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Monday 29 August 2016

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Volume 1: BFF Review (Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder)


Lunella (like lunar = Moon Girl – that’s the level of obviousness we’re operating at here) is supposedly a genius nine year old inventor. And PAUSE! The problem with writing a genius-intellect character is that the writers have to convince you of the character’s extraordinary intelligence and neither Brandon Montclare nor Amy Reeder achieves this. Six pages in, they demonstrate their own stupidity by dropping a clanger that completely shatters the flimsy illusion that Lunella is a “genius”. 

Lunella’s in science class and, because this is New York City and not the Deep South, she’s learning about the Theory of Evolution (I’m just ribbing you hillbillies, I knows you guys are edumacated! Mmm, ribs…). And then she snottily complains to the teacher that it’s actually not a theory and that evolution is a proven scientific fact - and I faceplanted. 

There are two different meanings to the word theory. The everyday meaning of theory implies something is unsubstantiated or a speculative guess; the word theory when applied in science has the opposite meaning. A scientific theory – like the Theory of Evolution – is a vigorously tested and confirmed explanation of some aspect of our world acquired through the scientific method. Scientific theories ARE facts. 

She’s right to say that evolution is a proven fact but wrong in correcting the teacher’s usage of the word theory in its scientific context. That Lunella doesn’t understand this immediately demonstrates how unintelligent she is and took me right out of the story. She’s no genius, she’s on the same intellectual footing as the brainless twerps who point to snow in the winter and say “Guess global warming ain’t real, hur hur hur!”. You can put as many quotes from Gregory Stock and Marie Curie at the start of each issue, you can’t fake intelligence! 

There’s no real story in this book but this is yet another title tied into the Terrigen fucking Mist which totally isn’t being overused or feels at all boring! A portal opens up in Lunella’s school and Devil Dinosaur shows up. He’s a red T-Rex – not Jack Kirby’s most imaginative creation. At first he’s as tall as buildings and then later on he fits into a room behind the girls’ bathroom at Lunella’s school. That was about the halfway point and I closed the book there for good. They can’t even maintain a consistency with the character’s size! 

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur has unremarkable artwork, barely any story, shoddy writing and completely unconvincing characterisation. This comic is awful. Maybe ten year olds will get something out of it but everyone else should stay well away.

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