Essential Moon Knight Volume 1 (contains Werewolf By Night #32-33, Marvel Spotlight #28-29, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23, Marvel Two-In-One #52, The Hulk! #11-12), Moon Knight Special Edition #1-3 (contains The Hulk! #13-15, 17-18, 20 and Marvel Preview #21) (August 1975 – March 1980)
Written by Doug Moench (Werewolf By Night #32-33, Marvel Spotlight #28-29, The Hulk! #11-15, 17-18, 20, Marvel Preview #21), Bill Mantlo (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23), Steven Grant (Marvel Two-In-One #52)
Penciled by Don Perlin (Werewolf By Night #32-33, Marvel Spotlight #28-29), Mike Zeck (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22), Jim Mooney (PPTSSM #23), Jim Craig (Marvel Two-In-One #52), Gene Colan (The Hulk! #11), Keith Pollard (TH! #12), Bill Sienkiewicz (TH! #13-15, 17-18, 20, Marvel Preview #21)
Inked by Howie Perlin (Werewolf By Night #32-33), Don Perlin (Marvel Spotlight #28-29), Bruce Patterson (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22), Mike Esposito (PPTSSM #23), Pablo Marcos (Marvel Two-In-One #52), Tony DeZuniga (The Hulk! #11), Frank Giacoia (TH!#12), Mike Esposito (TH! #12), Joe Rubinstein (TH! #13), Bob McLeod (TH! #14-15), Klaus Janson (TH! #17-18), Bill Sienkiewicz (TH! #20, Marvel Preview #21), Tom Palmer (MP #21), Dan Green (MP #21)
Coloured by Steve Oliff (The Hulk! #13-15, 17-18, 20)
Spoilers (from forty-three to forty-seven years ago)
In my early days of comics reading, I didn’t really notice Moon Knight, probably because his book was direct market only when I was buying from spinner racks, and by the time I’d starting shopping in real comics stores, it was not being published. I remember finding random issues of his book in back issue bins after New Mutants made me a huge fan of Bill Sienkiewicz. I also remember getting into the Fist of Khonshu second series, which only lasted six issues.
As a Sienkiewicz fan, I figured I owed it to myself to go back and fill in the holes in my Moon Knight collection a few years ago, and did get all of them before the TV show was announced and prices started to climb a little. I’ve recently been reunited with the longboxes that hold the bulk of my Moon Knight collection, so I figured it was time to finally read his story in order for the first time ever.
A while back I picked up the first volume of the Marvel Essentials series, and was pleased to see that it contained MK’s earliest appearances, which I’d also never read. I also got the MK Special Edition miniseries, which reprinted the stories published in the Hulk magazine, which are also collected in the Essential volume.
That makes this column a little unusual, in that I’m going to read all of these early appearances before digging into the actual first volume of MK’s run, which I’ll read in its original prints.
I don’t remember there being a massive focus on MK’s three identities in his earlier runs. It was a feature of his character, but it wasn’t the driving force of his story, the way it became in some of the more recent series by the likes of Brian Michael Bendis (it was terrible) and Jeff Lemire (it was great). I want to examine how his mental condition shaped the character and changed over the years, although I’m most excited to see how Sienkiewicz morphed from a heavily Neal Adams-influenced artist to the highly abstract painter he became on later covers.
Moon Knight was originally a Batman knock-off, but he became his own character in a hurry. Let’s chart it and see how these early appearances laid the groundwork for what came later.
Let’s find out together.
