Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Disney Channel/Disney+) (2023)

I liked that. Provisionally. I hate to say that, but Marvel animation and television (even Studios Television) have a NASTY habit of delivering an amazing pilot, and then the show itself falls apart from week to week, with diminishing results, until it's turned into pure dreck. I got similar vibes to this show from Ms. Marvel's first episode. Which worries the hell out of me. Granted this show is not gonna "Go dark" or forget it's a superhero show. But I'm at the point where I no longer simply give Marvel cartoons and TV shows the benefit of the doubt. Sorry to say.

But it was promising. I love the moment where time stops when Lunella and Aftershock recognize each other in the classroom. And I love the disqualifier "No disrespect to Jersey", when it does whatever single other show set in New York does, and takes a shot at New Jersey. Sorry, Lunella. You aren't fooling anyone.

The premise is cool. I'm trying to think of another superhero show with a black female lead, and coming up empty. This is going to fill a hole in the void of black girls wanting to be superheroes and being denied it by the rest of the media.

I think the most interesting thing about the show to me are the designs and the way they are animated. It very much reminds me of Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in how chaotic and flawless the action sequences are. Now this is nowhere near as frenetic, or for lack of a better word, BANANAS, as that. But like Rise, seeing how far 2-D animation can go on a TV budget really makes me resent the fact that most current action / superhero toons are CGI animated, and BAD CGI at that. 2-D can look beautiful now. I wish more current stuff would embrace it.

Very well done, Pilot. But Spidey And His Amazing Friends had a promising Pilot too, and that just turned out awful. I don't see any way this specific show should get as awful as that, but the fact that that cute show went downhill so fast is the reason why my praise is measured here, and very much of the "Let's see how this shakes out before declaring it cool" variety. 4 1/2 stars.

I was looking forward to seeing the theme song but it wasn't on the Disney Channel's website when I watched the episode.

I didn't dig the premise because I'm old, but I like the resolution of the kid repenting, and teaming up with Lunella on an antibullying campaign.

For the record, being compared to Michelle Obama is a VERY good thing. For those people at home keeping score about that sort of thing.

Was the alien Symbiote the thing from Spider-Man? Weird thing to crossover to the Marvel Universe with.

I very much feel like the troll's design and animation is something that woulda been cooked up on Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This show's animation is almost as good.

Cute. 3 1/2 stars.

This show is TOO cute! Devil Dinosaur in the car wash and eating the popcorn was a riot. "Is he dangerous?" "Pssht! Probably." And Gravitas is a spiffy villain. The Day-Glo action sequence in the climax had AMAZING animation.

Very impressive first few episodes for this show so far. 4 stars.

I love LOS. They are so cute and charming and the fact that Lunella is such a "dingus" to them upsets me as well. I like that they were saved and fixed at the end by being put in a giant sandbox of rice.

Principle Nelson was funny too especially him ordering the kids not to have any feelings until the new guidance counselor can be found. His favorite qualification of LOS' is that they'll work for free.

This show is so much fun! 3 1/2 stars.

Ooh, a hair episode! The notion of Lunella's hair turning evil after she rejects it made the episode surprisingly topical. And hearing her mom and grandmother talk about loving their hair makes the episode feel especially empowering. 4 stars.

The Beyonder is great.

The Marvel series this most resembles is Big Hero 6: The Series. And yet, with the Beyonder appearing and the references to Wakanda, this feels much more in the Marvel Universe than that does. By the end I felt Big Hero 6 was far more a Disney series than it ever was a Marvel one. I feel there is a Marvelness running through Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur.

Lunella thinks the idea of basing whether or not humanity lives or dies on the outcome of a science fair is shady, but think about it: Is that really any stupider and more pointless than the Secret Wars? If anything, the science fair gag points out the essential ridiculousness of that arc in general.

I really liked the unexpected pathos between Lunella and Eduardo. More of that please. I love it and am here for it.

Delightful episode. 4 1/2 stars.

This show is just the cutest.

I love that Abyss absorbed the moral Lunella just learned, and called her mom and told her she didn't want to be a supervillain anymore. That was very sweet.

Okay, it is VERY clear to me Mimi knows Lunella is Moon Girl.

The Beyonder makes a fun recapper.

This show is living up to its early promise so far. ****.

Fun. I think they only used the Moon Girl suit at the end as a formality. There is no villain to fight and it's Lunella's story entirely.

I thought it was cute and funny seeing her and Devil Dinosaur switch bodies. Unlike most dinosaur characters, Devil's demeanor is entirely cute instead of scary. And I like that about him.

This show isn't disappointing me. 4 stars.

