Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are back in this collection of the high-energy run from Jordan Ifeuko, Alba Glez, José Marzan Jr., KJ Diaz, and VC’s Travis Lanham. If you thought you knew Moon Girl, think again. We’ve gotten to see her use her brains plenty over the years, but this book goes a long way towards exploring her heart in new ways.
Moon Girl has been paired up with just about every hero in the Marvel Universe, but this series shows us how she deal with superpowered kids in her age group. As with most middle school-aged children, Lunella almost immediately feels a sense of competition. She clearly wants to set a good example for everyone else and make sure the others are taken care of, but it comes at the cost of making her seem like she thinks she’s better than them. This opens the book up to some strong storytelling beats in which she has to not only remind herself that she’s just a kid, but also impart to her fellow empowered friends that she genuinely cares.
Of course, being kids, these conversations aren’t always as emotionally nuanced as they would be coming from adult characters, and that adds to the sweetness of the book and the uniqueness of Lunella as a character. She may be the smartest kid in the world, but she’s still a kid, and she doesn’t quite understand all of the big feelings she has quite yet. Instead, she’s pragmatic and logical to a fault, and it occasionally runs the risk of alienating her friends and family. In many ways, this series is about Lunella learning to let people in and to appreciate being a part of a larger community.
This creative team also bolsters these themes and Lunella’s inner journey by providing us with a villain that represents almost the exact opposite of that. OMG Olivia is a Kree, so she naturally has it out for Lunella and her Terrigen-enhanced buddies. But even more than that, Olivia is a vapid influencer who pushes these kids towards disliking themselves the way they are. From changing their natural hair to switching up how they talk and carry themselves, these mind control shenanigans also double as a great message to kids: Don’t let anyone steal your shine or try to replace it with what they think you should be.
The super-heroics throughout the book are bouncy and fun, giving each of these kids a chance to show off their unique abilities. Characters are bright and expressive, particularly in the case of Devil, who’s still the cutest dang dinosaur in the history of comics. The addition of Lunella’s new roller derby team, the SAD SAKS, opens the book up to some fun slapstick and energetic moments of play, making this series extra inviting to kids who may have fallen in love with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur on the Disney Channel and Disney+.
But the emotional beats are just as important as the action in this series, and this creative team gives us plenty of quiet moments between Lunella and her friends, as well as a look at their home life. Now that her parents know she’s a superhero, Moon Girl has a whole host of new worries to contend with, chief among them being her determination to prove herself to her folks. Some of these arcs get slightly shortchanged in the brief page count — it would have been nice to see more of the SAD SAKS learning more about their powers or Lunella’s parents struggling with the idea of her heroics, for example — but the series still sticks the landing with a feel-good ending and plenty of positivity.
Overall, I’d highly recommend this book to kids and families who already love Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, or are just getting to know her through her adventures on TV. This latest volume is a nice distillation of everything that makes her corner of the Marvel Universe feel unique, it’s full of positive messages, and it sets in motion some nice narrative threads for the future. I certainly hope there’s more where this came from.
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