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cancan_jpg 's review for:
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: The Beginning
by Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos, Amy Reeder
This review will deal with: 1) How I feel about the narrative quality and pathos (spoiler-free!); 2) How I feel about it as a comic (in the context of comics as a format, and within Marvel), and finally 3) How I feel this book would be suited to kids!
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a book I’d been dying to pick up for ages, both because of its quiet hype in my favourite pop culture circles, and because I adore colourist Tamra Bonvillain’s work - her work on Gerard Way’s Doom Patrol run is stunning, and in Moon Girl she definitely delivers that same look and feel I expect from her!
My expectations are generally... shall we say, “tempered” when it comes to Marvel books (in comparison to smaller publishers or independent press) since even some of my favourites tend to be kind of cheesy and weird with pacing, but this was one of the books I can’t help but find charming! Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a sort of buddy cop-ish story about nine-year-old super genius Lunella Lafayette, who longs to change the world, who yearns to be recognised for her accomplishments and potential, and who strives to ‘cure’ her inhuman gene - and the story also follows the giant dinosaur summoned to the present day by ancient Kree tech, who worms his way into Lunella’s life and becomes the closest thing she has to a friend.
Lunella’s race to undo her Inhuman gene before terrigenesis awakens it provides a genuine unexpected sense of stakes in this book, since until now, when reading Marvel content, I’d never really considered the Terrigen cloud as something one would dread happening, but something that just... occurs. And seeing it be used as a source of fear for Lunella was really fascinating to me.
The friendship between Lunella and Devil Dino feels genuinely quite sweet, even though the pacing can feel a bit janky between the times when he’s her closest friend, and the times when she hates him. I feel this does have a couple of justifications though, one being that nine-year-olds really ARE just like that (and, not to rag on other reviewers, but seeing the reviews under the individual volumes, it really looks like people forget she’s... not supposed to be written as a mature adult). Another justification being that there are time jumps between some scenes, and also just the general industry issues with the American monthly serial issue publishing format. The way mainstream American comic publishing is structured generally leads to jolty pacing because of the constrictive page-per-issue limit, the way story arcs have to be structured, and the fact that many writers at major studios fear they have to jam in as much story as they want to get with this character before they risk their series being ended and their rights to writing the character being revoked.
Something I liked about Lunella was that she’s framed by the narrative as Good, and she IS good at heart, but she’s also very mean sometimes, and her mean actions don’t negate the good she does - instead they offer her a source of growth, especially for future volumes. I feel like that’s something rare for girl characters, especially in fandom-driven pop culture mediums, where they often risk audience backlash if they don’t start out as perfect or near-perfect people, and it’s especially great to see in a character of colour.
I think it also does a great job (as great as a mainstream corp’s cape comic can do) of giving insight into how Messy ‘gifted children’ can be emotionally, especially in environments where they are bullied and/or have their potential stifled. As someone who grew up at times feeling my worth was tied to my ‘smartness’ I can attest that I was both bullied and was also kinda mean sometimes! All kids are mean at least sometimes! And I also look back regretting how much time I didn’t spend with other kids - meaning I can see this book from both Lunella and her parents’ perspectives, while also seeing flaws in both parties. Her parents struggle to understand her, while she also struggles to understand the world in general, and feels isolated by it, and the writing and art work together in a way that does frame both sides as empathetic. It’s why I feel some negative reviews (mainly on the individual volumes this book collects) that specifically attack her character are a bit unfair in their expectations of... a kid... in a book for kids...
I will say that one of my main format criticisms was that there’s a double-page spread in nearly every issue, which doesn’t read well in a thick book like this that heavily curves inwards towards the spine when open (you sometimes can’t see whether the panels are connected between adjacent pages or if they break), and I had to reread over those spreads every time when i realised the panel reading order too late. Thankfully, it’s not too clunky, and usually doesn’t affect the reading experience too much even if it’s read wrong.
Overall, honestly this was a very cute, fun, campy, and light-hearted book that I really enjoyed reading very much, and think would be really fun for kids and teens, especially young girls who think Doing Science is cool! There’s a quote from a famous scientist at the beginning of every issue (usually women scientists), so it would make a nice jumping point to help kids research these name-dropped scientists for themselves, with some encouragement! I think it would work well for fans of Miss Marvel, Squirrel Girl, and similar fare, and I’d also co-recommend it with books like [b:The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day|36349329|The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day|Christopher Edge|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511299078l/36349329._SY75_.jpg|58030920] by Christopher Edge, other specific Marvel comics like [b:The Unstoppable Wasp: G.I.R.L. Power|41157803|The Unstoppable Wasp G.I.R.L. Power|Jeremy Whitley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1542063433l/41157803._SX50_.jpg|64333267], and films like A Wrinkle In Time*! If you’re looking for a book for a curious young person in your life, or for yourself if you like the other comics I mentioned, this may be a good fit for you!
