The definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comic books and omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated October 2024 with titles scheduled for release through December 2024.
Reading and Collecting Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
(& Moon-Boy, too!)
Moon Girl is an pint-sized pre-teen who is a potential Inhuman and who might be the smartest person in the world but who also sometimes shares a brain with a vicious red T-Rex.
And that’s not even the weirdest part of the history of Devil Dinosaur!
Devil Dinosaur was the final Big Two creation of comics legend Jack Kirby, who co-created most of Marvel’s pantheon of super-heroes (and all of its pantheon of Asgardian’s gods!) with Stan Lee before creating the entire Fourth World at DC, including Darkseid and Mister Miracle.
Kirby’s return to Marvel was a major coup, and while he was there he penned legendary runs on Captain America and Black Panther, and created The Eternals. His last work was much farther off the beaten path. Devil Dinosaur was a book completely devoid of gods and superheroes, but full of rough and tumble Mesozoic action for his giant red tyrannosaurus rex and his missing link ape-like friend Moon-Boy.
Devil Dinosaur was the sort of weird, one-off experiment that Marvel could have easily left alone, but other writers had an affinity for this Kirby creation and couldn’t help but include it in their own stories. The first to do so were Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe on the surprisingly strong licensed Godzilla series in 1979. Aside from keeping Devil Dinosaur’s story alive, Moench and Trimpe retconned him to be a part of Earth’s own history – though Marvel would continue to waffle on that for decades to come.
In those decades, Devil Dinosaur became a go-to “shocking splash page” reveal, but saw his first substantial use over a decade later in New Mutants spin-off Fallen Angels, which pulled him (along with Moon-Boy) into the present day Marvel Universe, where they would remain through Secret Wars in 2015.
In the wake of Secret Wars, Marvel used Devil Dinosaur for another major surprise – they were bringing him back in his own series alongside a brand new character in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
This new series seemed like it came from out of the blue, but it represented a combination of three prominent market factors for Marvel. First, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur created a new, young, black female superhero in Lunella Lafayette for Marvel to compile into graphic novels and sell outside of the Direct Market, an area where they had seen much success with Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl. Second, it helped them widen the scope of their Inhumans line and the overall arc of their story. Finally, it helped keep old intellectual property alive with the return of a certain red dinosaur!
While Moon Girl’s series is marketing as a rare all-ages book that’s entirely within Marvel continuity, I’d add a caveat to that: Marvel is not an all-ages publisher with experienced all-ages editors. As great as it is to see representation like Moon Girl on the page, as a parent I learned to be cautious with supplying young kids with “cocky genius” main characters. They set a bad precedent of behavior that implies that intelligence matters more than empathy. As a result, I think this series is more of a 10+ read. Squirrel Girl is much more squarely and All Ages in-continuity book.
Before I get to explaining the reading order for Moon Girl’s series, I’m going to track Devil Dinosaur through almost 30 years of comics! Don’t worry, it’s not really that many comics. If you’re just looking to collect Moon Girl, it’s pretty easy! You can grab her entire 2016 series in four digest-size paperbacks:
- Vol. 1: The Beginning (2019 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302916541 / digital)
- Vol. 2: Full Moon (2020 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302921132 / digital)
- Vol. 3: Bad Buzz (2021 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302929848 / digest)
- Vol. 4: Place In The World (2022 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302945008 / digital)
Want the full forty years of context on Devil Dinosaur, including every appearance he, Moon-Boy, and Moon Girl have ever made? Keep reading!
- Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy Reading Order
- Devil Dinosaur (1978)
- Devil Dinosaur One-Shots:
- Devil Dinosaur (1997) #1 AKA Spring Fling
- Amazing Spider-Man/Devil Dinosaur (1998) Annual 1998
- Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur (2005) #1
- Devil Dinosaur: The Guest-osaurus Rex (1979 – 2015)
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Reading Order
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2016) #1-47, and also:
- Extraordinary X-Men (2016) Annual 1
- Monsters Unleashed (2017) #1-5
- Inhumans Prime (2017) #1
- Secret Warriors (2017) #1-12
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Infinity Comic Primer (2021)
- Team-Up One-Shots:
- Miles Morales & Moon Girl (2022) #1
- Avengers & Moon Girl (2022) #1
- X-Men & Moon Girl (2022) #1
- Devil Dinosaur Infinity Comic (2023) #1-(ongoing)
- Moon Girl (2022) AKA Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1-5
- Who Is… Moon Girl Infinity Comic (2023) #1
- Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2024)
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2016) #1-47, and also:
- Non-Continuity Moon Girl
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Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy Reading Order
Devil Dinosaur (1978) #1-9
Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur appear together throughout this short-lived series, written and drawn by Jack Kirby. It’s mostly dinosaurs beating each other up and other prehistoric action with no superhero ties whatsoever, but are you going to turn down Kirby-drawn dino-wrestling? Its among Jack Kirby’s final works at Marvel. [Marvel Unlimited]
This series has been collected in full in a pair of formats
Devil Dinosaur Omnibus
(2007 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-0785126942)
Devil Dinosaur by Jack Kirby Complete Collection
(2014 paperback, ISBN 978-0785190370 / digital)
This is all you need to read before moving forward to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur! The Devil Dinosaur in that series appears directly from here, and does not experience any of the guest-starring stories listed below.