I love this show.

Interesting that Angel's name is pronounced "On Hell".

The Rat villain living in the sewers crazy for pizza is a clear riff on the Ninja Turtles. Do this show's lawyers know there is already a character from Ninja Turtles called the Rat King?

I love that Daveed Diggs goes to a Brooklyn accent when the Rat King strips off his fancy affectations at the end.

The music on this show is wonderful. I especially liked the Rat King's rap and the song they played during Devil's "Walk of Shame" montage.

Hot Dog vendors give Devil Dinosaur free hot dogs. I like that about hot dog vendors.

For the record, hot dogs are MUCH closer to sandwiches than cereal is to soup.

The animation on Rat King's facial expressions was dynamite. There has simply never been a Marvel cartoon before this one capable of such personality in the expressions. Probably because most Marvel cartoons don't need it. But when you actually HAVE it, you truly appreciate it.

The theme song just isn't the same with a hamster.

It's amazing the complex storylines they can give Devil Dinosaur even though he can't talk. The series uses all kinds of cool animation tricks to tell us exactly what he is thinking and communicating anyways.

I loved the episode. 4 1/2 stars.

This episode is a gem. Not just for introducing a science fiction high-concept I hadn't seen before, but for wringing an entirely new and different kiddie show moral out of it. Do you appreciate how freaking RARE that is, that a kids show has something new to say about the world and how kids should perceive it? I'm floored by that.

Maybe being bored is okay. Maybe taking the good with the bad is what life is actually about.

I love that they got Mae Jemison to voice herself. She also appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation back in the day (in a bland and forgettable cameo) and I'm betting she actually had a TON more fun on this show. For the record, she is pretty good actress, which is not something Star Trek tested.

I am in awe of this show. 5 stars.

This is literally the first time I've seen a kiddie cartoon take on gentrification.

Lunella reminds her Mom of Moon Girl. Except Moon Girl's Mom must be crazy to let her run around all fighting supervillains.

Luiz Guzman has had a LONG acting career, so there is no way this is his first voice-over role. But it's the first one of his I saw / remembered.

The music and visuals continues to be beyond cool and funky.

One character visual I loved is when Lunella is sad in her room, and her mom sits down next to her, she scoots away from her a bit. It's a small but believable character detail you rarely find in animation, especially animation made for television. But it gave personality to both their characters and their situation, and added a ton. Little things can sometimes matter a lot.

I'm loving this show. Still. 4 stars.

I was a little bored, but I love Captain America Sam Wilson showing up at the end.

I also really like how diverse and modern the show is. Casey has two dads, who kiss. One of them is Puerto Rican and one is Jewish, and they have mixed their heritages together to give Casey the best of both worlds. I think that's a cool thing.

But the truth is I could take or leave the episode itself. **1/2.

Oh, my. That ending of Devil befriending Torg was SO freaking nice. Is it too much to ask TV to be nice? Even kids shows rarely do it. I appreciate it when it happens.

I love that Lunella's first angry note upon first seeing a shrunken Devil is to admit he's adorable. It is the most noticeable thing about him, not the actual size, so not immediately pointing it out would have been weird.

This is the best Marvel cartoon since Wolverine And The X-Men. I will go further. It's the only GREAT Marvel cartoon besides Wolverine And The X-Men. Even GOOD cartoons like X-Men: The Animated Series had notable faults. But this show is pretty special. 4 1/2 stars.

Oh, well that ending was unsettling.

I love that Lunella seems to legitimately loathe the Beyonder. Probably more than he even deserves. Which is why I love her loathing him so much. Lunella having THAT strong of a negative value judgment against him says volumes.

They were really leaning into the Grinchy aspects of that design including a full-on homage to the infamous Chuck Jones Wonderful Awful Idea smile.

Pretty good. 4 stars.

OMG is right.

Action, pathos, revelations, this episode has it all. I can also pretty much declare this the best Marvel cartoon now. Even Wolverine And The X-Men never hit these highs.

They sure as hell didn't NEED to get Cobie Smulders to play Maria Hill. But it's cool they did.

If anything Wesley Snipes is an even bigger and more impressive get. He's certainly a Marvel legacy. And the first black Marvel Superhero in film.

Mimi being Original Moon Girl is not a surprise, but her knowing what she does sort of is. I'm pretty sure her always having known Lunella was Moon Girl tracks (she's said some suspiciously knowing things in the past) but her behavior in this episode defies that idea. If she always knew, and was always OMG, she would have tried putting a stop to it long ago.

That killed me dead. 5 stars.

It's possible Morlock could have repented before this. But it's interesting that he believed it was too late instead.

