Attack of the Fifty Foot Onomatopoeia

This might just be my inner 10-year-old, but everything about T-Rexes is amazing. [Sidenote: I turned 10 in the Summer of 1993 when Jurrassic Park first premiered, so I felt that way quite actively at the time.] I'm back in Marvel territory covering issue #2 of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaurs, and readers trust me when I tell you this book is a delight.

Brief recap on Devil Dinosaur. He's from a prehistoric world called the Valley of Flame, which, depending on the era of publication, is either the past of the main timeline, an alternate reality, or a faraway planet. He's a mutant T-Rex with red skin, augmented size, strength, and intelligence, and fiery red eyes that actually look pretty amazing.

Brief Recap on Moon Girl. Lunella Lafayette is a hyper-intelligent 9-year-old girl living in Manhattan. She has trouble connecting with her parents or with anyone at school, but the latter is mitigated by the fact that she has been applying and re-applying to the various schools for super geniuses in the Marvel Universe. Her other important goal in life is to find a way to get rid of or nullify the effects of the Terrigen cloud out of concern for her well-being.

Last issue, while using her newly-invented Kree detector, Lunella found a strange glowing orb she determined to be a Kree Omni-Wave Projector, which created a portal in the middle of the school yard when her gym teacher decided to be an ass. Meanwhile, in the Valley of Flame, Devil Dinosaur and his caveboy constant companion Moon Boy battle the evil tribe of cavemen, the Killer Folk, and manage to capture their mystical totem, the Nightstone in the process. Quelle coincidence! It is a dead ringer for Lunella's Omni-Wave Projector! The Killer Folk manage to beat him within an inch of his life trying to get it back before it vanishes only to be replaced by the other side of the portal opened in present day Manhattan. The Killer Folk head into it in search after their Nightstone, and Devil Dinosaur enters in hot pursuit after Moon Boy asks to be avenged with his presumably dying words. Arriving in Lunella's schoolyard, Devil Dinosaur chases the Killer Folk and they flee to the subway. Devil Dinosaur managed to sniff out Lunella's plot relevance and takes her by the backpack as he wanders out into the streets of New York.

And now you're caught up. For a fairly simple story, there is already a lot of weird minutiae involved. Just wait and see if we ever find out this thing's history because the Omni-Wave Projector goes back deep. For now however, let's see where Devil Dinosaur was headed...

Lunella, rightfully, question whether or not this is really happening as DD stomps his way through the crowded streets of Manhattan. I have to admit I'm impressed that in her panic she has held on tight to her Kree Omni-Wave Projector (hereafter: KOWP). I'm a little confused because the first couple panels of the issue depict things from Lunella's line of vision and you can clearly make out two sets of fingers  on either side of her glasses. How the hell did she manage to cling tight to that thing? My guess is that she has a low level anti-gravity device built into her swatch watch.

This peaceful, if whiny, trek through the city comes to a grinding halt however when he is assaulted by sound effects! Sound effects with police officers attached! It's actually pretty wonderful how much the use of sound effects plays out as a visual component of the storytelling in this sequence. The use of onomatopoeia  has fallen out of popularity in the past couple decades as comics have skewed more towards dour realism, but the way they interact with the panel can range anywhere from madcap to unsettling.

Fortunately, this is an all ages story, so we get mainly wacky hijinks sound effects as DD crunches the hood of one car under his foot and his tail sends another crashing into a fire hydrant. With the car sirens running, guns shooting, water gushing, and every one of DD's own movements causing a rumble all their own, it becomes a cacophony of  noises that even drown out the word balloons. Since DD is functionally a mute character, it's a great way of demonstrating his POV.

As someone with attention deficit, this entire page speaks to me.

I know that in the past couple years, police departments across the US have been under deep scrutiny because of various very legitimate claims of abuse of power, particularly toward the African American community, but in a such a fun and apolitical book like this, I can't help but believe that these police officers shooting at Devil Dinosaur when he has a young girl of color dangling from his incisors was not intended as social commentary, particularly because the officers are black and latina, respectively. Instead, I'm arriving at the conclusion that this book functions heavily on the notion that adults are useless and/or incompetent. Five minutes in Lunella's POV makes that painfully apparent.

