One of Marvel’s youngest heroes was the first to get to the bottom of the Dark Ages, cementing their status as the smartest superhero.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Dark Ages #1, available now from Marvel.
In its first issue alone, Dark Ages has already introduced one of the most devastating incarnations of the Marvel Universe. After the world-ending threat of the Unmaker emerged from within the Earth, the valiant fight to stop it cost the lives of several Marvel heroes and unleashed a worldwide electromagnetic pulse that wiped out electrical devices.
And even though the Marvel Universe is filled with scientific and technological geniuses, the young super-genius Moon Girl was the first hero to realize what was right in front of them, proving that she is Marvel’s smartest hero in Dark Ages #1 by Tom Taylor, Iban Coello, Brian Reber and VC’s Joe Sabino.
While heroes with Spider-Sense had their powers go painfully haywire first, Moon Girl was the first hero to truly realize what was actually going on. In her underground lab, an alarm rang out that drew Moon Girl’s attention to the dire situation still coming into focus, and she and her partner Devil Dinosaur took off across the city towards the home of the Fantastic Four. By the time she had arrived, the Earth was shaking with tremors, which Moon Girl had deduced were coming from an unsettled Unmaker deep within the planet’s core.
First appearing in 2016’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1 by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder and Natacha Bustos, Lunella Lafayette’s incredible intellect and inventive imagination made her something of an outcast among her young peers. When a fascination with the Kree through her studies became a more serious hobby, Lunella developed technology that helped her uncover an Omni-Wave Projector, as well as her own Kree heritage. It wasn’t long before the Omni-Wave Projector brought the Killer-Folk of Dinosaur World to the Earth of the primary Marvel Universe. When Devil Dinosaur followed to avenge the death of his longtime companion Moon Boy, he discovered a new heroic partner in Lunella.
Together they battled the invading Killer-Folk and formed an unbreakable bond that has persisted to this day, one that runs so deep it allows the pair to go as far as swapping bodies thanks to Lunella’s Inhuman abilities.
Lunella Lafayette might not be the most recognizable of Marvel’s young heroes, but her intellect already dwarfs those of famed geniuses like Reed Richard and Tony Stark. While she is part of the group that ultimately brings together the strike force that takes down the Unmaker, it’s not yet clear if she survived the initial effects of the electromagnetic pulse.
As the glimpse of the post-EMP world at the end of the issue suggests, many heroes lived on into the world that Dark Ages left behind. While it’s not clear how much of society they were able to rebuild, Moon Girl may be the only hero smart enough to figure out how to save some part of the world that was.
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