Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur may seem like an unlikely pairing but it works in the most absurdly hilarious kind of way. – Photos: Marvel Comics
If you are a fan of the popular mobile video game Marvel Snap!, you would have come across two cards that are quite commonly used together in the game – Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
The powers of the two characters complement each other in the game, which is apt, because they are actually also superhero partners in the Marvel comic books.
While Devil Dinosaur has actually been around the Marvel comics universe for a while now (45 years to be exact), Moon Girl is a relatively new character who has only been around for 8 years (which is young for a Marvel character!)
The duo is also the star of a brand new animated series called Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, which made its debut earlier this year on Disney Channel (it’s not on Disney+ yet, unfortunately), and has been garnering great reviews for its animation style, punchy story, and positive, inclusive messages.
So, who exactly are Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur? Here are a few things you should know about this unlikely pair of heroes.
Devil Dinosaur is exactly what the name suggests – a giant, red-coloured Tyrannosaurus Rex. He is actually a 45-year-old Marvel character who was created by the one and only Jack ‘The King’ Kirby, along with his original partner, Moon Boy.
Devil Dinosaur's original partner was Moon Boy.Kirby created the characters in 1978 for a book called Devil Dinosaur, which was only published because Marvel had heard that DC Comics was about to release an animated Kamandi series.
Ironically, that Kamandi show never materialised, and Devil Dinosaur lasted a mere nine issues before being cancelled.
Anyway, Devil Dinosaur is from a planet called Dinosaur World (yes, we know, how original). Moon Boy, a small boy from a tribe called the, er, Small-Folk, rescued the dinosaur as a hatchling, from the Killer-Folk tribe, who tried to burn him with their fire. That fire triggered a mutation that gave Devil Dinosaur super strength and increased intelligence, as well as turning his skin from green to red.
After a period of time where they were relegated to cameos and one-shots, the duo eventually got permanently stranded on Earth-616 after the sorceress Jennifer Kale accidentally summons them into New York City, only to be stopped by Ghost Rider (Ghost Rider #82, 1997).
The duo is later relocated to the Savage Land, where they seemingly stayed until 2015, when a major revamp of Marvel’s universe saw Moon Boy replaced with Lunella Lafayette, a.k.a Moon Girl!
Created by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder, and Natacha Bustos and first appearing in 2015’s Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, Lunella Lafayette is not your typical nine-year-old. She’s also a science prodigy for whom school no longer holds any knowledge worth learning about, and where her bullying classmates have decided to stick her with the nickname ‘Moon Girl’.
Having found out that she possesses the Inhuman gene and fearing the prospect of being turned into a monster if she is ever exposed to the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mist (which activates the gene and gives one superpowers), she sets out to find a way to stop that from happening.
During one of her scavenger hunts, Lunella comes across a Kree device called an Omni-Wave-Projector, and decides to try and use it to remove the Inhuman gene from her body.
Dinosaur, meet girl. Girl, meet dinosaur.
When the device is accidentally activated by one of her teachers at school during gym class, it opens a portal to Dinosaur World, where Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur were at that moment trying to prevent the Killer Folk from getting THEIR hands on the Omni-Wave-Projector, which they call the ‘Nightstone’.
Unfortunately, Moon Boy is tragically beaten to death by the Killer Folk, who venture through the portal in order to regain their ‘Nightstone’. Before dying, Moon Boy makes Devil Dinosaur promise to avenge him and stop the Killer folk from getting their hands on the Nightstone.
And that’s how Devil ended up on Earth-616, and met Lunella.
Moon Boy is tragically killed by the Killer Folk.
One of the downsides of Lunella switching minds with Devil is her human body running around roaring a lot.After embracing her friendship with Devil and also defeating the Killer Folk in her first story arc, Lunella is eventually exposed to the Terrigen Mist after all, despite all her efforts to avoid it.
After hatching from her Terrigen cocoon, it doesn’t seem as if she gained any powers, or that anything had changed. That is, until she gets angry in class, and suddenly switches minds with Devil Dinosaur!
As it turns out, the switch only occurs when she gets really, really angry or really, really hungry, and sometimes during the full moon as well. While she has since been able to learn to talk while in Dinosaur mode, the downside is that her Lunella body is extremely vulnerable when the switch occurs, and is prone to rampage around shouting ‘ROAR’ a lot.
Hulk, meet dinosaur. Dinosaur, meet Hulk.Moon Girl's first ever superhero team-up was with The Hulk. Well, sort of.
It was actually the Amadeus Cho version of the Hulk, a.k.a the “Totally Awesome Hulk” who was the first superhero Lunella made contact with.
Showing up after Lunella and Devil had helped her rescue her classmates from a school fire, Hulk gets into a fight with Devil, and of course, wins.
Having already formed a bond with Devil, this was the catalyst for Lunella to finally cast aside her misgivings about being a ‘superhero’ and embrace the name ‘Moon Girl’ once and for all, as she sets out to rescue Devil from captivity!
As it turns out, not only is Lunella super smart, she could also be THE smartest person on the planet. Yes, even smarter than Tony Stark, Reed Richards and Doctor Doom!
Lunella's Moon Girl outfit includes a backpack full of useful gadgets, a utility belt, roller skates, and her trademark spring powered boxing glove.This is after Cho gave her Bruce Banner’s B.O.X. (Brain Omnicompetence EXaminer) test, and she solves it in a matter of seconds, faster than anyone has ever done.
The test somehow proves that she is the smartest person on Earth, a title that also comes with repercussions, as at one point, Doctor Doom himself came a-calling in order to prove his intellect against hers!
Her superior intellect has also enabled her to invent an arsenal of gadgets and weapons she uses in her Moon Girl guise, including a backpack full of useful gadgets, a utility belt, roller skates, and her trademark spring powered boxing glove!
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur were once part of the Fantastic Four as well.Since her debut in 2015, Lunella has not only established herself as one of Marvel-616’s primary teen superheroes, she has also teamed up with a number as well, including fellow genius Riri ‘Ironheart’ Williams, the Hulk (again), a Doombot head (who ended up living in her lab), Ego The Living Planet, Secret Warriors, Power Pack, and even the Avengers.
The duo were part of the Fantastic Four at one point (Devil even got his own FF uniform!), and during this time, they travelled back in time to rescue Moon Boy. Now that’s what we call a happy ending!