Let’s track who turned up in the title:
Villains
- The Committee (Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Conquer-Lord (Mr. Quinn; Marvel Spotlight #28-29)
- Cyclone (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23)
- Crossfire (William Cross; Marvel Two-In-One #52)
- Fenton Crane (The Hulk! #11-12)
- Alphonse Leroux (The Hulk! #12)
- Smelt (The Hulk! #13-14)
- Lupinar The Wolf (The Hulk! #13-14)
- Hatchet-Man (Randall Spector; The Hulk! #17-18)
- Cobra (James Lardner; Marvel Preview #21)
- LeBlanc (Marvel Preview #21)
Guest Stars
- Werewolf By Night (Jack Russell; Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Spider-Man (Peter Parker; Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23)
- The Thing (Ben Grimm; Marvel Two-In-One #52)
- The Hulk (Bruce Banner; The Hulk! #15)
Supporting Characters
- Buck Cowan (Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Philip Russell (Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Lissa Russell (Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Topaz (Werewolf By Night #32-33)
- Frenchie (Werewolf By Night #32-33, Marvel Spotlight #28-29, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23, Marvel Two-In-One #52, The Hulk! #11, 13-14, Marvel Preview #21)
- Samuel(s) (Marvel Spotlight #28-29, The Hulk! #13, Marvel Preview #21)
- Marlene Fontaine (Marvel Spotlight #28-29, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #23, The Hulk! #11-15, 17-18, 20, Marvel Preview #21)
- Jesse (Marvel Spotlight #28)
- Abner Skrooney (Marvel Spotlight #28)
- Gena (Marvel Spotlight #28, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22, The Hulk! #13, 17)
- Crawley (Marvel Spotlight #28, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #22, The Hulk! #13, 17)
- Curt (The Hulk! #11)
Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:
- The first appearance of Moon Knight is in Werewolf By Night #32, by Moench and Perlin. The issue opens with Moon Knight fighting Jack Russell, in his werewolf form, on a city street. We see that MK’s silver gloves hurt Jack, as do the silver throwing crescents he uses on him. It looks like Moon Knight, who is only wearing a half-cape that is tucked into the cesti on his wrists, is going to defeat him. The werewolf struggles to remember how he got there, and we are given a flashback. It seems that Jack was on a snowy mountain the night before, and had almost hurt a young girl named Buttons, but for the intervention of his best friend, Buck Cowan. When Jack woke up under the snow in his human form, and waited for Buck before hitchhiking his way home, we see that Buck was taken to the hospital with very serious injuries. When Jack returned home, his stepfather Philip told him that Buck was in the hospital, and he headed straight there. He learned from Lissa and Topaz (one is his sister) that Buck was in a coma and might never recover. He hit the wall, and felt a lot of guilt even though he couldn’t remember hurting his friend. The two girls (is one of them Jack’s girlfriend?) made it clear they didn’t want to be around him that night. When Jack went home, Philip was standing with Moon Knight, who claims he was given that name by the people who sent him (clearly this gets retconned at some point). In a flashback within the flashback, MK explains that a group called The Committee has hired Mark Spector (I guess the spelling of his name got retconned too) to bring them Jack. They provided him with his gear and offered him ten thousand dollars for the job. As MK was about to get a hold of Jack, Philip intervened, giving Jack the chance to escape. As he ran, he transformed into the werewolf. A helicopter, piloted by a man named Frenchie, pursued him, and Moon Knight jumped from it and they started to fight, bringing us to where the issue started. Someone calls the cops, which leads to an interlude about a guy flying to Haiti to find another guy researching werewolves or something. As Jack and MK fight, Frenchie enters Topaz’s room through the window to take Jack’s sister prisoner, but he’s no more clear on which girl is which than I am. They keep fighting, and MK finally gets the werewolf down on the ground. Frenchie arrives in the copter with the two girls prisoner, and MK drags the werewolf towards a rope ladder Frenchie dropped for him, just as the cops arrive.
- The police fire on Moon Knight as he holds Jack on the helicopter’s ladder, hitting his shoulder. Frenchie flies away. After an interlude in Haiti concerning more Werewolf By Night subplots that don’t matter here, we see the werewolf come to while still on the ladder (MK can’t carry him up the ladder with a hurt shoulder, which doesn’t get mentioned again). The werewolf catches MK by surprise, and they fall off the ladder, just missing a pier and ending up in a river or the sea (I’m not sure where this is happening). MK manages to drag the werewolf out of the water, where he is attacked again. Their fight knocks them back into the water, and this time the werewolf emerges first. When Moon Knight starts to climb out, he grabs the werewolf and tosses him back in. As their fight continues, the sun comes up, and the werewolf turns back into Jack Russell. Moon Knight kicks him in the head, knocking him out. An unhoused drunk warns them about how polluted the water is, and Frenchie brings the helicopter towards them. MK climbs on again, taking the still unconscious Jack with him. Back at the hospital, we learn that Buck has survived the night, but is in a coma. Moon Knight has brought Jack, Lissa, and Topaz in front of the Committee. They’ve put Jack in a cage, and tied up the two women, since they aren’t sure which one is Jack’s sister. The leader of the Committee explains to Moon Knight, and once he wakes up, to Jack, that he wants to keep Jack in the cage until night, so he can transform again (apparently hours have passed), and then wants to use Jack to commit murders for them. As night falls, Jack transforms, and the Committee, happy to have their weapon, pay MK the $10 000. Moon Knight is yelled at by the two women, and then looking at the werewolf, has second thoughts. He kicks at the cage, bending the bars so the werewolf escapes and goes after the Committee. MK cuts the women loose and tells them to leave. MK fights the Committee, who aren’t really in great shape, alongside the werewolf, and grabs the overweight leader. He holds him so the werewolf can approach, and it looks like he kills him. The werewolf comes after Moon Knight next, but he swings away from him. The werewolf takes off, and Moon Knight, still clutching his cash, watches it go.