To get his attention, Lunella has to grab a remote control golden snitch out of her bag. Again, she is keeping that KOWP from falling from superior thigh strength or something. And no, I wasn't exaggerating. It pretty much is a golden snitch. It's a little, golden flying insect. And the remote control looks like  Good thing she guessed that theropods aren't color blind because the shiny thing makes all the other sensory stimuli vanish. Congratulations, Lunella. You have mastered the art of the dangling carrot technique.

Again, her inner monologue shows a bit of a disconnect from the action at hand, albeit less so than last issue's instance. She's analyzing the scientific problem, yes, but the immediacy of being suspended in the air with only a dinosaur's tooth separating her from a long fall seems to be helping her stay grounded in what needs to be done in the moment. Of course, summing it up as "I have to get rid of the big, red lamebrain," does not help endear me toward her.

That;s using your head, DD.

However, the impromptu planning session goes flies out the door when the KOWP slips out of her arms and she reaches to save it in a big swooping gesture, only to completely forget about the remote control. It falls to the ground with a "drop" sound effect. The snitch dies in the air and DD seems to regain his focus, as though the snitch had a hypnotic effect on him. And he is did not wake up on the right side of the bed because he lets out a roar (without dropping the girl hanging, so acknowledge the skills) and goes on a combination rampage/battering ram session as he plows his way through street lights, cars, mailboxes, and buildings, using his big old noggin.

Meanwhile, the Killer Folk are down in the NYC Subway-- at Yancy Street Station, to be precise. Again, that's another continuity gem ridden in the rough of this story which neither of our protagonists are at all aware of and won't get paid off until next time, so I won't spoil the surprise just yet. From the shadows, Thorn-Teeth, Gurf, Rachacha, Tharg, and Thok (your guess is as good as mine which one is which) observe the world they now find themselves in: the language, the clothes, the exchange of money for goods and services, etc.

Then we are treated to a page-long argument, but whereas last issue their language was translated for the reader's benefit, now we sit through a page of the writer's made up language accompanied by some wild gesticulations. It's like when an idiot finds themselves confronted with someone who doesn't speak English so they start shouting all their words, saying them slowly and making huge motions, as though one could break the language barrier by sheer force of will. I seem to remember Jackie Chan's character in Shanghai Noon attempting this relentlessly with a tribe of Native Americans. Their solution was peyote. No, it didn't solve the language gap, but at least he shut up.

The more he gestures, the less we understand.

You get the impression that none of the Killer Folk who made it through the portal represent their traditional leadership, and now there is a bit of a struggle for command as they try to settle course of action to take. They do all commit to a plan and launch an assault on the unsuspecting commuters and we hear them uttering a few words of English.

I think the intent in the writing is that we are supposed to be shocked that a bunch of Homo Habiles are already picking up modern speech in what could have only been an hour or two at most, but I'm honestly kind of shocked that in the cultural melting pot that is Manhattan Island, they miraculously managed to only overhear anglophones. English makes up only 51% of the languages spoken in New York, so the fact that we don't have a weird mashup of English, Chinese, Hindi, and Russian seems like a longshot granted by the nature of the medium.

They got swagger. 

Improbable foreign language immersion aside, the next thing we see, it's night and the Killer Folk come up from out of the subway, now bedizened in contemporary apparel, albeit not always worn appropriately. One of them has a necktie around his neck while another is wearing a wrist watch around his bicep. It's worth applauding the fact that the artist resisted the temptation to put the one female member of the contingent in gender specific clothes. After all, it's likely that these guys aren't even all that high up in their world's food chain, so I suspect the concept of a socially constructed gender binary and its relation to apparel is a bit beyond their understanding. Of course, the fact that the token girl is wearing a purse for a hat should make that perfectly clear in far fewer words.

Meanwhile, under a bridge (it's where all the cool mutant T-Rexes hang out these days), Lunella and Devil Dinosaur seem to be squabbling over the KOWP. Lunella seems to have pieced together that DD has near human sentience because she's actually talking to him rationally. Neither one of them is holding the KOWP and it seems to be the crux of their fighting. She just wants to go home, but he is not letting the KOWP out of his sight.

Sad DD is the most huggable DD.

