Are ‘Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur’ Part of the MCU?

Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur animated series was recently released on Disney Channel and Disney+. It follows a young girl named Lunella Lafayette and her devilish sidekick, Dinosaur. Even though Moon Girl is a simple character, and her adventures are well-known despite her rather short Marvel history, the character was interested enough to secure its own animated series. The MCU is rapidly expanding, adding a plethora of well-known and obscure characters to its roster. Due to that, the fans are asking one specific question, are Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur part of the MCU? 

Moon Girl and the Devil Dinosaur are not part of the MCU. The show follows Marvel comics characters, but it’s set in its own continuity. Despite not sharing the “cinematic universe” with most other MCU projects, some of the MCU characters will still appear. However, it’s unclear whether their stories within Moon Girl’s universe will have any connection to their MCU stories.

Now that we’ve covered that Moon Girl is in a universe of her own, it’s time to analyze it. If you’re interested in more info regarding the newest Marvel animated series and what it’s about, stay with us and keep reading!

What is Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur about? 

The animated series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur follow the adventure of two characters of the same name published in Marvel Comics. Moon Girl, also known as Lunella Lafayette, is a fictional character created by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder, and Natacha Bustos. Lunella debuted in 2015 with the first issue of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1, but her loyal sidekick is much older. Devil Dinosaur was created by Jack Kirby back in 1978. The character debuted in its own series, Devil Dinosaur #1. The series is considered to be a cult classic, the original partner of Devil Dinsaour being “Moon-Boy.” 

Moon Girl is set to replace Moon-Boy, and her character is really interesting. Lunella Lafayette is a young girl from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She is bubbly, quirky, and, most important of all, extremely smart. Due to her wits and unending curiosity, Lunella is often the target of teasing by her classmates.

Lunella is not discouraged by this. Even at a young age, she was a brilliant inventor, often getting inspired by Kree technology. That inspiration led her to invent the machine that could detect abandoned or lost Kree technology. 

Her detector led her straight to the Omni-Wave Projector, which one of her teachers accidentally activated. This led to a whole lot of trouble. What soon followed was the portal opening across space and time, connecting Earth-616 and the Dinosaur world. Using the portal, ancient enemies of Devil Dinosaur, Killer-Folk, led by Thorn-Teeth, crossed over to Earth-616. Luckily for Moon Girl and the rest of the people, Devil Dinosaur also decided to follow us, crossing over to Lunella’s world. 

Devil Dinosaur came to Earth-616 with a mission to avenge the death of his previous partner, the aforementioned Moon-Boy, and to do that, he will have to team up with Moon Girl. All in order to stop Thorn-Teeth’s evil plans and violence.  

The idea to create the new Moon Girl and the Devil Dinosaur series was inspired by Mark Paniccia’s idea for Devil Dinosaur to appear in stories set in modern times. It was a delightful idea that paid off brilliantly and eventually resulted in standalone animated series. 

How is Moon Girl connected to the MCU? 

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are not connected to the MCU. Even though both characters in the animated series are based on Marvel comic characters, their story is not set in the same continuity as the rest of the cinematic universe. And there’s a perfectly good reason for that since Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are more family-oriented series, and the character was always imagined as an animated series character. However, the creators would have nothing against Moon Girl transitioning to a live-action version as well.

But even though Moon Girl is not set in the MCU, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be references to it in the show. The voice actor behind the Beyonder, Laurence Fishburne, cleared up the confusion regarding Moon Girl’s status as the MCU character during the press conference. 

“We aren’t really connected to the MCU officially,” Fishburne says. “Our show is really a family show. Maybe we’re not going to save the world, but we are going to save the Lower East Side.”

Executive producer Steve Loter further clarified what that entails. 

“I always like to say complementary to the MCU because you’ll see a couple of MCU characters in the show. You’ll see that some of the characters we have in there are really deep cuts in Marvel Comics, like you really got to dive in to actually find. There’s a lot of easter eggs, not just in backgrounds like you noticed, there’s all over the place, even in some dialogue, and in some other places. Just stay tuned. Make a list, because there’s quite a few, because we’re big fans too.” 

As you can see, even though Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are not connected to the MCU, there will be plenty of references, and some fan-favorite characters might even make an appearance.

Last but not least, for further details, you’re going to have to check out the series itself. The series is available for streaming on Disney+ as of yesterday, February 15. The first 6 episodes are available right now, and the series will most likely have 17 episodes in total, with the finale airing on April 8. 

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