Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a 2015 Marvel comic book, published as part of their All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative. It's written by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare (Rocket Girl), with art by Natacha Bustos.
Lunella Layfayette is a brilliant young girl living in New York City, often found tinkering with gadgets of her own invention. Despite her genius intellect, Lunella's peers tease her for being a dreamer, calling her names like "Moon Girl." As if being an unpopular, super-smart kid weren't enough to deal with, she's also aware of an disturbing truth about herself: that she's a latent Inhuman.
Elsewhere, in the Valley of The Flame on Earth-78411, fire-breathing Devil Dinosaur witnesses the death of his friend Moon-Boy at the hands of the rival Killer-Folk tribe. When an Omni-Wave Projector developed by the Kree teleports the Killer-Folk to present-day Earth-616, Devil Dinosaur follows them, meeting Lunella in the process.
Though Lunella is successful in helping Devil Dinosaur fight the Killer-Folk, she's soon exposed to a gust of Terrigen Mist, effectively launching her dreaded Terrigenesis. When she awakes, nothing seems to have changed about her... until she discovers that her Inhuman ability is body-swapping, seemingly activated in moments of intense emotion. Her first partner? Devil Dinosaur himself.
Together, Lunella and Devil joined the new Secret Warriors during Secret Empire, working alongside the likes of Ms. Marvel, Quake, and Karnak. Lunella also became a member of the so-called "Fantastic Three" with The Thing and Human Torch, for a brief moment.
The first issue was released November 25, 2015. The series ended with issue #47, released in September 2019.
The series was followed in 2022 by Moon Girl: Endangered Species, a set of linked one-shots teaming the stars with other Marvel heroes. A second series of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur launched at the end of 2022.
An animated series starring the duo was greenlit by Marvel Animation in 2018, with Laurence Fishburne's Cinema Gypsy production company overseeing the project at Disney Television Animation. The series premiered on Disney Channel in February 2023.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur appear in:
Notable Comic Books
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Vol 1 (2015 — 2019)
- Secret Warriors Vol 2 (2017 — 2018)
- Moon Girl: Endangered Species (2022)
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Vol 2 (2022-)
Webcomics
- Devil Dinosaur (2023)
Western Animation
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023)
Video Games
- Marvel Future Fight (2015-Present)
- MARVEL SNAP (2022-Present)
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur provides examples of:
- Alien Among Us: In the hopes of impressing his strict father, Mel-Varr —a young Kree boy from Nova Hala IV— arrives on Earth to capture Lunella, adopting the human identity of Marvin Ellis and enrolling at Lunella's school.
- All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: Moon-Boy and the Killer-Folk are ape-like hominids from The Valley of The Flame in Earth-78411, a prehistoric alternate reality.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Issue 20 has Lunella acknowledge that Devil Dinosaur doesn't have any feathers shortly before ending up in a parallel universe where his counterpart does. She also acknowledges that he came from an alternate reality where dinosaurs and early humans live together.
- Appropriated Appellation: "Moon Girl" is a pejorative nickname given to Lunella by her classmates, which she eventually learns to embrace as her superhero identity.
- Blessed with Suck: Lunella considers being an Inhuman this; even before going through Terragenesis, she lives in constant fear the Terragin mist will reach her and cause her to drastically change, making her no longer human. He opinion doesn't improve once she does go through Terragenesis, as her "Freaky Friday" Flip ability is uncontrollable and causes her to regularly switch body with Devil Dinosaur, which from her classmates' perspective cause her to randomly go in Wild Child mode on regular basis, with her having to deal with the consequences when she gets back to her body. One of her primary motivations is to find a cure to her condition.
- Breath Weapon: DD can breathe fire because he's a mutant dinosaur who was burned by the Killer-Folk. It's also why his coloring changed from olive green to bright red.
- The Bus Came Back: All of the heroes Lunella encounters during Vol 3, Kid Kree, and the Killer Folk join up to fight Doctor Doom.
- Child Prodigy: Lunella is nine years old and the smartest person in the Marvel Universe.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: DD is a fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus rex, which is justified by the fact he was mutated.
- Fantastic Racism: Culturally the Kree have a lot of disdain for Inhumans as a failed military project and a rogue asset that's a regular thorn in the side of their Empire.