Now, I know I'm going to be saying this a lot in my coverage of this title, but Devil Dinosaur's expressions are adorable. Yes, the giant carnivore is cuter than the little girl. The one panel that particularly hit home was when Lunella accuses him of not knowing what it's like to have a family to go home to when we the reader know that DD lost the only family he's ever had minutes before arriving in our world. His eyes go from their usual fiery appearance to small and low as he looks down at her and grumbles "Rr-roo..." And my heart just goes out to this poor soul. I suppose it's only fair to acknowledge that I kind of hate humanity with a vengeance right now (I keep reminding myself that the election season is almost over), so I'll invariably relate to the plight of a sad animal over a human being in a heartbeat.

Of course, Lunella has her motivations as well. She explains that she needs it to somehow prevent the Terrigen cloud hovering in the atmosphere from eventually infecting and transforming her. Apparently, she has somehow deduced that she has the Inhuman gene.

I don't know which subsequent question this raises to be more interested in. Is the existence of the Inhumans now so common knowledge to the general populace that they now have access to self-administered tests to detect their Inhuman heritage? Am I right in understanding that neither of her parents tested positive for the gene? It's already a recessive gene to begin with so I'm starting to wonder why. Of course, we could later discover that they aren't her birth parents, but this wouldn't be the first instance of the family member of a newly activated Inhuman not being Inhuman too, such as Ms Marvel's brother Aamir, whose body rejected it either because he's a latent mutant or he prayed it away/has denial issues.

"Dumb dog, why are you following me?
I ain't got a crumb, dog. How about letting me be?"

Devil Dinosaur does finally let her go with the KOWP in hand unimpeded. He does try following her, but it's adorable how she treats him like a dog she found, telling him "No! Stay!" Of course, being a dutiful T-Rex, he looks pretty dejected that his new friend his giving him the brush off. I think it's only fair to acknowledge that Lunella is kind of awful, but in ways that feel very much in keeping with being a nine-year-old and a child genius. She is so used to thinking she is always the smartest person in the room that she is frequently (unintentionally) belittling to those around her, but we are only on issue #2 on what I hope will be a very long run, so this is a good place to start and give her room to grow as a person. Despite her pronounced lack of people skills, she does have the wherewithal to thank him for not eating her.

Of course, she's not out of his line of vision before we hear her shouting and getting cut off mid-sentence. Concerned, Devil Dinosaur searches high and low for her, including under a truck under a dumpster, and up in the moon. Okay, You know how I said he has quasi-human intelligence? Maybe it's mitigated by the fact that people are getting stupider these days. His IQ must adjust to the median human intelligence whenever he's transported to the modern day. Yes, that's just head canon to explain his hunting prowess. He's a goddamn T-Rex for crying out loud, the girl isn't going to be under a dumpster. Of course, the more I think about the part with the moon, that was probably a moment of Devil Dinosaur remembering another friend he lost just recently and having a moment of quiet reflection.

Not to far away, we see what has befallen Lunella as she is in the clutches of the Killer Folk, who have procured an even better grasp on the English language, as well as some police equipment, having recently gotten the jump on some of New York's finest. Okay, I can understand a couple of cops being no match for a T-Rex, but a bunch of cavemen about the size of 3rd-grader? Wow, even for a world full of super beings, these cops fail to measure up.

This book continues to be a charming romp of a book. While there are no actual "deal breaker" problems with it, I do feel it's only fair to acknowledge that it does some acrobatics in order to achieve some of its ends, primarily the Killer Folk learning English in an afternoon, but otherwise this book has components that I think of as classic Marvel. One of our leads is effectively a misunderstood monster with a heart of gold and the other is a super genius as out of step in the modern day as the dinosaur is. Throwing them together and allowing for that push and pull between them brings something to the table that feels both timeless and fresh and I'm very much enjoying where this title is going. 

A Whirling Vortex of T-Rex!!

So who knew when I sat down to read a series about a little girl genius and a giant red T-Rex that I'd be squeeing over the dinosaur? Today we're looking into one of Marvel's newest offerings from the past year, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. Written by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, it has Natacha Bustos as the artist and Tamra Bonvillain on colors.

There isn't too much essential continuity you need to know, but this is a surprisingly storied character. He is a rare example of characters created by Jack Kirby who isn't tied into the cosmic or straightforward superhero end of the Marvel Universe. In case the name didn't give it away, he's a dinosaur, but due to some plotty stuff in his origin which is a story for another time, he's actually a mutant dinosaur.

No, really, his being a mutant is actually a specific plot point in the Fallen Angels mini series, so despite whatever latter day retcons Marvel will assert to assert that he's actually an Inhuman or whatever, we know the truth.

