Moon Knight is good. You should be reading it. Really, that’s all I should say, but that won’t do anything for you. This is an awesome series. I love Moony and have been enjoying the hell out of this series. Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev have been handling our mentally troubled hero with style. Visually assisting them are Matt Hollingsworth, on colors, and VC’s Cory Petit handling the lettering.
There are two specific aspects of this title that I absolutely love and those are Marc Spector’s personality issues and his interaction with Echo. And those aren’t always separate as shown by Bendis having “Spider-Man” direct Marc to kiss Echo during a conversation. There are quite a few characters with distinct personalities, especially of the crazier variety, that I gravitate to and Moon Knight is one of them. There are a few panels early in the book within which Marc has a “meeting.” Keep reading and you’ll figure out why I put quotes around those two.
If you don’t have any knowledge of this series, here’s a little background just to catch you up. If you have been reading, you’ll probably want to skip the next two paragraphs. That’s unless you just love my writing, which is likely. That’s not at all conceited, I assure you. You’ve no doubt heard many comic readers comment on how many heroes work in New York, right? Sure you have. So being the rebel that he is, Marc Spector set up shop in Los Angeles. His civilian guise keeps busy as the creator and producer of the television show “Legends of the Khonshu.”
His personality issues are well documented, and recently his split personalities took the forms of the fellow heroes and Avengers Captain America, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. Since his westward move, he came across the body of Ultron, which was being delivered to the L.A. kingpin of crime, who was revealed in the previous issue to be Count Nefaria. Tagging along are Buck, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, who works on Marc’s tech. Moony has also been teamed up with Echo, the former Avenger who went by the name Ronin. And their working relationship is developing into much more. Goodness all around, this I know. You all caught up on the crazy train? Good, now back to this issue.
Moon Knight, Echo, and Buck have been making plays on Count Nefaria’s operation and recently caught one of his higher ups, Snapdragon, and capturing video evidence of him acquiring illegal tech. Moony and Echo also hit one of his bases, about which little detail was revealed. What’s shown in the panels makes it out to be a drug lab. They break through the window and kick a little butt. Baddies are hit with elbows and feet a plenty. We see some nice panel-by-panel shots of Echo throwing a match and burning up stacks of money. This is probably one of the only times money being burned looks good. The final page sets up what should be an awesome issue #9.
Examining the visuals, the three heroes within Marc are shown in lighter shades of color to distinguish between them, and you know, the real world. It’s a nice visual touch by Maleev who has a style I like to define as gritty, which fits a Moon Knight book quite well. I should say I’m not the biggest Maleev fan, but I like his style to a point. It does fit certain books, but there are times when I just don’t care for it. That’s not a knock against him, his style, or the book; it’s just my preference at times. I do have one question, what happened to the hand mark on Echo’s face? I had thought that to be some sort of permanent marking. I don’t know the full story on it, so maybe I missed something somewhere.
As stated earlier, there’s a page early in the book where Marc has a “meeting” with his internal heroes. Our lead is walking with one of his employees when he sees the heroes standing at the end of the hall. The next panel has Marc tell her that he has a meeting. She asks him with whom since she schedules his meetings. The panel shows Marc looking down the empty hall. It’s a nice sequence by our creative team showing the differences in realities.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. I don’t say that to mean I was looking for something to be wrong or that there would inherently be something off about, it’s just a good book. As I’ve pretty much abandoned a rating system, I’ll just say I recommend hitting your shop and BUYING it. Grab the previous issues as well. With the series being only 8 issues in, I doubt it would take much effort to track them all down. That’s unless you prefer trades, which I have no info on at all. Happy reading, funny book fans.
