MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR #6
Written By Brandon Montclare & Amy Reeder
Art by Natacha Bustos & Tamra Bonvillain
Published by Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 27, 2016
Sometimes fears come true…
The Daring Moon Girl acts on her latest surge of gumption and decides to do something about the Killer Folk despite her mother’s disagreement. With her handy dandy dinosaur in toe, Lunella tracks down the naughty Neanderthals in an effort to get her Kree machine back. Yet, despite the victory, both she and the Devil Dinosaur experience heartbreak and surprise as the very thing she wanted to avert comes to fruition.
I cannot say enough how important it is that we have a comic where a 9 year-old Black girl is the master of her life and her environment. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #6 is yet another piece of her story that shows the importance of creating diverse characters, in terms of age, race, and gender, with agency and personality. I like Lunella’s resolve and intelligence, especially as she stands up to her mother, whose concern is more than reasonable, and the Killer Folk. The ending of this issue makes me entirely curious about what’s to come up next.
Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder continue to mix the otherworldly with the childlike in issue #6. Lunella’s intelligence belies her age and both are represented in ways that feel relatively realistic for a world where a giant cloud alters people’s DNA. The inclusion of little things like Rock, Paper, Scissors reveal the youthful undertones of the series. Montclare and Reeder don’t simply write Lunella as an adult in a child’s body. Especially with her emotional revelation to her mother, she has all the makings of a genius within the context of a young girl, an important aspect of the writing team’s work.
What’s not to say about Natacha Bustos and Tamra Bonvillain on art? Yet again their work together has created the visual world of Lunella, manifesting the dire and the lighthearted with artwork that is lively and creative. They perfectly capture Lunella’s boldness and her sarcasm, and each scene feels real and increasingly dramatic and weird as the story moves forward. In particular, I like Bustos’ use of perspective and panels, deliberately moving beyond borders in ways that enhance action and evoke powerful emotions. Bonvillain’s color work from scene to scene keeps the adventurous tone of Lunella and Devil Dinosaur’s adventures without betraying the rather serious ending of the issue. One page is mystifyingly immersed in green, with rather foreboding and fearful images expressed with minimalistic yet haunting detail.
Having an all-ages comic in a Big Two roster is a big deal, and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #6 delivers with not only an important form of representation but an engaging story that conveys youth, fun, and emotional complexity. Lunella is at her bravest in this issue, but there are some really important scenes involving her mother and Devil Dinosaur as well that highlight the shining moments of the story. If you’ve been keeping up, this is the issue you need to read from cover to cover, as it brings the story to a place both we and our main character has feared, but that will drive the plot in unexpected and entertaining ways.
The Verdict: 9.0/10
