning cartoon in comic book form.
In the conclusion of issue #23 Kirkman announced that SD is not cancelled and will return after a hiatus. In addition he teased that he is working on expanding the SD brand outside of comics which presumably means a series or movie. Indeed, the series received an All-CGI Cartoon Animated Adaptation produced by Spin Master Entertainment, Atomic Cartoons and Skybound Entertainment, which debuted in Teletoon on September 8, 2018. Tropes applying to the animated series should go here.
Super Dinosaur contains examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Energy bullets.
- Absent-Minded Professor: Doctor Dynamo. But it's only because Maximus did something to make him that way.
- Accidental Hug: Oola and The Exile. Embarrassment ensues.
- Action Duo: SD and Derek are a dynamic action duo.
- Adults Are Useless: Averted with the Kingston parents who maintain SD's harnesses and Dr. Dynamo who, despite his concentration problem, creates equipment for the team.
- Aliens Speaking English: The Reptiloids (from Inner Earth) and the Kalish (from the Moon) somehow speak English.
- Alliterative Family:
- Derek Dynamo and his dad, Dexter.
- Sisters Erin and Erica.
- Alliterative Name: Max Maximus.
- Applied Phlebotinum: DynOre, a powerful mineral discovered by Dr. Dynamo and Max Maximus.note
- Artificial Limbs: Maximus has a cybernetic left arm due to his treatment to SD and the T-rex biting back hard. SD's harness also qualifies.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Mega Raptor is enormous.
- Badass Boast: Being a T-Rex, SD doesn't really need them, but Issue #17 gives us this when he's dealing with Bool."If I really wanted to fight you—I'd WIN!"
- BFG: The majority of SD's weaponry. The Dino Men use these sometimes also.
- BFS: Painkylosaurus uses one of these in #5.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Derek has a tendency to go on about how very awesome things are.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Derek and SD all the time.
- Collapsed Mid-Speech: Derek is trying to address the inhabitants of inner moon when the green slime he was hit with earlier goes to work and puts him unconscious.
- Colour Coded Elements: SD's armors. The water one is blue, high-temp one is red-orange, jungle armor is green camo, etc.
- Cool Gate: Used by SD and the team to get from place to place quickly. Called sky doors or floor doors
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Derek and SD's first encounter with Tyrannosaurus X. T-X starts the fight by ripping one of SD's robotic arms off as if it were made of tissue paper. He later breaks Derek's weapons and throws him off a building. All in all Tyrannosaurus X handed SD and Derek their first flat out defeat and it was a doozy.
- Deus Exit Machina: Tricerachops (and The Exile) would probably have taken issue with Maximus' Project X so 'Chops is layed up for those four issues while The Exile is overthrowing Squidious' base.
- Dumb Muscle: Enforced with Maximus's Ultra Raptor; he made SD smaller and smarter, and since that didn't go so well, he made his new monster Bigger and Dumber,
- Enemy Mine: Squidious aids Earthcore to get revenge on The Exile for stealing his base and henchmen.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Exile and Oola definitely seem to be more than comrades in arms.
- Tricerachops and Tyrannosaurus X have each other now too.
- Evil Is Hammy: Most major villains, but Squidious takes the cake with lines like "You will feel my wrath!!!" or "What is the meaning of this?!?" regularly escaping from his squid mouth.
- Fake Arm Disarm: SD damages his robotic arms in almost every fight he's involved in. There's also Maximus whose fake arm is confiscated when he's incarcerated.
- Fantastic Diet Requirement: The Kalish eat the turd of Earth animals, due to it containing nitrates, which they need to sustain themselves.
- Fantastic Ghetto: The Beneath, where reptiloid lowlifes and misfits end up.
- Forced Transformation: Minimus is slowly becoming more dino than man due to problems in his creation.
- Foreshadowing: In the Origin special Derek jokes that He and SD once fought aliens and UFOs. When asked if it really happened Derek said "Not yet". Fast forward 8 issues and The Exile is revealed to be a Reptiloid and his species is planning to attack Earth. Be careful what you wish for Derek.
- Subverted; The Reptiloids are natives of Earth. Aliens show up immediately after this story arc, rather anti-climatically, as known residents (but not natives) of the Moon.
- Giant Foot of Stomping: The T-Rex that aids the team in Inner Earth.
- Girls Have Cooties: Derek believes Erin Kingston to have these in his self-made profile of her.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: The good guys wear white, red, and black. The bad guys wear black and greens. Oddly Tricerachops' colors align with the good guys.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Maximus's look of pain when his arm gets chomped off.