But yeah, unlike your average T-Rex in the Mavel Universe, instead of being green, he's fiery red. Additionally, he's endowed with heightened intelligence (human or higher) as well as superior strength. Yeah, those flimsy little T-Rex arms are actually pretty mighty.

He comes from a place called the Valley of Flame, a prehistoric world which, depending on the era of publication and who is writing is either in Earth's prehistoric past, is in an alternate reality where dinosaurs are still alive, or is on another planet. Marvel currently stands by the multiversal designation of Earth-78411. This despite the fact that Marvel laid its Multiverse to rest last year. Way to commit to your decisions, guys.

The only other people of the Valley of Flame relevant to our discussion are the primitive race of men (homo habilis, according to the wiki) who are divided into two different clans: the Small Folk and the Killer Folk. Take a wild guess which tribe you should be rooting for. Devil Dinosaur's lifelong companion and fellow mutant Moon Boy is a member of the Small Folk and most all their appearances prior to this series were in tandem.

Okay, that's enough backstory: on with the show.

Our story begins with a quote from Dr. Gregory Stock, “humanity is leaving its childhood and moving into its adolescence as its powers infuse into realms hitherto beyond our reach.” Every issue starts with a passage like this from a luminary of the scientific community. I'm not sure how well they all relate to the book's human protagonist, but in this case it is markedly fitting. Presumably having such a young protagonist means that we are embarking on a child's version of the hero's journey, which places a heavy emphasis on the transition to maturity, learning to put the greater good above selfish desires, and "putting away childish things."

Meet Lunella Lafayette of Lower East Side Manhattan. She is a nine-year-old girl genius whose bedroom is wall to wall science. A solar system mobile hangs above her, while posters of Neil Degrassi Tyson and the Moon are hung on her walls. Models of molecular compounds are scattered on the floor and whereas most kids get nagged in the morning to wake up before school, we find Lunella hiding under the covers as she doing science. What is she cobbling together? Why does she feel compelled to hide head to toe under the covers with a flashlight cradled in the small of her neck as she performs presumably delicate mechanical construction? Not a clue, but odds are I wouldn't understand what that thing does without a flowchart.

Sadly, it seems Lunella has applied to quite a few of Marvel's supergenius schools, but has a cork board full of rejection letters. I'm assuming she stamped the huge red "rejected" marks on them herself. They're pretty uniform and I have a hard time believing educators would be that nasty to a nine-year-old.

Lunella's mother is calling from outside the bedroom for her to get moving and ready for school, but Lunella is a lot more interested in working on her device. She asserts that it is the key to solving the biggest problem, maybe even the city. However, Mother Lafayette has her daughter's number and mentions that the schools she has been applying to probably check attendance. And it is hilarious to see just how her eyes widen in terror as she speeds through getting dressed for school and out the door and taps a button on her tennis shoes transforming them into roller skates, helping her beat the clock.

Deployable roller skates? Meh. Next
time try rocket powered roller skates.

And this is our first full view of Lunella's character design. She's African-American and wears her hair, in one big frizzy floof of a ponytail (which defies logic, considering it's more wavy than curly when it's down). She wears  round purple glasses, a t-shirt with the moon on it, khaki shorts, and knee socks, and shorts. I won't lie, I think her design could do with a few more inches on those shorts. I ought to also include her backpack in that description, as any self respecting geeky little kid probably has quite a number of essentials in their backpacks that they cannot do without.

I think she is a little leggy for a nine-year-old. I think an inch further in that direction, I would have been worried that they're trying to sexualize a 9-year-old, but they manage to dodge that by emphasizing her sheer awkward body language as she rushes to school. Seriously, Lunella. You have two free hands and you are a literal genius. Why is that sandwich bag in your mouth?

Lunella arrives just as the bell rings, but her teacher is pretty mean-spirited to her anyway. Yeah, I have a hard time buying how venomously her teacher speaks. Even if a teacher is at her wits end trying to relate to a student, this is not how a teacher would communicate with a gifted-but-problematic student. This is how overly protective parents think a teacher would act. Or, considering we are deep in Lunella's POV, this is how a student with a superiority complex perceives her teachers.

Either this girl is hearing what she wants to hear instead of the spoken
word or this teacher is on the verge of a new career path.

