Book: Devil Dinosaur
Title: “Demon-Tree!”
Issue No.: 7
Published: July 18, 1978
Price: 35¢
Format: Digital reprint
Devil Dinosaur thwarted an alien invasion of his prehistoric world in previous issues of his book. But one piece of alien technology survived, the titular “Demon-Tree” of this story. It’s not a tree, demon or otherwise — it’s just an oddly-shaped (and considerably powerful) computer.
With its alien masters gone, the computer decides it will protect three ape-people. To further this goal, the computer locks the three inside a force field. This annoys the strong-willed ape-person Stone-Hand. But the ape-person Eev kind of likes it — she’s safe in the force field, and it’s a pleasant place to live — it’s kind of an idyllic garden.
In case Eev’s name didn’t give it away, Devil Dinosaur writer Jack “King” Kirby is setting up his version of the “real” story that inspired the Garden of Eden story in the Bible. Stone-Hand is Adam, Eev is Eve, and I’m not sure why the other ape-person is involved, but he dies off (from old age) pretty early on.
I generally love this book, but this issue didn’t do much for me. One thing going against it is the best reading copy I could find was a digital reprint. This is obviously not the fault of the original creative team, but I’m really not into digital reprints of Bronze Age comics — the modern colors are just so different than what was featured in the original books (and what you can see in a digital scan of old books)... it’s barely the same book anymore. A digital reprint just doesn’t have the same vibe as an original paper copy or a decent scan of an original copy.
Aside from the format (again, not the Kirby and company’s fault), Devil Dinosaur (and his sidekick, Moonboy the ape-person) is a supporting character in this story. Basically his only job here is to bust through the computer-created force field at the end of the story, short-circuiting the “Demon-Tree” and allowing Stone-Hand and Eev to exit “Eden.”
Next-time — I'll be back next week with another Marvel comic book from July 1978!