- Moon Knight next showed up in Marvel Spotlight, where Moench and Perlin really started to flesh him out. He stops seven men in masks from breaking into an office building, and while he fights them we see that at a mansion on Long Island, a butler named Samuel and a valet named Merkins discuss when Steven Grant is going to return home. His secretary, Marlene Fontaine is also waiting for him, and lets them know that she’s also dating Grant. MK keeps fighting, while in Brooklyn, the owner of a cab company and his dispatch talk about how late Jake Lockley is running. MK finishes taking out the masked men, and gets picked up by his specialized helicopter, piloted by Frenchie. Frenchie calls him Marc, using the spelling that we are used to. As Marc climbs the ladder, they talk over cowl radio about how he thinks it’s suspicious that a main candidate in the election for mayor of New York has his campaign headquarters in that building. Elsewhere, someone named Weasel talks to his boss, a man named Quinn (who has rats crawling on his arms despite his being nicely dressed) about how he plans on pinning the campaign burglary on the current mayor, discrediting him like what happened to Richard Nixon. Some cops find the men MK knocked out, and we learn that they are all undercover cops. Weasel shows Quinn slides about Moon Knight, suggesting that he might have gained some super strength from being bitten by the werewolf in his previous appearance. Weasel also explains that Marc Spector has been known to take on two other personas – millionaire Steven Grant, and cabbie Jake Lockely. Quinn insists on being called Conqueror-Lord, and when he learns that Weasel is the only other person with this information about Marc, he dumps him in a pit filled with alligators, and talks about how he likes the name Conquer-Lord, which is not the same thing he said before. Marc sees some cops and wants to tell him about the men he left in the alley, but they start shooting at him, since the word has gone out that Moon Knight is hunting cops. Marc gets back on the copper ladder and they leave. Quinn learns that his men failed to burgle the office, and in a rage, puts on his Conquer-Lord outfit (looks like a Kobra reject) and decides to deal with things himself. Frenchie drops Marc off outside his home, where he dives into a pool that leads straight into a pool in his bedroom. He’s surprised to see Marlene waiting for him (she is clearly aware of his activities). She’s not happy to learn he’s canceling their date – they were going to a fund-raiser for the mayor – but he puts on his Lockley clothes to head to work. We see his boss yell at him as he takes his cab out, but he’s soon turning down fairies to head to a diner where his friend Gena updates him on her children. He asks about why the cops would attack Moon Knight, and learns that he attacked cops. Jake wonders if this is politically related, but Gena doesn’t know. A disheveled man (he literally has flies circling him) named Crawley provides Jake with more information, connecting the burglary attempt to Quinn. Jake calls Marlene and tells her to meet him at the mayor’s. As they arrive, more gunmen show up at the mayor’s and take everyone hostage. Steven sends Marlene into the party while he changes back into his Moon Knight gear and heads to the roof. We learn that his strength is tied to the phases of the moon, and that he is stronger than regular people. Conquer-Lord is on the roof about to snipe the mayor, but Moon Knight stops him. They begin to fight, and end up falling off the roof. Marlene takes out one of the gunmen in the party, then comes out to help Moon Knight. He ends up kicking Conquer-Lord into her, and the villain holds her hostage. As they posture, someone from inside the building yells that the mayor’s been shot.
