Peep that wild Michael Golden cover. His stuff sure does evolve over the years. Just in for a weird time this post. Moonboy and Devil Dinosaur are among Jack Kirby’s last creations for Marvel. After he left Marvel for treating him so badly only for DC to treat him badly, he found himself back at the company in the late 70s, doing weird stuff. He created The Eternals in this time, did some very odd runs on Captain America and Black Panther, and also did an adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’m not sure why this was commissioned so long after the movie, but it’s a gorgeous piece of comics making. And then Marvel was granted the rights to let Kirby keep going, trying to tell new stories in the 2001 universe, and buddy, they did not match the movie at all. But out of this run came Machine Man at one end of the timeline and Moonboy and Devil Dinosaur at the other. The rights to 2001 would inevitably lapse, but the stuff Kirby created in those books, the company retained. So here, in 1998, Spider-Man is going to team up with one of the primitives who worshiped the monolith at the beginning of 2001, along with his giant red T. Rex friend. Comics are crazy. Moonboy & Devil Dinosaur were brought to the present in, I believe, the pages of Ghost Rider, which was itself going through a bonkers transformation during this period, but that’s another story. The recap page tells us MM & DD were captured and are being studied by scientists. Your contestants trying to make this work are Tom DeFalco, Tom Lyle, Robert Jones and Mike Rockwitz. Tom Lyle just floating around the periphery of the Spider-Office in the late 90s is kind of odd. Some annuals, that Venom one-shot, an ASM fill-in, never gone long, never stays long, either.
DUEL with Devil Dinosaur! A name equal parts stupid and delightful.
Moonboy, we’re told, has been learning English primarily from TV, so he talks… like this. Then… then The Ringmaster and Princess Python show up. Must I constantly be subjected to these losers? They’re pretending to be civil servants, and Ringy has paperwork showing that he has the legal right to take Moon Boy away if Moony chooses to leave. Peter recognizes them and knows something’s up, but can’t decide what to do. Ringy takes MM into another room to “question” him, hypnotizes him, and soon brings him back to declare of his own free will that he & Devil want to leave.
I will never get over the fact that a criminal scam based on hypnotizing people also runs a real, legit circus. That’s a lot of work to impress people who won’t remember your act if things go properly. It doesn’t hold up to a lot of scrutiny. I guess because he’s an idiot, Spider-Man arrives at Madison Square Garden and is shocked to find the rest of the Circus is involved, too. Why.. wouldn’t they be? Ringmaster tells everyone he wants a perfect show this weekend, and Spider-Man wonders why he cares when he’s just gonna hypnotize everyone. Hey, me, too!
Ring-a-dweeb. My eyes hurt. Swinging off, Spidey makes a very bizarre reference to the ongoing problems facing the proposed James Cameron Spider-Man movie in real life, and then we see word spreading and everyone wanting to go see the dinosaur. Also that reporter is obviously dating the scientist from earlier and also trying to keep it a secret from Peter and BOY do I not care. Attending the show as Peter with a press pass, our hero spots The Thing and Matt Murdock among the throng. Surely they won’t get involved, too, their names aren’t on the cover. Finding his seat, Peter puts on dark glasses to avoid being hypnotized.
What a twist. That night, Spider-Man circles the area near the circus, sure Ringmaster is using the intense police presence at The Garden to allow his boys to pull robberies, and soon enough, he catches them in a van, and follows them til he can catch them in the act.
Amazing Spider-Man and Devil Dinosaur Annual 1999: Brought to you by Pepcid AC! Do they even make that anymore? Since when does someone in this stupid circus breathe fire?
Sneaking back into the circus, Spider-Man is set upon by various trained animals. Again… why? Why are you paying for the upkeep of a small zoo when you’re just going to hypnotize people? Our hero surprisingly just jumps over them and leaves (Altho given the art, maybe it’s because Tom Lyle knew better than to have them on panel too long), but his escape route takes him right out onto the show floor. The crowd thinks he’s part of the act, so when It’s Fightin’ Time, they just watch and enjoy.
Cannot believe DeFalco has Spider-Man giving away his biggest advantage in the year of our lord 1998. And the only thing stupider than the cannon guy thinking that would work is how close he came. Ugh. Well, it’s long past time for Spider-Man, Devil and Moonboy to share some panels, and they do, first in a big splash page, then in a weird 2-page layout, and the hypnotized Moonboy goads his buddy into trying to eat our hero. Spidey manages to web up Devil’s snout so he can be eaten, weirdly concerned with making this all look like part of the act, and tries to reason with Moonboy, who’s not hearing it.
I am only including this net page because of how atrocious the dialogue is.
I may weep. Spidey and Moony begin taking apart the Circus while Devil curiously does nothing. At all. He’s… pretty handy in a fight, I would think. But Spider-Man has beaten these idiots repeatedly all by himself, it’s not like he needs the help. Soon they’re more or less mopped up except for Princess Python’s, uh, python, which is wrapped around Moonboy.
In a 2-page spread, we find MM & DD running free in The Savage Land, with the doc and the reporter and Peter there to watch. The doc says to thank Spider-Man for him, because they can be happy here.
Spidey will see us next year. Toms Defalco and Lyle will not. Of all the comics I have read, this was surely one of them. The best part was the cover. But with this nonsense behind us, we’re more or less clear to see this block, and Vol. 1, through to the end. Only 2 more detours between here and the finish line.