Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Vol. 3: The Smartest There Is

by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare

[Quirky Cat]

Some series drop off in quality over time, but so far that has not happened with Moon Girl. Volume three will be a particular delight to the fans out there that love cameos (and there sure are a lot of them in this one!). Moon Girl is the smartest person in the world, but getting others to accept that is easier said than done. This volume is all about Moon Girl trying to find her place in the world with her new status.



I mentioned that there were quite a lot of spoilers in this volume, and that is certainly the truth. Along with the expected cameos (Amadeus Cho and Kid Kree), we’re also graced with the appearance of the Thing, Ironheart, Ms Marvel , Doctor Doom (ok that’s not totally accurate, but I don’t want to spoil the ending), Doctor Strange, the X-Men (Wolverine, Storm, and a few others), and even the goons from volume one. Like I said, it’s a lot of cameos.
I enjoyed each of these cameos, for the most part, but all for different reasons. While Luna didn’t fully appreciate the Thing stopping in to check on her – I certainly do. He knows what brilliant minds are like, and the trouble they’re likely going to get themselves into. Thus he was worried about Luna, and rightly so. I hope he makes more appearances in the future – he’s sweet. Though it’d probably be better if he chooses to only show up when Amadeus isn’t around, those two have some issues to work out, preferably outside of a city full of civilians.
Ironheart’s cameo was probably the best one as far as being capable of understanding Luna and her past is concerned. Both are young and brilliant, so Ri Ri obviously understands why Luna would be bored out her mind in a standard school (it stills upsets me that nobody has made a move to place her in a better educational situation). Like Ben, she acknowledged that Luna is certainly smart enough to make her own decisions, and thus she had no right to try and stop her. I loved it.
Doctor Strange probably had the funniest cameo, with the bonus of him being one of my favorite characters, so naturally I loved seeing him. Seeing an itty bitty Devil Dinosaur was just icing on the cake. I’m not sure he’ll be making further appearances (I didn’t get the same impression from his cameo as I did with Ben and Ri Ri) but I would be more than happy with him showing up again anyway.
The X Men were probably the last of the longer cameos, and theirs was probably the oddest. They just suddenly show up, take Luna to a location (apparently to give her a specific item she wanted) and get into a fight with Doom bots. Seeing everybody fight was fun of course, though I was surprised that Luna just watched rather than participating (though admittedly she had other things on her mind, like how did she set them all back in time?).
I know I’ve mostly talked about cameos this volume, but to be honest the cameos held up, supported, and carried the plot to the end; thus why I focused on it so much. The cameos were actually well done, and while there were a lot of them they never crossed the line into boring or annoying. So I’m pretty happy with this volume on the whole (I swear I’m not just saying that because Doctor Strange and Ms Marvel showed up!). I’ll be curious to see what volume four will bring us.


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