Still, Lunella isn't exactly a prize herself. She may be a child prodigy, but she's still a nine-year-old and has a lot of growing up to do. She actively disengages in the class room, again to her teacher's chagrin, preferring to work on a design for a Kree detector. When the teacher, who calls her "Little Miss Know-It-All" (again, this is how helicopter parents think teachers treat their special little snowflakes), calls on her to answer the question of the theory of evolution, Lunella only begrudgingly responds and instead of answering the question asked, she delivers a small diatribe about why calling it a theory is inaccurate. Of course, she's the only one reveling in her intellectual superiority. The kids all laugh at and taunt her, calling her "Moon Girl."

That night, at the dinner table, her parents try to reach out to her, encouraging her to engage more with her classmates. Make friends. A friend. Then there's this little moment that I'm certain had to be deliberate. As her parents are trying to reach her verbally, her mother extends her hand and we see a panel of her hand not quite reaching her daughter's. It is just a moment of hesitation before she takes it in the next panel, but it makes me wonder whether there is a reason why we see that moment of their hands not connecting yet.

Suddenly, I realize that there might be grounds for an Aspergers reading of Lunella. She's hyper intellectual, avoids eye contact, lacks an ability to pick up on social cues, generally behaves unsympathetically to others, and now this little moment hints at an aversion to physical contact. Of course, this might just be me projecting and could totally be unintentional, but I'm kind of interested in having a protagonist with an Austism Spectrum Disorder, especially if it is eventually made textual and not just left up to the reader to interpret. Granted, I watched the Girl Meets World episode, "I Am Farkle" earlier this week, so perhaps this issue is just floating around my head lately.

Sometimes, having a gifted child isn't exactly a gift.

But she really doesn't see the point in her parents' plea for socialization. She doesn't expect to be at the school much longer and she has much more important objectives in mind, which takes us to later that night.

Almost assuredly past curfew, Lunella is out using her newly minted Kree detector. Her narration hints at the urgency of her project, saying that if she doesn't suss out her problem soon, she won't be human anymore. Juxtaposed against her tablet showing an article on the Kree and a news paper article about the Terrigen Mist and we start to get a clearer picture that she is worried about potentially being afflicted with Terrigenesis. Goddammit. I was really hoping to avoid dealing with the Inhumans after that abysmal Uncanny Avengers arc. Don't get me wrong, I love Ms. Marvel, but the Inhumans really need to get their proverbial peanut butter out of the rest of Marvel's chocolate.

While probably not what she was looking for, she does manage to find something of note in the form of a strange glowing orb with a criss-crossed pair of metallic rims orbiting it that emits a "kree-kree" sound. I'm not certain if it is a Kree artifact, but at least she detected a "kree."

Ladies and gentlemen:
The Main Event!

Ages ago, according to the narration (so we're ignoring the wiki's multiversal designation), we find ourselves in the  Valley of Flame, where the Killer Folk seem to be in possession of  the same glowing do-dad Lunella has found. They call it the Nightstone and they seem to worship it, intending to make sacrifices to it in order to "slake the Nightstone's bloodthirst." Yeah, wondering now what this thing is going to do to Lunella after prolonged exposure...

The Killer Folks' ritual sacrifices are put on hold when who should break up their holy rite but freaking Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy! Yeah, those blood sacrifices? The Killer Folk outsourced them and have a slew of Moon Boy's people lined up for the slaughter. While DD stomps his way through their foes, Moon Boy gets his hands on the Nightstone and intends to take it and bury it where the Killer Folk can't find it. But before he can make a getaway, he finds himself set upon by a bunch of Killer Folk who don't take kindly to Small Folk getting their fingerprints on their murder bauble.

Elsewhen, in the equally inhospitable realm of contemporary elementary school gym class, Lunella has abjured from the dog eat dog world in favor of marveling at her new discovery, which she has not-quite-subtly hid in her backpack. Remember how her homeroom teacher was kinda horrible to her? Well, her gym teacher is a whole lot worse. Not only is he vile to her, publicly shaming her for not joining in the game, but he violates her right to privacy by reaching into her bag and pulling out her "omni-wave projector." Not only does he infringe upon her privacy, but he shows no sense of remorse as he spins the strange device on his fingers, like a basketball, no doubt showing off to a bunch of 4th graders in the hopes of them not realizing he's a loser who has to pick on 9-year-olds to compensate for his own insecurities.

