Netflix has a reputation for being a harsh mistress, notoriously axing numerous fan-favorite series before their time, but it’s not hard to argue that Disney Plus is the most savage of the streaming services out there. It seems no one is safe from cancellation on the Mouse House’s platform, even its biggest franchises. That includes Star Wars — just look what happened to The Acolyte — and even Marvel.
So far, no Marvel Studios production has been outright cancelled, but many have certainly failed to provide more episodes even though that was clearly the original plan — see the likes of Moon Knight and She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law. Those without the protection of being part of the Sacred Timeline are not so lucky, however, as we’ve now learned that an underrated series set elsewhere in the multiverse has been quietly canned after just two seasons.
Disney quietly cancelled a Marvel series over a year ago, and we only just found out
Marvel animated series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is confirmed not to return after the upcoming second half of its second season. This news may come as a shock to fans of the show — which aired on both the Disney Channel and Disney Plus and premiered in February 2023 — as season 2 is still ongoing. However, we’ve learned that the remaining episodes were finished way in advance and Disney pulled the plug on the show a long time ago.
After the belated announcement began to circulate online that Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur would conclude with season 2b, it became clear that this was an open secret behind the scenes at Disney Animation for a while. “What sucks is that a bunch of us at Disney knew about this for so long but couldn’t outright say it,” one storyboard artist tweeted. “The MoonGirl production area was a ghost town for over a year.”
The short lifespan of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is deeply unfair as the show had a lot of talent involved, and even though it wasn’t directly an MCU project it featured a lot of crossovers both on and off screen. Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s Laurence Fishburne served as executive producer and also voiced the Beyonder, a character who could go on to be a big deal in Avengers: Secret Wars. The plethora of other notable cast-members included Maya Hawke, Daveed Diggs, Manny Jacinto, Cynthia Erivo, Wesley frigging Snipes, and even Cobie Smulders reprising her role as Maria Hill.
With a fast-paced wit and a visual verve that could be favorably compared to the Spider-Verse films, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is yet another victim of Disney slashing its streaming offerings down without compunction like a corporate Michael Myers. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it at least opened the door for Moon Girl aka Lunella Lafayette — canonically the smartest person in the Marvel universe — to crossover into the MCU one day.