DID YOU KNOW BADNIX: Dinosaur Planet

Ever think to yourself while reading a comic, “boy, I wish I knew which 20-year old games were being opaquely referenced in this panel”? Sure, we all have! While Badnix is on break, I thought I’d share some notes on bits from past storylines that you might have overlooked. Next up is Dinosaur Planet!

• ‘Dinosaur Planet’ was the original name of the historically terrible Gamecube title Starfox Adventures.
• Dinosaur Planet is a pretty on-the-nose tribute to Super Mario World, the first game I ever played and still one of my all-time favorites. Apart from the game itself, though, I tried to include some nods to the amazing Super Mario Adventures manga adaptation – most notably this panel introducing Kevin’s dinosaur sidekick.

  

• The large carnosaur seen chasing the Badnix early in the story belongs to the same species as Dr. Mittens. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s her mother, hunting food for her yet-unborn offspring.
• Dr. Mittens’ exclamation of “YOKOI” was an homage to Gunpei Yokoi (as discussed in a previous post).
• The Avago Tribe’s name was inspired by Mumbo Jumbo’s infamous “COME AND HAVE A GO” chant from the Banjo-Kazooie series. In one comic they’re even heard reciting a phonetic version of the chant!
• The Avagos themselves come from a lot of places – apart from being inspired by actual ritual masks, I tried to include some nods to Mumbo Jumbo and the cannibals from Monkey Island. Of course it’s kind of incorrect and unfair to lump “tribal” cultures together and reduce them to some kind of “primitive man” archetype, which is something I was trying to make a pointed comment about.
• A Dino World citizen actually shows up in Wood World in a single panel of a super-early comic from 2012! Probably visiting as part of an exchange program of some kind.
• The Avagos live in the same kind of stone houses seen on The Flinstones. I really wanted to include a gag where they used some kind of lighter powered by a tiny disgruntled pterodactyl to ignite a gruesome sacrificial pyre, but sadly that wound up being cut for space.