Writers Greg and Erik Bear and artist George Jimenez repackage Richard Connell’s classic short story about man hunting man, “The Most Dangerous Game,” into a “Jurassic Park” yarn in the entertaining “Dangerous Games” (2011-12), which as of now is the franchise’s last comic title.
Like its predecessor, the monster yarn “The Devils in the Desert,” the five-issue “Dangerous Games” is a traditional story (see also the 1994 Ice-T movie “Surviving the Game”) that gains extra punch from the presence of dinosaurs. An undercover CIA agent, Daniel Espinosa, is discovered by the Central American drug ring he’s investigating. Gabriel Cazares’ cartel is so powerful that it has purchased Isla Nublar – dinosaurs and InGen infrastructure included — from the Costa Rican government. It’s a convenient place for Cazares to dispatch his enemies, either via the island’s carnivores or his hunter sidekick, Tiburon, who gives Daniel the traditional 24-hour head start.
The return to Isla Nublar presents a confusing – but not fatal – continuity oddity. In “The Lost World” comic adaptation and a DVD deleted scene, we learn that InGen dismantled Jurassic Park and killed all the dinosaurs. However, the canonicity of deleted scenes is up for debate, and one could also argue that the always-shifty Peter Ludlow (who pops up as a villain in a flashback scene in “Dangerous Games”) lied and did not actually destroy the park. One could even argue that the mysterious military men from “Return to Jurassic Park” Issues 1-4 (the uncompleted “Green Flame” arc) sold the island to Cazares. At any rate, “Dangerous Games” is the first Isla Nublar yarn since then, and it’s fun to return to the original island.
While Espinosa is a likable hero and Cazares and Tiburon are effectively slimy villains, the most fascinating character is Dr. Frances White, a former InGen dinosaur breeder who now lives in Isla Nublar’s caves and is like a mother to the velociraptors. She and Daniel bond over “some roast parasaurolophus and a spot of tea” and their mutual dislike of the drug lords. As crazy as it sounds on the surface, Frances’ tale works better than the stories about raptor behavior and intelligence in the “Raptor” comics and “Jurassic Park III,” because we understand that these raptors imprinted on Frances when they were born.
Something that’s less explicable is the raptors’ feathers. When Cazares is playing with a baby raptor, at first I thought it was an archaeopteryx. But no, Jimenez draws the raptors like the giant turkeys the kid from Grant’s dig site thought they resembled. While this fits with the latest theories about raptors’ appearance, it doesn’t make sense based on how they looked in previous incarnations. Obviously, the real-world reason for the feathered raptors is Jimenez’s artistic license, but in terms of continuity, I suppose we can brush it off with “genetic engineering.”
“Dangerous Games” also brings back one of the stars of the first movie: Not Grant, not Sattler, but rather the T-rex, a figure of religious reverence to Frances. If the T-rex lets you go without eating you, you are deemed worthy. Luckily for Daniel, the rex isn’t hungry when he bows before her. In their adventures, Daniel and Frances also run across psittacosaurus, an unusually large ankylosaurus, and allosaurus (two of them, in fact). The latter is surprising, as it seemed the movie would have mentioned all the carnivores on the island (T-rex, raptors and dilophosaurus), but it’s plausible allosaurus went unmentioned.
Likewise, timeline placement for this comic is tricky but not impossible. I’d say it takes place around the same time as the other IDW titles – “Redemption” and “Devils in the Desert” – in the early Aughts, before Jurassic Park opens to the public in 2005 (as confirmed in the summary for “Jurassic World”). Perhaps Cazares is the last tenant before Masrani Global Corporation purchases Isla Nublar. “Dangerous Games” probably takes place before “Redemption,” as it seems the United Nations is not blockading the former InGen islands at this time.
It would be cool if “Jurassic World” gave a shout-out to “Dangerous Games” with a cameo appearance from Frances or a throwaway line about the time between the park’s 1993 debacle and the 2005 opening. Unfortunately, judging how things usually work with cross-media franchises, the movie will probably do the opposite and contradict the events of all the comics.
As far as I can tell, there are no future “Jurassic Park” comics planned, so perhaps “Jurassic World” will suffer the same fate as “JP III” and not be adapted. Regardless of what the future holds, IDW did an outstanding job with its three titles – catching us up with the movie characters in “Redemption” and then delivering killer horror/adventure stories in “Devils” and “Dangerous Games.”