Well it’s that time again. Some external thing I am interested in, in this case Magic The Gathering, has a tie in or crossover with Marvel and I get interested in reading some American comics again. Usually at that point I self sabotage by trying to catch up on twenty five years on continuity. But not this time! This time I took a single recommendation – the current extended run of Moon Knight – and went with it. I got the comics. I transferred them to my iPAD. I got distracted for two days sorting out my neglected comics drive. Then I read the comics. My thoughts on them follow below.
For some context going into reading this I knew basically fuck all about Moon Knight. I knew he was a mercenary who died and was brought back to life by the Egyptian god Khonshu. I knew he was basically a moon themed Marvel Batman with throwing moons, a moon copter, etc. (I still remain unsure how accurate that it is, it’s simply what I thought going in.) I knew he was in the “hard men making hard choices” school of super heroes. Which in general is a trope I’ve never been a big fan off and now more or less detest. Did I know he had mental problems before I started reading? I think so. I did read one of the many Moon Knight reboots back in 2006. All I remember are the lovely David Finch covers, a bad guy who’s super power told him what women like in bed and Moon Knight carving a moon into someone’s face. Also the general impression it was very bad. The other thing I knew, because the person who recommended it told me, is that recently Khonsu tried to take over the world for some reason and Moon Knight beat the avengers. Sounds like stupid comic shit and also weird, why would a god do that? Oh wait, I saw an advert for the TV show so I knew he had that “Mr Knight” costume.
Anyhow that’s what I knew going in. So on to the comics. Spoilers galore so be warned.
Moon Knight #1-7
I’ll just say this now. The art is consistently excellent. Whatever issues I have with the comic I cannot fault it’s art. I’d say at least once if not several times each issue I look at a page and just have to say “Wow that’s cool”. The issue starts out with some vampires in a van in New York. Which I found odd. But it has a very clever idea about using MLM tactics mixed with vampirism to grow the brood. Great idea. Then Moon Knight jumps through the first window and kills the two vampires in charge. He spares the new vampires who are basically victims and recruits one as his secretary. In many ways this opening sequence is sort of the entire series in microcosm. An interesting and novel idea that gets largely side-lined in favour of some comic book violence.
The first issue is mostly exposition. Mainly through his conversations with his (Avengers mandated) therapist. We get the quick version of his backstory and we find out that he has set up a mission to minister to those who “travel by night” as a high priest of Khonshu. We also find out he as dissociative identity disorder – which seems to be Marvel’s new favourite mental condition as the Hulk and Typhoid Mary also have it now. Theres then some more cartoon violence where he beats up rat people. Then back to the therapist for more exposition. Then off for some more cartoon violence. Which involves 8 Ball (villain, no powers, costume has a giant pool ball for a head – I love him) getting his ass beat by a doctor. Who it turns out also worships Khonshu and isnt a fan of Moon Knight letting any vampires live. Then more therapy. This bit I actually really liked because it turns out that being in literal contact with a god has fundamentally changed the structure of Marc Spectors brain. It’s a great idea. It echoes some stuff you can see in new wave Lovecraftian horror. Big fan of it. Then you get some heavy foreshadowing with someone spying on MK but the chapter actually ends with the doctor, who he met for the first time ever earlier on, putting on a costume (sorry they’re vestements) calling himself Hunter’s Moon and decalring they’re the left fist of Khonshu.
I’ll be honest. In the past this wouldn’t have phased me. It’s “just how comics are”. It’s a weekly format where basically every issue has to pop. So who cares about pacing? The guy we saw for two panels is now another high priest of Khonshu? Sure no worries. Even with the floating timeline Marvel (and DC) use Marc Spector has been Moon Knight for decades. But it never came up there was another fist? It just feels so ham handed. Oh yeah and Khonshu is locked up in Asgard. It’s not really relevant, but now you know.