Shocking and unexpected cliffhanger. Did not expect the episode to leave off there. If anything, I expected Mimi to be the one trapped in another dimension, not Current Moon Girl herself. The wait for the next batch of episodes will be murder.

Wow! 4 1/2 stars.

I seem to have totally forgotten how totally amazing this show is.

Lunella having PTSD from Molecule Man is going to make this a dramatic season.

Lunella gently braiding Beyonder's hair might go down as one of my favorite scenes in all of Marvel Animation.

I didn't wanna binge 14 episodes on launch day to guarantee a Season 3. But it's not like the show isn't already totally watchable. 5 stars.

All of Lunella's suits beg the question: Where is the toyline for this show?

I like the Hot Tomatoes. It's better I don't know where the name comes from.

I like Lunella's braids.

Cute! 4 stars.

Have I mentioned that this show has the best facial expressions out of ANY Marvel animated project, Spider-Verse included? Devil Dinosaur's face as he's watching them make the mess was sublime, as were his increasingly frantic reaction shots to the distractions and temptations going on around him.

In the upcoming film Avengers: Secret Wars, I believe the Beyonder will be revealed to be the Big Bad and Ultimate Evil of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Multiverse. On Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur he's the wacky sidekick.

I like Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur better already. 3 1/2 stars.

I love subway Busking. Gives the whole thing a very city flavor.

My heart broke when Quickwhip said that Moon Girl was THEIR hero, but she wasn't HER hero. Aww!

Ridiculously G-rated version of Lady Bullseye. Complain all you want, I don't much care how we get mainstream Marvel villains, even if they are watered down. Just so long as we get them sometimes.

You can say "Amazeballs" on TV-Y7 now. DISNEY TV-Y7. Isn't civilized society great?

Sweet episode. 4 stars.

"By the way, I DIDN'T know it was you." This show has value for being able to find interesting and unusual ways to break my heart.

I love Kid Kree's alien design. It would be cool if he became a recurring ally, and he and Lunella team up the finale.

His Kree father accepting him is too pat and not credible, but the performances ALMOST sold it. It's more believable than it SHOULD be because of them.

I love Lunella and Marvin working through their crap.

This is all good stuff. 4 stars.

I really love the fact that the Beyonder is genuinely hurt when Lunella asks him to go away. I think for the first time he was genuinely trying to help. I felt bad for him.

I realize now what his design and mannerisms sort of remind me of. A multijointed version of Dr. Seuss' the Grinch (the Chuck Jones version). Slippery as an eel is that one.

I feel bad for the Beyonder. Which is cool. 3 1/2 stars.

That sucked. Notable because so few episodes of the show do.

My biggest objection and the reason I knew I'd dislike it was the infodump Lunella gives about Wakanda at the beginning. That information is entirely for the benefit of audience members unfamiliar with Marvel Comics lore. Everyone in the classroom actually already knows the information Lunella is excitedly telling them. The character is speaking in an unbelievably unrealistic fashion due solely to poor writing. Now Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur is a kids cartoon, and as a rule almost all of those have their share of that. But this struck enough of a bad chord with me to note. The show is not usually that sucky.

Ojo is the worst. I have taken unpleasant notice that invariably whenever a Marvel show or cartoon has a random Wakandan character show up, they are almost always portrayed as an elitist snob. Her coming around at the end is done to comfort the kids in the audience about her abuse, but the reality is she sucks, and it on-brand for how Marvel tries to portray that society. I think Marvel got it into its head that so much of white American culture looks down on other races and nationalities, it's provocative to turn that on its head with Black characters. This is a narrative mistake. At least if Marvel actually wants viewers and readers to like the concept of Wakanda and root for Black Panther. Making it a nation of sociopaths pushes a certain political button against white supremacy for sure, but it sure as hell damages a franchise designed to sell comic books to little kids. This is not actually fun. Whenever we get a glimpse of Wakanda outside of Black Panther and Avengers stuff, it's invariably a lecture on how the rest of the heroes do not measure up to it. Again, this is a mistake.

Marvel has this weird idea that the best way to create conflict between heroes is to make a bunch of them type-A loathsome sociopaths. I guess one of DC Comics strengths is that whenever it has a character like that, like Constantine or Guy Gardner, the behavior is shown as wrong and a failing. It's not ever a REAL source of conflict between the legit heroes. Marvel has characters like Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, the Human Torch, and Cyclops be utterly irredeemable bastards because they somehow think there is no other real way to create character conflict between heroes. I believe Marvel Comics believes their stable of characters are less interesting than they actually are. I am never gonna agree with them about this.

