Writer: Jeff Lemire / Pencillers: Greg Smallwood, Wilfredo Torres, Francesco Francavilla, James Stokoe / Colour Artists: Jordie Bellaire, Michael Garland, Francavilla, Stokoe / Letterer: VC's Cory Petit / Editors: Jake Thomas, Kathleen Wisneski / Collects: Moon Knight (2015 – 2016) #1 - #14 / TPB / Marvel
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By Paul Dunne
18th October 2022
The Pitch: A story of birth, death and rebirth unlike any other! Marc Spector (A.K.A. Moon Knight/Jake Lockley/Steven Grant) has been fighting criminals and keeping New York City safe for years...or has he? When he wakes up in an insane asylum with no powers and a lifetime's worth of medical records, it calls his whole identity - identities - into question. Something is wrong, but is that something Marc himself? Delve deep beneath the mask of Moon Knight to meet the many men inside his head! While Steven Grant prepares for a box-office smash, Jake Lockley is arrested for murder! And as the muddled mind of Moon Knight reaches its limit, the secrets of his past are revealed. Moon Knight's survival depends on answers, but Marc Spector is plagued by nothing but questions!
“Marc? Can you hear me?”
“Marc? Is that you?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Come then, my son. Come see your true face.”
There are some comics that just resonate with you from the opening pages, although you may not know why. I was aware of his run long before I read it, originally in haste, preparing for the Moon Knight series on Disney Plus. I was expecting, given the talent involved, to enjoy it. But that was just the tip of the pyramid. Below, in the tombs of this book... is a voice that echoes through your bones. Now, on my second read of it, I realise that some comics speak to you in ways you didn't expect and make you whole. They're fewer and farther between than you might think. This is one of them.
This Moon Knight begins in a prison, of sorts. A mental institution, decaying and brutal. Marc Spector is here, along with the familiar cast of sidekicks that once populated the Moench / Sienkievich runs of the comic. That in itself is an oddity since they hadn't appeared in a Moon Knight book in a while. Here Marc is Alice, being told what to eat and drink, given ECT and pills to make him small, not in actual size but in mental status. Marc is often the man who receives knowledge rather than being the man who knows, a precarious position for him since he can't possibly trust any of the information given to him. Marc begins to see his captors as ancient Gods and creatures from Egypt: is kindly Dr. Emmet really Ammit, devourer of the dead? Are Marc, Crawley, Frenchie, Marlene and Gina really trapped in a pyramid, surrounded by zombies whilst outside more great pyramids rise on the streets of New York?
Lemire and Smallwood's Moon Knight is all about integration, and fusion. First, it fuses the previous runs on the character, with the mental health aspects of Ellis and Shalvey's run and Lemire's mythology. Then we get the sometimes forgotten characters of the Moench / Sinkevich period, here given a new purpose. Diving deeper in, the book becomes about Marc Spector coming to terms with the divergent personalities that have been with him all his life, integrating them into the new whole he must become. Finally, on the meta-level, there is an integration of creators as Smallwood gives way briefly to Torres, Torres to Francavilla, Francavilla to Stokoe and back of course to the beginning, the source, as Smallwood returns and we're back to those words echoing across the outervoid. Lemire has written a mystery, but not one for you to solve. This puzzle is for Marc and the mystery in his own mind and sense of self. Marc is fighting for agency over himself, his body and his memories, all of which have become a battleground for the personalities he carries with him including, it seems Khonshu.
I cannot stop myself. I have to heap praise on this book. Lemire has constructed potentially the Moon Knight run, yet leaves things open enough for others to pick up the mantle. Smallwood is never less than working at his best he creates an evocative series of images, experimental yet clearly defined. There is the real sense of the old Marvel Graphic Novel line about this and I mean that as the highest compliment. But Smallwood is not the only genius at work here. It makes me chuckle when I think of what an editorial nightmare it must have been, as the book progresses and Torres, Francavilla and Stokoe add their considerable talents to Smallwood's, chronicling the visual shifts in Spector's mental state. Or is Steven Grant's? Or Jake Lockely's? They stay within their particular specialities – Torres gives us the millionaire film producer (the version most akin to Batman for fans of that comparison), Francavilla creates a haunted, gothic New York for our horror movie Travis Bickle and Stokoe, in the biggest leap, takes us forward into a sci-fi future for Spector whilst at the same time connecting us all the way back to Werewolf by Night #32. The effect of all this is both disconnecting and entirely right and natural. The weirdness of it is the only way the book could go, really. Bellaire and Garland weather the weirdness and the changing styles with their colouring, creating a defined look for each version of our multiple Marcs. Their work is never less than top-notch. Likewise for Petit, who must find the voices of so many in one. This is a comic that like the Fraction / Aja Hawkeye run, deserves to be in the pantheon of new, modern classics. It's voice, echoing from somewhere in the subconscious. I hope you hear it and it speaks to you the way it spoke to me.
“Can you hear me?”
“Come then, my son. Come see your true face.”
Buy Moon Knight Comics here and support The Comic Crush.