Return of the “Age of Reptiles”

Usually when dinosaurs appear in comic books or on screen they are there to menace the human protagonists of the story. Rarely do we get to see tales in which dinosaurs themselves are main characters, but Ricardo Delgago's Age of Reptiles series is a notable exception.

Age of Reptiles started off as a four-part comic miniseries in 1993 with the story "Tribal Warfare." There were no thought bubbles or pieces of dialog, only a visual story of a deadly rivalry between a pack of Deinonychus and a family of Tyrannosaurus. Delgado bent the science a bit to make a more action-packed story, but this is a comic book we're talking about, after all.

The next entry in the series was called "The Hunt" and was released as a five-part series in 1997. It was another tale of species-on-species rivalry, this time between a pack of Ceratosaurus and a young Allosaurus seeking revenge for the death of his mother. Delgado's artwork was a little more polished in this run, though it followed the previous installment of creating implausible scenarios with known dinosaurs.

Now, after a hiatus of more than a decade, Age of Reptiles is back with a new story, "The Journey." The first issue was published earlier this month, and it appears to be a story about a massive group of dinosaurs migrating south for the winter. Where will the story go? I guess we'll have to wait for the next issue (due out in January) to find out.

Riley Black | | READ MORE

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.