The next issue, which some call #2, introduces us to a guy nicknamed Soldier who lives in Marc’s neighbourhood and is thus under his protection. There’s been a rash of pensioners going around beating the shit out of people with hammers and knives. Marc goes off to investigate, turns out it was the buildings janitor doping everyone with his sweat which connects his mind to people and lets him control him. He was told to fuck with Moon Knight specifically by a shadowy mastermind. Marc lets him connect to his brain which basically eats his consciousness. A cool little idea that fits in well with what they’ve shown us. That’s basically it. Solid but didn’t exactly blow my cock off. Issue #3 is basically one long extended fight. Hunter’s Moon (left fist of Khonshu remember) is going around trying to kill the vampires Marc spared. They have a big ole fight and he knocks the shit out of Moon Knight. He then heads off to kill his secretary because he thinks the vampires are making him weak. There is a lot of jibber jabber, most of it is fairly typical though it does lay the ground work for a sort of fun revelation later. Anyway Marc shows up to save the people in the office and beats the absolute shit out of Hunters Moon with a baseball bat. I found this one dull.
I haven’t mentioned it but Moon Knight goes on quite a bit about how fucked in the head he is and how you shouldn’t mess with him because he’s carazeee. It often feels like a bad Rorschach pastiche, I’m not a fan. Issue #4 actually had some decent and entertaining banter. Tygra, the Avenger, and Moon Knights friend shows up. Some random villain, and that’s being kind, tries to blackmail MK on the orders of the shadowy mastermind, by taking all his accounts (of which he has loads courtesy of one of his other personalities who is good at business it seems – don’t think about it). This doesn’t end well. Moon Knight beats the shit out of Jigsaw while pretending to be blackmailed, then beats the shit out of the black mailer (Stuart Clarke – evil finance bro). I glossed over it but this issues was good. It did a lot to humanise Moon Knight and even the pithy “I’m Batman” stuff worked quite well this chapter.
Issue #5 was interesting. The stuff with the therapist – which I should make clear is nearly always the framing mechanism for the chapters – was pretty good. She called MK out on his bullshit and we got what I’d consider a convincing look at his motivation and what makes him do what he does. The other storyline was that Terry, an oddjobber and informant that turned up in nearly every issue tells Marc that Soldier is actually the mastermind who was out to get him. Turns out Soldier was ex-Hydra. Marc goes to have a chat with Soldiers mam. Then he gets an alert on his bat phone that someone broke into the mission. He gets there to find Soldier tied to a bomb as the mastermind taunts him about whether he can or should save him. Unsurprisingly he does. When he staggers out of the blast it turns, out, shockingly, that Terry was the mastermind all along!….holy fuck. The issue ends with Terry pulling a bag over his head and calling himself Zodiac. I’ll be honest. This was too much comic nonsense for me. I actually didn’t read it for a day or two before going back. Writing it up now the parallels behind Zodiac and Batman villains like the Scarecrow just struck me. But it was done so artlessly here.
Issue #6 starts with Zodiac beating the shit out of a concussed Moon Knight while giving it the standard super-villain rant about how he hates how soft and weak Marc has gotten and he’s doing all this for Marc’s own good. Resse, the vampire secretary, risks her life to go and ask Hunters Moon (left first of Khonshu and known vampire hater) for help. So he turns up, drives off Zodiac and passes his Medicine skill check to patch up Moon Knight. There’s a lot of yapping here. We get Hunter Moons backstory, short version he got killed by vampires and brought back by Khonsu. I was honestly surprised how much vampire shit there was so far and there’s only more to come. Hunters Moon also manage to squeeze in some self actualisation at the end as Resse risking her life made him realise not all vampires are bad. Very touching. Marc goes to sleep in a sarcophagus, wakes up the next night all healed (ish) and goes back to his burned down building. This chapter was fine. The backstory stuff helped to distance it from the goofiness of Zodiac.
Issue #7 was entirely basically and extended series of fights where Marc beats up z-list villains (including the GOAT 8-Ball) to find out information on Zodiac. He finds out fuck all. We also learn that Tygra is there to spy on Marc on the orders of Black Panther. I’ll be honest the hierarchy within the Avengers always appears very obtuse to me. The chapter was actually pretty solid. Just a by the numbers bit of detective work and violence. Hard to go wrong. It ends with Marc’s therapist getting kidnapped by Zodiac. Which leaves us on a cliff-hanger here as we dive into Devil’s Reign.
