"Dangerous Games" Part 1 Jurassic Park: Dangerous Games #1 (IDW) Written by Erik Bear Story Consultant: Greg Bear Art by Jorge Jimenez Covers by: (A) Geoff Darrow, (B) Jeff Zornow

A drug lord buys Isla Nublar from the Costa Rican government and turns it into his headquarters.

Read a summary of the issue at the Jurassic Park Legacy website

Read a review of this issue by Patrick Hayes on PopApostle

Notes from the Jurassic Park chronology

Since we see that dinosaurs are still thriving on Isla Nublar in this story and they are allegedly gone in "Death Lizards", I've placed the Dangerous Games mini-series sometime after "No-Man's Land" and before "Death Lizards" in the chronology.

Didja Notice? 

The ceratopsian dinosaur on cover A appears to be a Triceratops. The pterosaur perched on top of it is hard to identify; I'm not familiar with one that has the "horn" or bump on the beak that this one has.

Cover B depicts Velociraptors attacking what is probably an allosaur. The large carnosaur is not a tyrannosaur since it has three-clawed forelimbs.

On page 2, Agent Espinoza meets with his contact in a bar in Nicaragua. Nicaragua is the Central American country just north of Costa Rica. Costa Rica, of course, is the now-former owner of Isla Nublar.

Also on page 2, Espinoza's contact informs him that Cazares has bought the island from Costa Rica, implying that Cazares must be paying off somebody in the UN. The UN is a reference to the United Nations, an organization established to facilitate cooperation and peace among the world's many countries. It would seem that the U.S. is no longer involved with the island since it is not mentioned.

On page 4, one of Cazares' men says a CIA spook may have infiltrated the cartel. The CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the major intelligence agencies of the United States government.

Judging by the waterfall in the background, the Isla Nublar helipad on page 6 appears to be the same one seen in Jurassic Park.

Dumping Espinoza on Isla Nublar, the drug lord says, "Mister Espinoza! Welcome to Jurassic Park!" This is a callback to John Hammond's "Welcome to Jurassic Park" said to Drs. Grant and Sattler in Jurassic Park.

On page 8 we see that Cazares has made use of the buildings and vehicles of the original Jurassic Park.

The dinosaur pictured on page 8, panel 4, a stegosaurid, appears to have a double row of parallel plates along its back, rather than alternating plates, so it's not the most well-known stegosaurid, Stegosaurus.

On page 8, panel 5, one of Cazares' men appears to have a small dinosaur (or large lizard) riding on his shoulder.

On page 9, Cazares feeds a fish to a fairly large, birdlike creature with a forked tongue. Possibly this is an Archaeopteryx, one of the links between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Also on page 9, Cazares is sitting in a chair (almost a throne) in the rotunda of the JP visitor center. The throne's frame appears to be made up of dinosaur bones. Possibly these bones are those of the T. rex fossil skeleton that once stood there before it was collapsed by the weight of people and raptors jumping/hanging on it near the end of Jurassic Park. It is also likely that the carnosaur skull mounted behind Cazares' throne is the same T. rex skull from that skeleton.

The single row, staggered pattern of plates on the back of the dinosaurs on pages 13-15 suggest it may be the classic Stegosaurus.

Page 15, panel 3 depicts several kinds of dinosaurs: some more non-Stegosaurus stegosaurids; Triceratops; possibly a Centrosaurus; and Parasaurolophus.

The dinosaurs drinking at the lake with Espinoza on page 16 are a bit difficult to identify as they are depicted with a partial covering of feathers, as is becoming popular in modern depictions of many dinosaurs. Possibly these are Gallimimus.

The carnosaur on pages 16-18 is also hard to identify. It has three-clawed hands, so it's not a tyrannosaurid.

The ceratopsian killed by the carnosaur on page 17 appears to be a Triceratops.

The hadrosaur killed by Espinoza on page 19 appears to be a Parasaurolophus.

I am not aware of a carnosaur that has the distinctive sharp-boned crest on the skull displayed by the one on page 20, but that doesn't mean there isn't one like it in the fossil record. However, the crest seems to have disappeared as it is attacked by the feathered raptors on page 22.