Comics intimidate me.

There’s nothing like almost a full century of universe-building to make you feel like you’re at the center of some huge, complex web of references and in-jokes designed to keep the insiders in and the outsiders out.

When I saw the first issue of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, I’d not heard of either character before and imagined that there’d not be any references to miss. As if I needed more proof that the world of comic books has a high barrier to entry for a pedantic completionist like me, I was wrong.

After reading #1, I realized it was full of allusions to past releases that I had no idea existed. But they were all short-lived, such as 1978’s Devil Dinosaur:

Devil Dinosaur was a cancelled Marvel comic featuring the first human and his reptilian companion.

Hearing about Moon Girl in passing from an article on the social stigma of comics, I thought the title was silly enough for it to be an insincere point of entry back into the world of comics I accidentally left behind.

Now, I realize that Marvel doesn’t expect anyone to go back and catch up with Devil Dinosaur, but I’ll be damned if I miss even the slightest hat-tip to the series. Because I’m a pain like that.

So, before I went any further with Moon Girl, I took a stab at the 1978 origins story of Devil Dinosaur, which ran for a total of 9 months before cancellation.

Devil Dinosaur, Pre-Moon Girl

It turns out there’s not much to catch up on.

The only releases to significantly feature Devil Dinosaur are Devil Dinosaur (1979) and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2015). Other than that, Marvel made references to its existence in issue 31 of The Thing:

He was featured sporadically in the (even-shorter lived) Fallen Angels series.

And as a guest villain in Godzilla, King of the Monsters — another failure.

Apart from Moon Girl, everything Devil Dinosaur touches has failed so far.

So, a character with such little background information seems like a good place to start to get into the Marvel universe because it doesn’t come with the same decades of stories, references and arcs that other, bigger characters do.

Devil Dinosaur exists within an alternate Earth universe where life hasn’t evolved past the age of savages and dinosaurs (and, apparently, where cavemen and dinosaurs lived together).

The story of how Devil and Moon Boy came to meet goes like this:

Moon Boy sneaks out at night to see a volcano, but notices the savage Killer Folk slaying and eating baby dinosaurs. One young dinosaur puts up more of a fight, and manages to survive. The Killer Folk attack him with fire from the volcano, which turn the (previously green) dinosaur red, and into Devil Dinosaur. The volcano erupts, the Killer Folk flee, and Devil is rescued by Moon Boy.

Returning to his settlement, Moon Boy is ostracized by his people who fear the massive red dinosaur will kill them, so he sets out alone under the protection of Devil, who’s haunted by his traumatic youth.

To be honest, while the book was definitely written just to capitalize on the short-lived dinosaur trend of the late 70s (where dinosaur pajamas were obligatory for young boys), it’s a touching story with strong references to how past mental trauma can be a real affliction — interesting considering that it was written during a time where the reality of mental illness was constantly called into question.

Jack Kirby, the creator of Devil Dinosaur, describes his vision on the last page of issue two:

“Everywhere, in the lands and oceans of unrecorded time, the “Change Process” was doing things which have inspired the bold ones among us to bypass the guidelines and restrictions set by academicians and create the many takes which are bound to outlast the bones yielded by the soil in these past centuries. This magazine contains such a story. After all, the seeds of Homer and Jules Verne are widely scattered. We could grow a tree here, more fascinating in detail than previously illustrated in mythology and science fiction”

He goes on to make lofty comparisons between his ideas behind Devil Dinosaur and classic mythology, remarking that what you’ve just read is ‘only a mere indication’ of what’s to come.

Sadly — when you look at Kirby’s obvious enthusiasm about his idea — Devil Dinosaur was (as good as) finished until more than a decade after his death.

In 2015, Marvel made a surprising move to reboot the tried-and-tested failure, this time with a 9-year old Brooklyn girl as his companion — Moon Girl.

The Marvel Universe’s most intelligent inhabitant — Moon Girl

In the first issue of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, we’re introduced to Lunella Lafayette — a 9 year old girl who happens to be the most intelligent person ever to live in the multiverse.

School bores her. She uses class time to work on a Kree detector.

Finding an Omni-Wave Projector under the Brooklyn Bridge, she unintentionally transports Devil and a group of Killer Folk to modern day New York.

Like Devil Dinosaur that came before it, Moon Girl isn’t wrapped in a thick backstory involving characters with hidden narratives and assumptions about the reader. It does make reference to things readers have seen before, but it’d be insane not to — it gives the story more depth, and more to go back and read up on if you want to, all without making it a painful necessity.

That’s because the parts of the universe that are referenced are treated like lore, not a core part of the story. They’ve been worked on and built up by many artists and writers over the course of almost eight decades. Instead of inventing a new time traveling artifact from scratch, the story relies on some previously-referenced relic with roots in another solar system you can go and read about if you like, but don’t need to.

While Moon Girl isn’t the greatest comic I’ve read, it did serve an important purpose:

It made me realize that as long as you can either bear not knowing everything about a universe, or just going back and reading the wiki for references that interest you without fearing spoilers, it’s possible to get taken in by any kind of story.

Comics don’t expect you to be an expert, but they do build on the mythos of the items, characters, powers, planets, timelines, and universes. Not to exclude and punish first time readers, but to thicken the backstory for people who care enough to research it.

And that’s no bad thing. The writers have a massive archive of material to reference, and it’d be worse (and short-sighted) to dream up new additions to complicate the universe further.

Moon Girl is sneakily teaching me about elements of the Marvel universe I’d only ever stumble on by reading the wiki. A few issues in, I’m hooked enough to outlast the feeling that I’m missing out on some grand in-joke or subtle reference for hardcore Marvel fans.

I just hope that history isn’t repeating itself, and everything Devil Dinosaur touches doesn’t go to shit and get cancelled.