48 Years Later, Marvel Upgrades Classic Hero To Literal God Level

Published Sep 12, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows. 

An unexpected Marvel hero becomes a godlike villain capable of destroying entire cities. Across the Marvel multiverse, alternate versions of iconic heroes and villains typically retain their familiar power levels, usually to ensure they stay easily recognizable. An average Spider-Man variant will almost always possess the classic suite of proportionate wall-crawling strength and agility, and Captain America variants usually have peak-human super-soldier physiques across most realities, no more and no less. Keeping these power scales predictable helps writers establish a new setting without forcing the audience to relearn how strong a character is from scratch.

However, this rule breaks down when writers want to explore the limits of a character's potential. For instance, Maestro is an older Bruce Banner who has absorbed massive amounts of nuclear radiation that make him much stronger, faster, and more intellectually malicious than his primary Earth-616 self. Similarly, B-list threats like the Hood have ascended to god-like status by seizing the Infinity Gauntlet and absorbing Dormammu's full dark energy. Most notoriously, Earth-1610's Reed Richards gained nearly omnipotent power that far overshadows his traditional super-stretching abilities.

Every time a new Marvel universe is introduced, all famous and obscure characters have the opportunity to receive an upgrade that places them among the most powerful beings in their respective reality.

Devil Dinosaur Becomes A Deity

Marvel Mangaverse: Iron Knight #1; Written By Cody Ziglar; Art By Kei Zama, Wayne Faucher, And Arif Prianto

Marvel Mangaverse: Iron Knight #1 establishes that Riri Williams aka Ironheart is one of the only survivors of an apocalypse that turned Chicago into a walled-off dystopia. After defeating countless evil survivors like the Shocker and a monstrous version of Swarm, Riri Williams meets Moon Knight, who reveals to her that the culprit behind the cataclysm is the "Red Devil," the Mangaverse's version of Devil Dinosaur, so powerful that Khonshu could only cast him off to Chicago, where he destroyed the city and killed Lunella Lafayette before she becomes Moon Girl.

What's worse, Lunella's soul merges with the Red Devil, which Marvel Mangaverse: Iron Knight #1 describes as an "infernal wretch dragon" and a "yokai threat level: god." Luckily, Ironheart has an equally powerful force by her side, as Moon Knight happens to be the lord who commands Khonshu, a "divine luminous traveler" also described as a god yokai in this continuity. In true Mangaverse fashion and drawing inspiration from mecha manga and anime, Moon Knight and Ironheart merge together as the large mecha Iron Knight, and they successfully exorcise Lunella from the Red Devil.

Devil Dinosaur Is One Of The Marvel Characters Who Thrives Everywhere But In Live-Action

Devil Dinosaur Is A Major Marvel Character In Several High-Profile Continuities

Created by Jack Kirby himself, Devil Dinosaur has cemented his status as one of Marvel's most versatile characters, currently thriving across video games, animation, and multiple comic book continuities. Over the past few years, the giant T-Rex has seen a massive surge in popularity, starting with his co-star role in the animated series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Devil Dinosaur is also a playable Vanguard-class powerhouse in the competitive hero shooter Marvel Rivals, and one of the first characters introduced in the digital card game Marvel Snap. In both of these games, Devil Dinosaur beat characters like Jubilee, Gorr the God Butcher, and Doctor Doom to their introduction.

Yet, despite this popularity across the wider pop-culture landscape, Devil Dinosaur is still missing from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Devil Dinosaur has yet to receive a single live-action appearance, a subtle background easter egg, or even a namedrop in any of Marvel Studios' live-action or animated projects. Not even What If...? acknowledged the existence of the giant red dinosaur. While live-action filmmaking presents distinct CGI budget constraints for a twenty-foot-tall bright red dino, Red Devil has plenty of potential for MCU success alongside a live-action version of his loyal friend Moon Girl, as demonstrated by their animated show.

Marvel Mangaverse: Iron Knight #1 is now available from Marvel Comics

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  Moon Girl / Lunella (voice)

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  Fred Tatasciore

  Devil Dinosaur (voice)