Godzilla Was the One Who Introduced Devil Dinosaur to the Marvel Universe

This is “Break Into Another World,” which spotlights examples of stories that were originally non-canon being worked into continuity. This is different from “I Tell You What If,” which is about when the regular continuity adopts ideas originated in What If..? and alternate future stories. Today, we look at how Devil Dinosaur made his Marvel Universe in an unusual comic book, Marvel’s Godzilla!

For many years, Marvel had a fascinating approach to its licensed characters. You see, by the 1970s, older comic book stories being reprinted had certainly become a standard practice in the comic book industry, with both DC and Marvel routinely reprinting a number of its older stories (Marvel even had a number of comic book series whose existence was solely to reprint older stories, like Marvel Triple Action and Marvel Tales), but even with that in mind, comic book stories were never done with the intent of them later being reprinted. What that means is, Marvel and DC weren’t doing new stories with the idea that they would eventually be reprinted, and as a result, there never was any specific thought given to how a current comic book might NOT be able to be reprinted in the future.

So when, say, DC, got the license to do comic books based on The Shadow, it just had the Shadow guest star in an issue of Batman, not worrying whether that issue of Batman could ever be reprinted later. Similarly, when Marvel cut licensing deals with characters like The Micronauts or Rom the Spaceknight, it just integrated the characters into the Marvel Universe, not worrying about the fact that when the licenses were later lost, those stories would become unreprintable (unless they worked out another licensing deal in the future, of course). So that led to interesting situations where Marvel’s Godzilla comic, not a comic book Marvel can just reprint on its own (although last year they actually DID cut a deal to do a Godzilla collection), marked a major turning point in the comic book history of Devil Dinosaur, featuring his debut in the Marvel Universe.

Why wasn’t Devil Dinosaur a Marvel Universe character?

In 1978, Jack Kirby was at a crossroads in his career. Through his involvement with the 1977 Fantastic Four cartoon, Kirby made connections within the field of animation, and he was surprised to learn that there was a career path for him in that industry, a path that would involve less work, more money, and, best of all, much-needed health insurance benefits for the artist and his wife. So Kirby was all set to leave the world of comics for animation. The only issue is that he wasn’t yet finished with his contract with Marvel, a three-year deal where he would be paid a set rate for producing a set amount of pages. His Eternals comic book series had just been canceled, so Kirby needed a new project.

There were rumors that DC was planning on doing a cartoon based on Kirby’s Kamandi series that he had done for that company, so Marvel decided to have Kirby work up a new comic book concept that could be done as a cartoon series, and Marvel would then use Kirby’s concepts to pitch for an animated series. Marvel wanted it to involve dinosaurs, and so Kirby created Devil Dinosaur.

It was a delightful, all-ages comic book series that was geared towards children, and was very much not in the regular continuity of the Marvel Universe. Note that Kirby didn’t particularly care if it WAS meant to be part of the Marvel Universe, as he easily could have integrated it if anyone had asked. No one did.

While the concept was a great one by Kirby, the development deal Marvel came up with for the series never became a PRODUCTION deal and so Marvel was just left with a comic book without a new cartoon to tie into and, naturally enough, the comic book series died a fairly quick death, as it really didn’t fit in with Marvel’s comic book line at the time. It wouldn’t remain gone for long, though! Godzilla beckoned!

How did Devil Dinosaur makes his Marvel Universe debut?

As noted, Marvel worked Godzilla into the greater Marvel Universe in its comic book series that launched in 1977, and the fearsome monster fought many Marvel superheroes over the course of his series. At one point, Hank Pym used Pym Particles to reduce Godzilla in size to just 20 feet or so. However, no one knew what to do with him beyond that. In Godzilla #21 (by Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe and Dan Green), Reed Richards decided to use Doctor Doom’s time machine to send Godzilla back to Earth’s past, so that he could live among the dinosaurs…

Of course, in the Marvel Universe timeline, there existed a time where humans and dinosaurs co-existed, and that’s where Godzilla ended up, and we see that this is the world of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur, and as such, the series (which had ended just four months before this issue of Godzilla) was now integrated into the Marvel Universe!

As this is a Marvel comic book in the year 1979, the two characters had to first fight each other, so we get to see an awesome Devil Dinosaur and Godzilla fight for a few pages…

They were teaming up by the end of the issue, and Godzilla #22 had an awesome double-page splash showing Devil Dinosaur and Godzilla teaming up to fight all comers together…

By the end of the issue, though, Godzilla was both pulled back to the present, but also had the Pym Particles canceled out, so when he returned to the present day, he was gigantic again, and it led to one final battle between Godzilla and the Marvel heroes before he disappeared at the end of the series (as the series was ending). Now fully a part of the Marvel Universe, Devil Dinosaur would start making sporadic appearances in Marvel comic books starting in the 1980s.

Okay, folks, I’m sure that you have plenty of examples of this sort of thing (I am counting other dimensions that were eventually connected to Earth, as well, but I’m mostly thinking non-canon stories that were later made canon). So send in your ideas to me at brianc@cbr.com!