- Henchmen Race: The Dino Men were created by Maximus to be his servants. Not Always Chaotic Evil.
- Hollow World: The Earth is hollow in Super Dinosaur and houses a smaller one: Inner-Earth, which is inhabited by dinosaurs. And the Reptiloids.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: How SD has so many missiles and ammunition in his suit. Derek's gloves too.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Derek's Light Batons.
- Innocent Aliens: The Kalish live in Earth's moon, but they landed there out of necessity and don't have any bad blood with humans.
- Insectoid Aliens: The Sloon, one of the two Kalish races. The Krill look more crustacean than insectoid.
- Insistent Terminology: Elliot insists he be called by his codename of the week.
- Insufferable Genius: Derek, at times.
- Interspecies Friendship: Derek and Super Dinosaur.
- Jetpack: Use by Rocket Shock, Battle Blast —er, Elliot
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Employed on Maximus to make him forget about Inner Earth, unfortunately he escapes before it is finished.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the Bloodier and Gorier Invincible and The Walking Dead, Super Dinosaur is kid-friendly.
- Lost World: Inner Earth. A world where prehistoric animals and vegetation still live.
- Lunarians: The Kalish; aliens that inhabit the inside of Earth's moon.
- Macross Missile Massacre: SD's trademark attack "Missile Madness."
- Married to the Job: Oliver Manchester, Dr. Dynamo's jaded old friend, opted to dedicate his life to work instead of starting a family.
- Mini-Mecha: Derek and SD pilot a pair of these in issue 5. They then combine into a full on Humongous Mecha.
- Missing Mom: Four issues without a mention, and then we find out she's been not only kidnapped by Maximus, but erased from Derek's and Dynamo's memories.
- Mistaken for Aliens: Earthcore understandably think they are looking at a space alien when they unmask The Exile. In actuality he is from Inner Earth.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: The reason why Derek is able to do combat with Tricerachops.
- No One Could Survive That!: Said General Casey when Tyrannosaurus X was caught in a huge explosion that brought a building down on him.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Tricerachops (human/dinosaur) has them, Slann (insectoid alien) has them, but oddly Oola (reptiloid) doesn't.
- Oh, Crap!: Derek and SD seperately recite this at the end of issue 13.
- Page-Turn Surprise: Used well throughout the series. For instance the reveal of The Exile's identity and a double Oh, Crap! moment for Derek and SD.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: All the protagonists spew these.
- Powered Armor: Employed by SD obviously.
- Punny Name: Many of the villains are named by Derek. Let's see, Tricherachops and Breakeosaurus, just to name two.
- Maximus uses the same punny names, referring to two minions as Painkylosaurus and Doometrodon, so it's possible he came up with them.
- Relationship Reveal: The relationship between Tricerachops and Tyrannosaurus X comes out of nowhere because it's never hinted at and we don't see them interact until issue #20.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered by Maximus when he makes it into the Dynamo Dome.
- Rescue Arc: Escape From Inner Earth where SD, Erin, Erica, and Bat
- Rule of Cool: What the series revolves around.
- Save the Villain: In Inner Earth Derek has to save The Exile if he wants any chance of getting out alive.
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Schedule Slip: Since the end of the Escape From Inner Earth arc the schedule has been slipping increasingly. Presently it's a wait of two months or more for the new issue. The cause of the slippage is unclear. - Shout-Out: In #1 SD has an issue of The Astounding Wolf-Man (Kirkman and Howard's first series) on the floor of his room.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Bool and Slann. Two members of a species in the midst of a civil war. They leave their homes to be together and find a way to end the war.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Notably averted by Derek. He learns about The Exile's situation and motives yet still wants nothing to do with him.
- Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Dr. Dynamo was hit with one in the backstory. It didn't affect his IQ so much as his ability to use it.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: The Dinos all have these. Sometimes they glow.
- Totally Radical: Count how many times characters say 'Awesome' or 'Rad.'
- Transforming Mecha: Derek's power armor/ motorcycle.
- Trojan Horse: A holo-droid made to look like Julianna Dynamo.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Its understandable that Erica is a little bored by all the scientific mumbo jumbo, but you'd think she would be a little more intrigued by a talking dinosaur. Who plays video games.
- Villainous Rescue: Of the "I need you alive" variety by The Exile.
- Wham Line: Maximus in Issue 5: Were I in your shoes, I'd be worried about your wife.