So overall what did I think? It was fine. Some low lows and some good highs. I’d give it a five or six out of ten depending on my mood. It was solid enough to keep me reading so that says something. Honestly the most annoying thing about it is that it has all the elements to be really good but just sort of squanders them or at least uses them inefficiently. The lowest point? Zodiac and it isn’t even close. He’s a terrible antagonist. Boring. Tired. Wears a bag on his head. Just incredibly uncompelling.
Devil’s Reign #1-6 and Devil’s Reign: Moon Knight
Only seven issues in and we already hit a cross over. Honestly other than the specific Moon Knight issue for the event I could have probably skipped the entire thing. It does setup some things back in the main comic but the one issue probably would have handled that. Sadly I didn’t know that at the time and so I read this. My summary of it: a fucking mess. I found it not just confusing but confusing on two different axes. The first was my ignorance of the Marvel universe timeline this was taking place in. Wilson Fisk (aka The Kingpin) is the legal mayor of New York. Kingpin is married to Typhoid Mary? He has a son who’s the new Kingpin? Daredevil died and now his dirtbag brother is pretending to be him? Ben Reilly is Spider-Man? The Purple Man has multiple purple children? And so on and so on. You get the idea. The second axis of confusion was just how fucking badly the story was told. In short Fisk realises that Daredevil had fucked with his mind to hide his identity and he goes mental.
He declares that New York will be taking a zero tolerance stance on masked vigilantes and he actually provides several convincing reasons for this. Basically he’s going the powers registration act from the very bad Civil War event. It’s important to note that this is entirely legal for him to do and he is the legally elected Mayor. But every single hero, from Captain America on down goes “Nah fuck that, we’ll decide the law!” Thus proving Fisk right about them acting recklessly and above the law. It makes sense for anti-establishment types like Daredevil, Moon Knight, etc. But literally every hero has zero qualms about telling the police and anyone else trying to enforce it to get fucked. Much like Civil War there is zero nuance here. But unlike Civil War the pro registration side is actually in the right and hasn’t done anything evil or illegal – this changes as things go on but the never even tried to address the nuance implicit in the setup. It really stank of toxic American exceptionalism, which superhero comics generally have a problem with, “We’ll only follow laws that suit us and that we agree with and if we don’t agree then its violent assault on legally elected officials!” Doesn’t look too good when your heroes are at it.
As mentioned the entire thing abandons any nuance and Fisk gets increasingly mental, getting Doc Ock to turn the Purple Man into a bad city wide mind influencer. Locking the Fantastic Four up in Rhykers, having the Thunderbolts (didnt recognise any of the current line-up other than Rhino) go hog wild and so on. Doc Ock double-crosses him and summons other Doc Ock’s from different dimensions who have taken over the body of heroes so you have Doc Ock Wolverine, Doc Ock Hulk and Doc Ock Ghost Rider. Everything predictably goes to shit. There’s big old battle, the heroes sort of save the day I guess in an incredibly artless Deus ex machina. Fisk beats Daredevils brother to death (because he remembered Daredevils identity – which his brother had assumed), Daredevil doesn’t kill him. In the end Fisk leaves it all behind and sails off on his yacht with his wife – no that isn’t a joke. The entire thing just felt like a microcosm of what I dislike about American comics. Oh and Luke Cage was being a sanctimonious prick like always.
The standalone Moon Knight issue was basically him getting more and more mental in prison as he joined the inmate fight club the guards were running. Turns out it was all to get to Man Mountain Marko who had been threatening his ex=wife that went to Mr Knight for help. He let himself be captured to get in there. The issues is entertaining but even more than the main comic its very much a bad pastiche of Rorschach. Honestly surprised Moon Knight didn’t say “you’re trapped in here with me”. Though he did gouge someone’s eyes out so maybe that was new or fresh? Didn’t feel like it. After reading the entire event I was very much ready to get back to the main Moon Knight comic. It gave me zero interest in checking out any of the other heroes that showed up in the event. Honestly most of them were just fucking annoying. The Moon Knight issue did also feature Eight Ball, who I gushed over a little above. He’s a classic jobber but he was written fairly amusingly.