I'll go out on a limb as guess he has a small penis.

Again, I can't help but notice a disconnect within Lunella that might allude to a neuro-behavior disorder. Instead of getting upset about this clear infraction from her teacher, her inner monologue is fixated upon riddling out what exactly she has and what it might be used for. Considering I have a condition in which hyperfocus is certainly a part of the equation and happen to know it's also a symptom of Asperger's, it definitely caught my attention. It isn't until her teacher's actions have "comic book science" implications that we see her reacting to him.

Being both a bit of a bully and a show off, he spins her discovery on his finger like it were a basketball. However, this has some adverse effects as it causes a whirling green vortex to manifest. Nice going, jockstrap.

Back in the jungle primeval, the Killer Folk have Moon Boy surrounded, and he clutches the Nightstone with all his might as they beat him within an inch of his life. However, by the time they've finished with him, what a coinkidink, the Nightstone has vanished and there is another swirling green vortex, which they enter in the hopes of finding their precious totem. Of course, being chased into it by Devil Dinosaur was only a kicker in terms of reasons to enter a mysterious portal.

DD finds Moon Boy on the jungle floor, speaking with a quivering voice. Fairly certain that he is going to die, he beseeches his trans-species lifemate to avenge him, pointing up to the moon as he refers to himself in the third person. It is in this scene that we find what I expect will be the first of many panels (I read the first three issues at once as part of Marvel's Timely line, so I've been able to connect the dots a bit) that will make you look at Devil Dinosaur and say "aaaaaawwwww." His expression as Moon Boy says (presumably) his final words are as tender as any sad puppy's face,

Lunella manages to get her "omni-wave projector" to stop spinning, but is pretty shocked, as are her teacher and classmates, when she is almost jumped by a bunch of Australopithecines. Then she is even more surprised when a giant red mothafucking T-REX with fiery eyes rampages through the portal! There was a time when even I thought one Sharknado was laughable, then each sequel further chipped away my hope for humanity. But one film about a vortex filled with T-Rexes would totally reverse my esteem in the world we live in.

Devil Dinosaur chases the five of them down, tearing through the high chainlink fence of the schoolyard only for the Killer Folk to find refuge down a New York subway, where Devil Dinosaur is far too large to reach. Also, I think he might be a little tangled up in the remnants of the fence. Either that, or due to prior visitations to our time/reality/planet, he has learned only to cross the street at a crosswalk.

Look at those eyes. They'd be wet with tears if they weren't all fiery.

Lunella is apparently not down with his roaring because she yells at him to stop. Smart kid. A real genius. She's maybe 60 pounds soaking wet and she just caught the attention to, as far as she knows, a dangerous prehistoric apex predator (yes, I know paleontologists argue that T-Rex was a scavenger, but fuck that noise). He leans in and sniffs at her while she begs him not to kill her. He acquiesces and instead takes her by the backpack with his teeth and stomps away into the busy streets of Manhattan. Did he sniff something of importance from her? Do Marvel's child geniuses secrete a special pheromone that is catnip to theropods? Or did he make an immediate associate between her and Moon Boy from the moon on her shirt? Wait, didn't she wear that shirt yesterday? Is she like Doug Funnie and has an entire wardrobe of the same outfit? We need answers, Marvel!

And this probably isn't even the oddest think to happen that day in
Marvel's Manhattan.

So, this is exactly what I want out of a non-superhero book in a lot of ways. It has one of my favorite Marvel standards: a child genius who actually acts like a kid. Okay, she isn't exactly a ball of sunshine, but considering kids can be horrible, I think it works. She has a lot in common with Damian Wayne, who is one of my favorite current DC characters for exactly that reason. She's too intelligent to click with her age group, but she lacks the emotional maturity (read: humility) to have a place at the grown up table, either. I also like that despite the fact that her co-lead is a freaking mutant T-Rex, her problems seem smaller in scope than the average current stories I end up reading. This isn't a life or death story with impossibly high, Earth shattering stakes. It's wacky adventure with one very old character and one very new character, both of whom do not fit into the standard comic book protagonist mold. And I cannot wait to continue reading it.

Next Week: Grab a bowl of popcorn and fire up your dvd/bluray player as I take a look at the infamously, comically abysmal final season of X-Men The Animated Series. Bad animation fashion show, here we come!