Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring Lunella Lafayette / Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as its main protagonists, respectively a 9-year-old Inhuman girl who is described as the smartest character in the Marvel Universe, and a dinosaur with whom she shares a mental link. Written by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder and primarily drawn by Natacha Bustos, the series is a direct sequel to Moon-Boy and Devil Dinosaur by Jack Kirby. The series lasted 47 issues, from November 2015 to September 2019.
An animated television series adaptation, starring Diamond White and Fred Tatasciore as the titular characters, aired for two seasons from February 2023 to March 2025. A brief relaunch of the comic book, subtitled Menace on Wheels, was published in 2023 as a tie-in with the series.
Publication history
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was created by writers Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, and artist Natacha Bustos, launching in November 2015 as a direct sequel to the Moon-Boy and Devil Dinosaur series from Jack Kirby, hence the first villains that Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur face being the Killer-Folk.The genesis of the series came from editor Mark Paniccia, who was a fan of the character Devil Dinosaur and, along with editor Emily Shaw, had hired Montclare and Reeder to pen the basis for a new series that involved the character ending up in modern day. They came up with the idea of Devil Dinosaur interacting with a girl reminding him of his partner Moon-Boy and fell in love with the idea of working with a hero who wasn't a "regular cape-and-tights superhero". Reeder explains the primary inspiration for the creation of the character:
Artist Natacha Bustos found Moon Girl a relief from the norm of other typical superheroes. She was primarily inspired by the clear diversity that Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur promoted, further comparing the character Lunella to herself. She compared her story to a "Ghibli one" due to the immense relationship between the title characters.
Lunella Lafayette's primary gift is her advanced intelligence. She is dubbed the "smartest person in the whole world" by Amadeus Cho, implying that she is more intelligent than other geniuses in the Marvel Universe such as Valeria Richards, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Victor von Doom, Hank Pym, and Cho himself. She uses her intelligence to build a wide variety of gadgets that she uses in battle. Her "battle armor" consists of boxing headgear, goggles, suspenders, a computerized utility belt, backpack, some minor weapons, and a special pair of roller-skates. Lunella's Inhuman abilities allow her to switch consciousnesses with Devil Dinosaur whenever she is angry or extremely hungry. Due to her intelligence, she is also capable of speech while in his body. She also possesses some manner of enhanced strength, but according to Captain Kree it is insignificant compared to her other abilities.
Issue #47 of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was billed as the final issue of the series, although a limited-run relaunch of the series subtitled Menace on Wheels would see publication in 2023 as a tie-in with the self-titled animated series.
Plot summary
Heroic beginnings
Lunella Louise Lafayette is a young Haitian-American girl who is the daughter of Adria Lafayette and James Lafayette. She daydreams and loves to invent. Despite possessing an astoundingly large intellect, Lunella is unable to get into better schools and attends Public School 20 Anna Silver. Her classmates make fun of her and dub her Moon Girl because of these qualities.In the Savage Land, Devil Dinosaur and his enemies, the Killer Folk, are transported to New York by a temporal vortex, which also kills his companion Moon-Boy. Moon-Boy's dying wish was for Devil Dinosaur to reclaim the sacred Nightstone from the Killer Folk and avenge him.
Lunella later obtains the Nightstone, identifies it as a Kree Omni-Wave Projector, and intends to use it to stop her latent Inhuman genes from activating. She comes into conflict with Amadeus Cho / Totally Awesome Hulk and the Killer Folk before being caught in a cloud of Terrigen Mist and enveloped in a cocoon as her body mutates.
After Terrigenesis
Devil Dinosaur took Lunella's cocoon to her lab and watched over it for several days until she hatched. Lunella was at first relieved she had not changed physically, but was dismayed to learn her Inhuman power caused her consciousness and that of Devil Dinosaur's to switch.Devil Dinosaur proceeded to make her even more ostracized at school due to freaking out in class and attacking other students while Lunella rampaged through the city. Eventually though they returned to normal.
Devil Dinosaur and Moon Girl's next opponent came in the form of Kid Kree, a misunderstood Kree boy who had failed to enter the academy twice, who sought to capture an Inhuman to impress his father and make a name for himself on Earth as Captain Marvel had. He disguised himself as a human named Marvin Ellis and enrolled in Lunella's class. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur fought Kid Kree several times, once being separated by Ms. Marvel, who recognized their fight as the childish squabble it was, but entrusted Moon Girl with a device to contact her if things ever got out of hand.
