Writers: Jonathan Hickman, Murewa Ayodele, Marc Guggenheim, Benjamin Percy, David Pepose, Patch Zircher, Erica Schultz, Jim Zub, Ann Nocenti, Christopher Cantwell, Nadia Shammas, Paul Azaceta /
Pencillers: Chris Bachalo, Dotun Akande, Jorge Fornés, Vanessa Del Rey, Leonardo Romero, Zircher, David Lopez, Djibril Morissette-Phan, Stefano Raffaele, Alex Lins, Dante Bastianoni, Azaceta /
Colour Artist (selected stories): Chris Sotomayor / Letterer: VC's Cory Petit / Editors: Martin Biro, Annalise Bissa, Tom Brevoort / Collects: Moon Knight Black, White & Blood #1-#4 / Marvel Comics / Trade Paperback
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Review by Paul Dunne
16th February 2024 (Released: 10th January 2024)
The Pitch: At last, the BLACK, WHITE & BLOOD format reaches the vigilante who was reborn to star in it! A bevy of comicdom's finest creators put their mark on the Fist of Khonshu in stories depicted solely in stark black, white, and blood-red! Meet the all-different Moon Knight of the future, and wrap your head around a tale of the mixed-up marauder in reverse! Moon Knight teams up with the ever-amazing Spider-Man for a harrowing night of adventure and seeks an odd favor from Doctor Strange! Moon Knight's four personalities come together to debrief the events of one bizarre night, and Marc Spector's mercenary past comes back to haunt him! A blood moon is rising!
I often have an uneasy relationship with Anthology books. They're sometimes difficult to review as they don't concentrate on a couple of plot lines or one story. And I hate to leave a creator out, lest they think their addition to the book as a whole is being ignored. That's not the case here. With Marvel's latest trade in their Black, White, and Blood series, the trouble is not having enough hours in the day to write about all the good work that's gone into this. Obviously, I'm gutted to have missed this in treasury format, but thems the breaks. And the book was originally published in this trim size, so I can suck it up. Blub! And hey, it sits comfortably next to the other MK trades on the shelf and if you think that's not important, I can point you to some angry Reddit threads that will tell you why you're wrong. But back to the all-important contents of the book...
Marvel brought in some terrific creators for this. To be fair, they usually do on these books. First up we get Hickman, whom I don't think has worked on MK since his Avengers days. Chris Bachalo's art is a robust, manga-influenced feast for the eyes, returning MK to space, back where Lemire had him in one of his tripper episodes. Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande showcase a decent team-up that embraces the personalities of both participants wonderfully. Marc Guggenheim and Jorge's Fornes, who is fast becoming one of my all-time hall-of-famers, bring us a tale that on first reading made no sense. Pro-tip: read it backward for a story that gets to the heart of MK's most serious trait, the need to protect when the odds seem overwhelming. Patch Zircher dives into Spector's mercenary years for a beautifully pencilled revenge piece. Benjamin Percy and Vanessa Del Rey's The Empty Tomb gives us a possible ending for the Fist Of Konshu and a glimpse of what happens when Marc Spector gets worn down by the voices in his head. Del Rey's art is the most disturbing of the book, really leaning into the horror elements of Moon Knight.
David Pepose has a little more fun in his short, A Hard Day's Knight, and Leonardo Romero brings out his inner Hernandez Bros in the art. Special mention also needs to be made for Chris Sotomayor's extremely well-chosen splashes of colour. Erica Schultz also decides to play a little with her and David Lopez's Wrong Turn, which has a ruthless gang of bank robbers make the mistake of hailing Jake Lockely's cab, leading to more red being thrown around than just their jumpsuits. It's interesting to note that both the Schultz / Lopez tale and the Pepose / Romero / Sotomayor story make use of Marc's disorder as an advantage rather than a detriment. Ann Nocenti, no stranger to Avengers of the Night, joins Stefano Raffaele for a strange little story on a space station. It's always a pleasure to get caught up in Nocenti's worlds and Raffaele really goes to town with the panel placement, using the environment to maximum effect. Christopher Cantwell drops in with Alex Lins to play a deadly game of tic-tac-toe and Paul Azaceta closes out the volume with a weird little slice of Cults and Cats, heading back to MK's origins thematically without taking us back to the event itself.
Of course, there are a few others I've not mentioned here, but their stories and art are no less a contribution to the whole. One person who absolutely does need to be talked about is letterer Cory Petit who embraces twelve different styles of writing in his lettering and makes every story sound different, whilst maintaining the voice of Moon Knight. I came to realise whilst reading this that the Black White and Blood series, rather than being analougues of DC's '... Black and White' or other colour spectrum books are more like mini 'What If's... ' or Elseworlds, taking us into what could be, or might be for a range of characters that we just can't get enough of. Their choices have been a mix of the ultra-popular and the slightly left field and that continues with the upcoming books. Sure, the colour is limited. But the ideas are in abundance.
Moon Knight: Black, White & Blood TP is available at your local comic shop now. Buy Marvel Comics here. Check out our other Moon Knight reviews and our Moon Knight podcast and videos for the Disney + show.