Devil Dinosaur One-Shots: Spring Fling, Amazing Spider-Man Annual, & Marvel Monsters
Devil Dinosaur had three featured one-shots between the end of the 1978 Kirby series and the 2016 Moon Girl series.
Devil Dinosaur (1997) #1: Not collected. The main story in this issue fits in the present day roughly where it was released; see below for its full chronological placement.
Amazing Spider-Man/Devil Dinosaur (1998) Annual 1998: Not collected. This is the story that relocates the present day MB&DD to the Savage Land, where they remain for the remainder of their present day series.
Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur (2005): Marvel Monsters (2006 hardcover, ISBN 978-0785121411 / digital)
This is likely meant to be the final prehistorical Devil Dinosaur story prior to Fallen Angels in 1987. [Marvel Unlimited]
Devil Dinosaur: The Guest-osaurus Rex (1979 – 2015)
I’ve read every one of Devil Dinosaur’s guest appearances from over thirty-five years of comics so you don’t have to!
The long story short is that there are hardly any personal developments that have a lasting impact on the characters of Moon-Boy or Devil Dinosaur, but there are story changes that have a persistent effect on how they are used.
Specifically, they are brought to the present day by Fallen Angel in 1987, then transported to the Savage Land by Spider-Man in 1998
Aside from a relocation to the present day and then to the Savage Land, there’s no critical must-read Devil Dinosaur story as cohesive as the Kirby work from the 1970s.
That said, there are some appearances that are significant enough to warrant chasing down if you are a fan of the big red beast and his ape-like companion. Those appearances are bolded in the section below. Moon Boy always appears alongside Devil Dinosaur unless noted otherwise.
Click to expand for a list of evert Devil Dinosaur guest appearance prior to 2016Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Reading Order
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2016) #1-47
What would a modern Marvel story be without tricky, hard-to-decipher continuity?
The present-day Moon Girl befriends a Devil Dinosaur transported from the distant past. An editorial footnote refers to the first issue of the Kirby series, and this is meant to be a sequel directly following the end of that series.
That means this iteration of Devil Dinosaur may in fact be a branched early version who has not experienced any of the canon stories above. Or… maybe that Devil Dinosaur was sent back to the past by Secret Wars, only to be pulled back to the present for this series! [Marvel Unlimited]
A version of Moon-Boy appears in #1, 3-5, & 23.
as completely recollected in digest-sized paperback editions…
#1-12: Vol. 1: The Beginning (2019 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302916541 / digital)
#13-24: Vol. 2: Full Moon (2020 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302921132 / digital)
#25-36: Vol. 3: Bad Buzz (2021 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302929848 / digest)
#37-47: Vol. 4: Place In The World (2022 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302945008 / digital)
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Infinity Comic Primer (2021)
#1: Not collected
Miles Morales & Moon Girl (2022) #1, Avengers & Moon Girl (2022) #1, & X-Men & Moon Girl (2022) #1
[Marvel Unlimited: Miles Morales, Avengers, X-Men]
Miles Morales #1, Avengers #1, and X-Men#1: Endangered Species (2022 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947323 / digital)
After this series, a continuity-lite appearance in Alligator Loki Infinity Comic (2022) #14, then in Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2022) #33 & 36
Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2022) #37-44: Not collected. Moon Girl gets her own starring arc in this digital anthology!
Devil Dinosaur also appears in Marvel Meow Infinity Comic (2022) #9, Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal Infinity Comic (2022) #6-7, Alligator Loki Infinity Comic (2022) #14
Devil Dinosaur Infinity Comic (2023) #1-(TBA)
#1-4: Not collected
Moon Girl (2022) #1-5
This book’s cover title is “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,” but Marvel’s site lists it simply as Moon Girl [Marvel Unlimited]
#1-5: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Menace on Wheels (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931254 / digital TBA)
Also in this period: Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2022) #38-43
Then in Avengers Assemble Omega (2023) #1, Avengers: Beyond (2023) #3, Women of Marvel (2024) #1, Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2022) #98 & 100
Who Is… Moon Girl Infinity Comic (2023) #1
A digital one-shot summarizing Moon Girl’s origin.
#1: Not collected
Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2024)
#0-4, 7, 10-18, (TBA): See Guide to Young Avengers.
Before this period: Kid Juggernaut: Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic (2024) #6 and Marvel Mutts Infinity Comic (2023) #8 (and Devil Dinosaur in #9)
Non-Continuity Moon Girl
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur One Girl Can Make a Difference
(2023 hardcover novel, IBSN 978-1368077378 / 2023 paperback novel, ISBN 978-1368077378 / digital / audiobook CD / audiobook digital)
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