Dinosaurs as Devils and Moon-boys As Primitives

by Jack Kirby

You know how the caricatures are created. The large dinosaur in close focus is immediately an awesome threat, a monster, a killer, a frightening roar that chills the viewer each time a "King Kong" rerun hits the local TV screen. It is time to freeze in one's chair while the beboppers run for cover to a nearby room. Of oourse, this kind of thing pays off for everyone concerned, which not only includes film-makers and their eager audiences but also, the academic crowd that furnishes the basic product for our basic fears to chew on.

Sure, the dinosaur was no doubt, a large customer, with what we consider a mean disposition. But, it is evident that we cannot honestly, view him on our own terms; no more, than we can assume the earliest moon-boys to have been hairy little rudiments of latter-day Man.

My guess is that every living creature is capable of an intellifgent and compassionate move. Yes, even a man-eating shark has been known to realease its prey for reasons unknown to us. Ask any scuba-diver who still treasures his foot despite the ugly, teethmarks still present in the skin.

It is we, who have made the dinosaur a devil and early Man a PRIMITIVE version ourselves. It is we, who listen to the tales of witchdoctors, old and new, for the surges of adrenalin so necessary to our existence. In my opinion, it's time to put a halt to this type of practice. Fear, of course, breeds hatred, and I dread to think of what would happen should a living dinosaur found in the Amazonian jungle or a Big Foot wander unwittingly into a super-market in northem California. "Wham, Bam, Don't give a damn" is certain to follow. These poor anachronisms would soon be pelts for the camera and grist for the media mill. Our fetish for security would be satisfied and a great opportunity for another kind of relationship with a unique species clearly lost.

It's all a matter of conditioning, friends. We reserve "Humanity" only, for ourselves and on little or no reflection of it in other creatures. That's why we can dispatch them with terrible thoroughness peculiar to our kind.

Nobody with credentials of any sort is ever going to change that attitude. It's our "M.O."- our method of operation. However, we do have the capacity for fanciful projection and employ it beneficially in many ways. I, for one, try it it in this magazine, and know full well that I may not be too far off base to conceive of a dinosaur with heroic instincts or a dawn man of well-rounded character, prone to the soppy sentiments of loyalty and courage. Humanity was there, at the beginning, just as surely as it is among us today, and as inevitable as it will be in the distant future. To see humanity in a proportioned variety among life about us can't possibly be a negative approach to any subject.

I believe that to read DEVIL DINOSAUR is more than experience in story-form. It's a road to meaningful thought, a legitimate look at the other side of the street, an 'up' version, in a small way, of a very large segment of our own environment. To accept Devil and Moon-boy as personal visions is an act of sharing and another source of interest in our daily lives. For despite all evidence to the contrary, it was entirely possible for each of these characters to involve themselves in the modern context.

Who cares why or when the dinosaurs died out. That fact, when it is finally acertained will still be a cold and tasteless morsel for consumption. Who cares if Moon-boy didn't have a car in his cave or a golf course near the swamp of his choice. The point of these adventures is that he could manage to utilize both if they were available to him. In all truth, he finally got them anyway, although, it took him a million years or so, to do it. Time itself, is nothing more than an interim in which to collectively get things done.

And,ultimately, Moon-boy will have done everything. He'll have gone far beyond producing satellites and housing tracts. His trail will be littered with the innards of computers, chemical substitutes for natural foods and bombs which destroy people but leave their shoes in immaculate condition.

There's no doubt in my mind that such a clever little rascal is well writing about. The facts are, that he's been done to a turn by writers throughout the centuries. But, here, we have caught him in his infancy, carousing with gusto in the greatest incubator ever devised - an infant Earth, hatching mysteries and miracles for Marvelites of the present to unravel. If Devil and Moon-boy continue to gallop your way,it will indicate your own serious interest in what thought and entertainment are all about. At any rate, what are your views on the subject.

Devil Dinosaur © & TM 1997 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Used Without Permission.

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