- The second Marvel Spotlight issue opens with a recap, and then has MK checking on the mayor, who is bleeding but not too badly. He agrees to get the cops off MK’s back, but when some patrol vehicles pull up with the ambulance, and MK knows that Conquer-Lord has fled with Marlene, he makes an escape up his chopper’s rope ladder. He heads home, asking Frenchie to call him Steven. When he arrives, he starts to change into his Jake gear (he’s already sent Samuel to retrieve his cab). He hears breathing outside his door and discovers Merkins listening in. He realizes that Merkins, whom he never hired, is working for Conquer-Lord. He lets him escape (in Steven’s corvette), and has Frenchie follow him from above. Jake jumps in his cab when Samuel pulls up, to follow Frenchie. Conquer-Lord has Marlene trussed up upside-down in a deathtrap – basically, when a leaking sandbag gets lighter, it lowers her towards the alligator pit that killed Weasel last issue. They find Conquer-Lord’s building, and MK enters through an upper window. There are a number of gunmen watching Marlene’s plight on a viewscreen. MK starts to fight them, and during the fight, sees what’s going on with his girlfriend. Conquer-Lord is interrogating Merkins, and orders one of the gunmen to kill him while he heads to his ‘battlefield’. MK reaches this room, and after knocking out the gunman, falls through a trapdoor and finds himself facing Conquer-Lord across an elaborate life-sized chessboard. He’s in the position of a knight, and is told he has to follow the rules about where he can move or he’ll explode. C-L’s chess pieces shoot at MK, but soon our hero is in front of his foe. They fight, and Marc avoids exploding. C-L exits through a hole in the glass ceiling, and tells MK that he’s turning on the explosive mines under the entire floor. Moon Knight jumps to the entrance to the control room, and fights Conquer-Lord some more, knocking him back through the hole into the battlefield room. He catches him so he doesn’t fall on a mine, and leaves him hanging while he goes to find Marlene. He’s able to pull her up from the alligators, and then goes back to tie up Conquer-Lord. As they leave, Frenchie tells him over the radio to listen to the radio in his cab; he learns that the mayor is going to be fine. Marlene turns down Steven’s offer to go out for a fancy dinner, and instead tells Jake she’ll go to Gena’s diner with him. It’s interesting how Moench introduces Marc’s other identities in this two-parter, but it all seems kind of normal at this point.
- Moon Knight next turned up in two issues of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (actually, he appeared in five issues of The Defenders but they weren’t included in this book). Moon Knight watches some of the Maggia corner and prepare to kill a man named Lindy in a parking garage. It seems Lindy spoke to the DA about the organized crime group. MK interrupts their conversation with a crescent dart, and plows into the criminals. As they fight, one of them shoots Lindy, and after MK takes the shooter down, the dying man warns him that the Maggia knows he’s a cab driver. Moon Knight summons Frenchie and climbs towards his helicopter. Spider-Man gets some pages of his own book, as he goes out with Betty Brant to the movies. We also check in with Flash Thompson and the White Tiger. After his date, Spidey does some web swinging, and passes right over Jake Lockley. Jake and Frenchie talk about their plans, and Jake heads to The Other Place, Gena’s diner, thinking he can draw the Maggia out. He sees that some masked gunmen are holding Gena and Crawley hostage, and rushes in to help them. Spidey’s spider-sense goes off, and he realizes what’s going on too, and sings in over Jake’s head to attack the gunmen (Gena takes out one with a frying pan). Jake’s plan was to get taken to ‘Big M’, the Maggia’s new leader, but instead he decides to follow one of the guys when he takes off. He changes into his Moon Knight gear, thinking he can intimidate the guy into telling him what he wants to know. He starts hitting him, but Spidey comes to stop him, not knowing who he is. They end up fighting, and the gunman (this issue uses the word gunsel a lot) calls Maggia headquarters from a payphone. Spidey stops Moon Knight from taking the guy down, again, but their fight is disrupted by a strong wind. It seems the new Maggia leader has sent the costumed villain Cyclone.