Mae Jemison isn't voicing LOS this season. That is very disappointing.

A rare failure. The irony to me is that most of the failings of the episode had to do with deep seated problems already present in other Marvel media. Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur may be the best Marvel TV cartoon of all time. It's doesn't stop it from being a Marvel cartoon. And that franchise has problematic stuff built into it from the ground up. 1 star.

The facial expressions on the animals were amazing.

I love that the day-glo music montage at the end belongs to Devil for the first time. And his power ballad is country because apparently the producers decided the show simply wasn't weird enough.

But the goat being unable to discuss his former master for legal reasons shows they are attacking that specific weakness in a multi-pronged approach.

The super unearned happy ending is credible only because the goat doesn't get to share it. Whatever his backstory is, lawyers are involved. There are no misunderstandings to be had.

I'll say this before I close the review: Devil is right to be pissed at Lunella slow-walking the reveal to her family. If she had parents like Kamala Khan's, who were always judging her and making her feel like a disappointment, that would be one thing, but Lunella's entire family is nothing but funky and wonderful. Devil is right to be miffed at Lunella for not trusting THAT healthy dynamic with the truth, especially because as long as she refuses to, Devil himself does not get to participate in it or enjoy it. And he really should be able to. That's not fair to him.

The episode was both a little bit funny and a little bit insane. My kind of episode. 4 stars.

Very happy.

A LOT of people love it when shows bust hoary old tropes. And I kind of see why. But it doesn't much impress ME. You're still using the trope, just putting a spin on it. This episode is great because the "spin" is so bizarre you realize they weren't even using that trope at all.

The famous trope we recognize is the secretly sinister pet that only one person knows is evil and is never believed. The episode already gives us so many noticeable differences. In most projects the person noticing Franklin's shadiness would be Devil Dinosaur. The truth-sayer is always the old pet. Here it's Moon Girl. Moreover a LOT of the old pet's concern comes from a fear of replacement and jealously. And usually the new owners DO seem to prefer the new evil pet. That's not the case with Pops and Lunella. Thirdly, the evil pet always frames the good pet for their crimes leading the owners to practically disown the original good pet. Also not a factor. Mickey Mouse and Pluto invented the trope, and it's been in various cartoon in the ensuing decades. Going on damn near a century.

Here it turns out Franklin is GOOD. And he IS alien, voiced by David Tennant. And the shady evil mind control business Lunella thinks he's doing is something he's actually trying to stop. It's like the story starts out as "Pluto's Rival" turns in Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "The Puppet Show" out of the blue. I approve of crazy crap like that.

The Day-glo montage song was great (had sort of a Bowie flavor), and I loved the dog pun counter (reminded me of South Park's s-word episode). And of course the blue doghouse spaceship at the end suspiciously resembles the TARDIS. It would be weird if it didn't.

That was great. 4 1/2 stars.

Yeah, I knew that was Peter Weller.

Cecilia's character design is super expressive.

Lunella and Marvin are so cute together.

Fun heist episode. 4 stars.

Here's the great thing about the show. The Lafayettes don't own a roller rink because they are blue collar. It's because they are livin' the dream! The producers decided to make sure the audience understands Lunella's entire family is cool and funky.

Here's something else cool. The episode addresses both racism and gentrification, but because it's for little kids, it does so in an empowering, rather than upsetting, manner. I find that refreshing.

Admit it though. The feud's kinda dumb. 3 1/2 stars.

I will admit I don't watch a ton of shows with protagonists this young. But I've seen a few. This is the first one I've seen suggest the true moral that dating pressures for kids that young is ridiculous and you are allowed to be a kid. This is why I find the Nickelodeon and Disney Channel trashy kidcoms so problematic. This show says "Nope you can be a kid and that's okay." That is AWESOME. That should never be dismissed.

I love the end credits. Seriously, what's up with his hairline, bro?

Interesting note: When Lunella is searching for a date she notices a girl seems currently unattached. This suggest Lunella is bisexual. Thought that moment was cool and worth pointing out.

Why can't more kids show actually have good messaging for kids? 4 1/2 stars.

The cliffhanger is great because it's actually earned. Take note other superhero stuff. This is how that's done.

I've actually heard of Silvermane.

Eminently satisfying episode. 4 stars.

Good for the show for not buying back the cliffhanger in the first scene.

I love Lunella redeeming Molecule Man. I also found his observation that she was the only thing the Beyonder cared about very interesting. I was sad he didn't appear when Lunella needed him. Maybe because she actually didn't.

Uncertain ending there for Lunella's future. Or is it? Will Mom come around? She'd be crazy if she didn't. 4 stars.