- Fights Like a Normal: Moon Girl is an Inhuman, but starts out the story as pre-Terragenesis, and her power, when finally revealed, doesn't really have much use in combat, so she relies mainly on her skills as a Gadgeteer Genius to fight.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Lunella's Inhuman ability.
- Gadgeteer Genius: What Lunella is known for by her family and peers. She even has her own secret mad scientist laboratory!
- Genius Ditz: The Killer Folk are violent cavemen who want to conquer the world, but they're smart enough to learn the English language and blend into society within a few weeks. By issue 5, they're running a gang with a "protection" racket.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The Kree Omni-Wave Projector that Lunella acquires can be applied to a lot of different machinery.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Kid Kree/Mel-Varr is less of a threat and more of a nine-year old Kree trying to impress his dad. He even stops local crimes during his attempts to capture Lunella. He later attempts to switch sides when he falls in love with Lunella, but she isn't interested and sends him on his way.
- Innocently Insensitive: How older people come off at times when they dismiss Lunella. A good example are her concerns over Terrigenesis. The Totally Awesome Hulk says it's awesome having superpowers, ignoring that not only does Lunella not want any powers at all, but that Terrigenesis itself is a lottery that worst case scenario could kill her.
- Insufferable Genius: Lunella has elements of it, grown largely as a response to people talking down to her.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: Lunella isn't very popular with her young peers.
- Just the Introduction to the Opposites: At one point Lunella meets Illa, the Girl Moon. In an accidental trip to a parallel universe, she meets Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur.
- Meaningful Name: Eventually, Lunella figures out a pattern to her powers besides emotions: she always switches with Devil Dinosaur during a full moon.
- Not Now, Kiddo: A major frustration for Lunella with adults is their tendency to dismiss her in spite of her genius. She's not as mature emotionally as she is intellectually, so there is some justification, but even other underraged heroes can underestimate her, if not ignore her input entirely.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Lunella doesn't take Dr. Strange seriously because of this, deriding his magic as "new-age mumbo jumbo." Not even his insistence that he has an M.D. helps.
- Open Secret: Moon Girl's real identity is meant to be a secret. Except nearly everyone figures it out almost immediately, and the only people who bother pretending it's a secret are Lunella's friends, for the sake of politeness.
- Parents as People: Lunella's parents love her dearly, but they are both way out of their depth raising the smartest person in the Marvel Universe and tend to put an emphasis on being normal. They also woefully underestimate their daughter's fears of being Inhuman.
- Product Placement: Her school holds a rather prominent Lego contest.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: DD's motivation for following the Killer-Folk into Earth-616, which he carries out literally.
- Sacrificial Lion: Moon-Boy's death has considerable resonance for readers who've been fans of his since being introduced in the 1970s.
- Series Continuity Error: Issue 10 has Doctor Doom find out about Lunella being the smartest person in the world. However, he is portrayed still in his armor and in Latveria, something he hasn't been since the end of Secret Wars (2015). Subverted when Lunella encounters him and notes that he "looks the way he did when I was a kid" and figures out he's just a bunch of malfunctioning Doombots.
- Shown Their Work: Moon Dinosaur, Devil Dinosaur's Alternate Universe counterpart, is an accurately-feathered Tyrannosaurus. As in, he has feathers only on the dorsal region, the part where feathers most likely would be present on Tyrannosaurus.
- Taking Up the Mantle: Mel-Varr adopts the name Captain Kree in memory of Mar-Vell, the original Captain Marvel.
- T. Rexpy: Devil Dinosaur looks like a T. rex, but is larger, stronger, more intelligent (although not human-level intelligent), and colored bright red. Despite his appearance, he's never explicitly identified as a T. rex.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Eduardo and Zoe frequently bicker with each other, but spend an inordinate amount of time together. They also become less mean to Lunella after she's partnered with them for a Lego project, to the point of going trick-or treating dressed as her and Devil Dinosaur, as well as helping her home after a battle with Doom.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Mel-Varr ran away to seize an Inhuman to make his father proud of him. Prudently he targets one with the least experience possible, which happens to be Lunella.
- Wild Child: When Lunella and DD swap bodies for the first time, this is how DD behaves in Lunella's body — much to the horror of her classmates.
- Wolverine Publicity: Issue four features a guest appearance by Amadeus Cho, the Totally Awesome Hulk.
- She's also, as of February 2017, met Cho again, her future Secret Warriors teammate Ms. Marvel twice, the Thing (appropriate since she lives on Yancy Street) and Doctor Strange.