Lunella is then approached by Hulk, who gives her the Banner B.O.X., and is surprised when she solves it in mere seconds, proving her to be the smartest person on Earth. After consulting experts, Moon Girl, Hulk and Devil Dinosaur encounter Mole Man, who was attacking the city with a group of monsters. The next day, at her lab, Lunella ends up having a vision of herself in the future, where she is approached by Earth's smartest heroes. After school, she is approached by the Thing, who takes her for a walk when Hulk appears. When the two start fighting, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur manage to contain them while protecting the civilians, until both of them are left unconscious. Meanwhile, Doctor Doom is surprised to discover that Moon Girl is considered the smartest person on Earth and vows to prove himself superior. During science class, Lunella is attacked by robot drones until she is saved by Riri Williams. They follow the drones to a nearby alley, where Moon Girl encounters Doctor Doom. After Doom escapes, Moon Girl and Ironheart go to Moon Girl's secret lab, where they discover that the energy signatures of the drones are mystic in origin. While tracing Doom's location, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur arrive at the Sanctum Sanctorum and are found by Doctor Strange. Waking up from a dream, Lunella is reunited with Devil, who was shrunk down by Strange. While walking back home, Moon Girl and two of her classmates are attacked by Doctor Doom and his Doombots. Moon Girl uses an enlargement potion on herself to help Strange fight Doom and his robots. A few nights later while installing an energy sensing probe, Moon Girl is found by five members of the X-Men.
Arriving at an abandoned mall, Moon Girl re-engineers a Cerebro helmet with the Omni-Wave Projector to locate Doom, only for her and the X-Men to travel back to the 1980s. Once there, Doctor Doom arrives with an army of Doombots. The X-Men and Devil fight the Doombots until Moon Girl takes off the helmet, sending them back to the present, where they discover that Doom is actually a Doombot. Lunella takes the Doombot to her lab to analyze it. Lunella later makes a major discovery about her Inhuman power: it only activates during a full moon. She then encounters an army of Doombots, along with Thing, Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Ironheart, Doctor Strange, Kid Kree and the Killer Folk, who went to her aid after being recruited by Lunella.
Robot double
Lunella then receives a call for help from an alien girl named Illa and, after building a spaceship, goes to space with Devil and crash lands on a moon. While exploring, Lunella discovers that Illa is the moon. She soon realizes that Illa is lonely and wants company and does not understand Lunella at all. After a brief fight between Devil and some giant bugs, Lunella leaves, despite Illa's objections. In the process, Lunella is sent to a parallel universe where she meets another version of herself and Devil Dinosaur. Meanwhile, the Doombot head creates robotic versions of Lunella to avoid suspicions of her absence. After fighting their counterparts, Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur, Lunella and Devil get back on their spacecraft and return to Illa who tells them that they will never leave her. Back home, the Doombot head begins to have problems with one of Lunella robots. Moon Girl and Devil manage to find Ego the Living Planet and reunite him with Illa, while the Doombot discovers that the Lunella robot is acting independently. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur later made use of a time machine to prevent Moon-Boy's death.Meanwhile, the Doombot head has created multiple Moon Girl replacement robots who to his surprise are acting like real little girls. He tells them that they will be obsolete when the real Lunella returns. While up in space Lunella has united Ego and Illa as a family. On the way to Earth she uses the Omniwave projector to tearfully return Devil Dinosaur to Moon Boy in the Savage Land, where she thinks he belongs, and then returns to New York, where she tosses it away in the trash. Later, realizing that she still needs help, she begins checking out other superheroes in the search for a potential partner. She tries several while on various adventures, but this fails and when faced with the Super-Skrull she enlists the Thing and the Human Torch and uses H.E.R.B.I.E. to relocate Devil Dinosaur and bring him back in a Fantastic Four uniform of his own. They defeat Super-Skrull and Lunella realizes that she and Devil do not belong in the Fantastic Four, but that they do belong together. She apologizes for sending him away and he readily forgives her.