Written by Cullen Bunn
Art by Drew Moss
Colors by Ryan Hill
Published by Oni Press
Let it not be said that Cullen Bunn does not have his thumbs in many pies. The man practically has a new issue coming out every week and then some and this case is no exception with the release of his collected miniseries, Terrible Lizard. The story follows one Jessica Anders, the lonely only child to a brilliant scientist experimenting with time distortion. Fed up with being confined to her father’s sterile military contracted lab, Jess finds herself befriending a tyrannosaurus rex whom she develops a mental link with, naming him Wrex. The military wants to destroy him, Jess’s father wants her away from the time displaced dinosaur, and all Jess really wants is a companion. That last part gets a little complicated when it’s revealed that Wrex functions as a magnet for other building sized monsters and none of them are quite as benevolent as he is.
What’s striking is how simple Terrible Lizard is. It’s effectively what if the Iron Giant was Godzilla and while it’s fair to criticize the story as being plain, there was a time every child would have wanted nothing more but a story where they get to ride a dinosaur and get into kaiju fights. There’s no attempt at any greater inner story or thematic meaning and though one should expect high ambitions for stories that will shape the minds of generations to come, sometimes it’s just really fun to watch monsters destroy things. Probably one of the reasons a book like this succeeds is how much it buys into its own sense of empowerment. Cullen Bunn is few things if not sincere when it comes to his writing and he drops in little bits of characterization that push the otherwise kid-friendly humor into snarking at the expense of hyper-authoritative military types. Jess herself is an engaging enough character to follow along and hit the emotional high point around the third act, plus it’s nice to see more stories with mixed race protagonists, especially when aimed at children. Oddly the one real disappointment is Wrex himself. He gets very little time to show off much character depth, even for a non-talking, several hundred ton reptile.
The art is penciled and inked by Drew Ross. His style is a good match for the tone this book sets. There is clearly affection for big monster designs. Ross drops in at least seven fantastic looking beasts that resemble something out of a lost Toho film. Most of the military and high concept scifi technology lying around looks great. Despite his looser approach to drawing humans performing dynamic actions, there’s a great sense of scale, especially in the later parts of the book. Not to mention Ross saves a lot of Wrex’s weaker characterization in the script by his own use of expressions. That being said, there are times where figures in the mid and background start turning into blurs and several of the book’s montages don’t quite hook up that well.
Terrible Lizard is a strange, simple, yet empowering children’s tale of a girl and her dinosaur. Chances are any kid can have a good time with this book and it might even leave them a little teary-eyed. Cullen Bunn applies his sensibilities well and Drew Ross has a fun time showing what happens when a native of the Cretaceous period starts getting into middle of the city monster fights. It may be a bit barebones and formulaic but sometimes dinosaurs doing cool things is a just enough excuse for a few shortcomings.