*I haven’t read the A Wrinkle In Time book, and can’t yet recommend it!
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a book I’d been dying to pick up for ages, both because of its quiet hype in my favourite pop culture circles, and because I adore colourist Tamra Bonvillain’s work - her work on Gerard Way’s Doom Patrol run is stunning, and in Moon Girl she definitely delivers that same look and feel I expect from her!
My expectations are generally... shall we say, “tempered” when it comes to Marvel books (in comparison to smaller publishers or independent press) since even some of my favourites tend to be kind of cheesy and weird with pacing, but this was one of the books I can’t help but find charming! Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a sort of buddy cop-ish story about nine-year-old super genius Lunella Lafayette, who longs to change the world, who yearns to be recognised for her accomplishments and potential, and who strives to ‘cure’ her inhuman gene - and the story also follows the giant dinosaur summoned to the present day by ancient Kree tech, who worms his way into Lunella’s life and becomes the closest thing she has to a friend.
Lunella’s race to undo her Inhuman gene before terrigenesis awakens it provides a genuine unexpected sense of stakes in this book, since until now, when reading Marvel content, I’d never really considered the Terrigen cloud as something one would dread happening, but something that just... occurs. And seeing it be used as a source of fear for Lunella was really fascinating to me.
The friendship between Lunella and Devil Dino feels genuinely quite sweet, even though the pacing can feel a bit janky between the times when he’s her closest friend, and the times when she hates him. I feel this does have a couple of justifications though, one being that nine-year-olds really ARE just like that (and, not to rag on other reviewers, but seeing the reviews under the individual volumes, it really looks like people forget she’s... not supposed to be written as a mature adult). Another justification being that there are time jumps between some scenes, and also just the general industry issues with the American monthly serial issue publishing format. The way mainstream American comic publishing is structured generally leads to jolty pacing because of the constrictive page-per-issue limit, the way story arcs have to be structured, and the fact that many writers at major studios fear they have to jam in as much story as they want to get with this character before they risk their series being ended and their rights to writing the character being revoked.
Something I liked about Lunella was that she’s framed by the narrative as Good, and she IS good at heart, but she’s also very mean sometimes, and her mean actions don’t negate the good she does - instead they offer her a source of growth, especially for future volumes. I feel like that’s something rare for girl characters, especially in fandom-driven pop culture mediums, where they often risk audience backlash if they don’t start out as perfect or near-perfect people, and it’s especially great to see in a character of colour.
I think it also does a great job (as great as a mainstream corp’s cape comic can do) of giving insight into how Messy ‘gifted children’ can be emotionally, especially in environments where they are bullied and/or have their potential stifled. As someone who grew up at times feeling my worth was tied to my ‘smartness’ I can attest that I was both bullied and was also kinda mean sometimes! All kids are mean at least sometimes! And I also look back regretting how much time I didn’t spend with other kids - meaning I can see this book from both Lunella and her parents’ perspectives, while also seeing flaws in both parties. Her parents struggle to understand her, while she also struggles to understand the world in general, and feels isolated by it, and the writing and art work together in a way that does frame both sides as empathetic. It’s why I feel some negative reviews (mainly on the individual volumes this book collects) that specifically attack her character are a bit unfair in their expectations of... a kid... in a book for kids...
I will say that one of my main format criticisms was that there’s a double-page spread in nearly every issue, which doesn’t read well in a thick book like this that heavily curves inwards towards the spine when open (you sometimes can’t see whether the panels are connected between adjacent pages or if they break), and I had to reread over those spreads every time when i realised the panel reading order too late. Thankfully, it’s not too clunky, and usually doesn’t affect the reading experience too much even if it’s read wrong.
Overall, honestly this was a very cute, fun, campy, and light-hearted book that I really enjoyed reading very much, and think would be really fun for kids and teens, especially young girls who think Doing Science is cool! There’s a quote from a famous scientist at the beginning of every issue (usually women scientists), so it would make a nice jumping point to help kids research these name-dropped scientists for themselves, with some encouragement! I think it would work well for fans of Miss Marvel, Squirrel Girl, and similar fare, and I’d also co-recommend it with books like [b:The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day|36349329|The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day|Christopher Edge|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511299078l/36349329._SY75_.jpg|58030920] by Christopher Edge, other specific Marvel comics like [b:The Unstoppable Wasp: G.I.R.L. Power|41157803|The Unstoppable Wasp G.I.R.L. Power|Jeremy Whitley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1542063433l/41157803._SX50_.jpg|64333267], and films like A Wrinkle In Time*! If you’re looking for a book for a curious young person in your life, or for yourself if you like the other comics I mentioned, this may be a good fit for you!
*I haven’t read the A Wrinkle In Time book, and can’t yet recommend it!