Lunella Lafayette’s adventures with her bright red dinosaur companion have steadily expanded in scope with each new arc of Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, and the book’s current storyline has taken her to both outer space and an alternate dimension where she met her evil doppelganger. Writer Brandon Montclare, artist Natacha Bustos, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain continue to make this one of Marvel’s most delightful titles, finding fresh ways to explore personal narratives with bold superhero spectacle. In the case of “Girl-Moon,” this creative team looks at feelings of abandonment through Illa the Living Moon, the daughter of Ego the Living Planet who has been starved for attention from her father. Lunella has spent the last few issues trying to bring these family members together for the first time, and she’s used her genius mind to finally reunite these celestial bodies.
This exclusive preview of next week’s Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur #23 has Illa and Ego opening up to each other, and this creative team brings a lot of heart to their interaction. Bustos does impressive work making these cosmic entities expressive, and these pages send the two characters on an emotional journey as Illa airs her grievances and Ego owns up to his mistakes. After being apart for so long, the final image of them rubbing their surfaces together is a tender moment of joyful release, and Bustos captures the love that blossoms between father and daughter. The interaction is grounded in real emotion but the circumstances are larger than life, and Bonvillain’s coloring reinforces the fantastic nature of this situation with bright pastels. Over the last two years, this creative team has effortlessly balanced insightful, intimate character moments with sensational fantasy, and that dynamic is what makes Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur such a captivating all-ages series.