- Cyclone blows Moon Knight and Spider-Man around a little. When MK tries to reach him, Cyclone sends him flying away. Spidey gets blown into a wall, and then spun around in a vortex until he disappears. Cyclone turns to the Maggia guy that called Big M, and kills him by sucking the air out of his lungs. After Cyclone walks off, Spidey emerges from a manhole cover where he hid from the villain. Moon Knight is on a nearby roof, and they agree to stop fighting each other and work together. Spidey finds a guide to New York on the dead guy and grabs it. They board MK’s helicopter. We get some supporting cast check-ins, then Frenchie arrives at Steven Grant’s mansion, which they’ve blanketed in artificial fog to make it hard for Spidey to recognize. MK jumps out of the copter and dives into the pool. When he emerges in Grant’s bedroom, he finds Marlene waiting for him. Spidey comes in through the window and MK, who doesn’t feel comfortable having him in his home (which is weird because he brought him there), takes him to his war room. He shows him his research on the Maggia, and as they talk about the meeting planned for that night, he thinks about getting in touch with a friend at Stark International. Spidey suggests that the meeting might be happening at Grant’s Tomb, so they take the copter there. They can see through a window that a large number of Maggia types are inside, and that Cyclone is standing on the burial crypt, conducting the meeting. Some of the crooks are getting impatient, waiting for Big M to arrive. MK uses his truncheon to block the back door, while Spidey webs up the front door. They bust through the window and start fighting all the criminals inside. Cyclone watches them take a bunch out before he starts to act, but in such closed quarters, his powers are too much. The men can’t escape, and things get more chaotic. The crypt starts to open, and we realize that Big M is hiding inside it; he decides to stay hidden. Moon Knight tosses a capsule he got from someone at Stark at Cyclone’s feet – it releases a freezing gas that makes him fall over. Spidey and MK wrap up the rest of the criminals.
- When Moon Knight next appeared, it was in an issue of Marvel Two-In-One, written by himself (was MK named after writer Steven Grant, or was that just a coincidence?). This is the first time that MK’s cape is not attached to his wrists, Marc is at some sort of function attended by Ben Grimm, because his underworld connections told him that Grimm was going to be the target of a kidnapping. Some man runs up to Ben, pursued by uniformed gunmen. They shoot the guy, and open fire on the Thing. As the man dies, he tells Ben an address, but we can’t ‘hear’ it. Ben starts to fight back, and isn’t all that happy when Moon Knight appears and gets involved. They take down the gunmen, and when the cops arrive, MK grabs the rope ladder to his helicopter, but doesn’t plan on leaving. Shortly, Ben hails a cab and is picked up by Jake Lockley. Jake takes him to the warehouse he indicated, and Ben busts through the door. Moon Knight comes in through an upper window, and they start to fight the men there, who use high-tech weaponry against them. And a forklift. After they’ve taken these men down, a viewscreen turns on, and the villain on it identifies himself as Crossfire (MK recognizes his voice). Both heroes are gassed, and MK recognizes the smell, before passing out. When they come to, they are chained up, and Crossfire, still on a viewscreen, explains how he’s going to use his mind control tech to control The Thing. MK remembers that William Cross worked with him at the CIA when he was freelancing, and makes the connection to Crossfire. Crossfire continues to explain how he’s going to gain control of all of the major heroes using some massive musical instrument type thing. Ben breaks free and they realize that MK snuck free as well. They hunt for Crossfire’s location in the large facility (is this still inside that warehouse?), and MK proves his worth to Ben. They smash into Crossfire’s room, and he starts playing his massive organ. Its soundwaves bring Ben to his knees, but because Cross had trained Marc Spector, MK is able to resist the sound. Ben recovers enough to trash the instrument. Crossfire kicks MK in the head and makes his escape. As the doors to an elevator close, he moves to toss a bomb at the heroes, but it gets caught in the door. Once the heroes get the door open, there’s no one there. They leave, expecting to come across Crossfire again.
- Moon Knight had a series of short stories in The Hulk!, the colour magazine, written by Doug Moench. The first chapter, in The Hulk! #11, was drawn by Gene Colan and had MK wearing the shorter cape that was attached to his wrists again. He expects there to be a murder and keeps his eye on a guy near a newsstand. When someone comes out of the nearest office building, the guy shoots him. MK realizes he can’t do anything, so he does a quick change into his Jake Lockley persona and picks the shooter up in his cab. He drives him to a very big home, and reveals he knows the shooter is a murderer. The guy tries to fight, but MK (another quick change) takes him down and interrogates him. He learns that the guy in the house, Joel Luxor, is waiting for the key he took from his victim. MK grabs the key and leaves the killer in his cab. Luxor is playing pool with an underling when MK confronts him. As they tussle, a shot comes through the window, killing Luxor, followed by another shot that hits the wall. MK calls Marlene, asking her to come and check out Luxor’s house (which is full of artifacts from Egypt and China) for clues. He digs the second bullet out of the wall and learns that it’s from an antique musket. Outside, he realizes that the shooter took his cab, so he calls for Frenchie to pick him up. MK goes to the Sun-Times news, where he has a friend named Curt. He knows the key is to a locker there, and realizes that the locker belonged to the dead man, a features writer named Jim Polhaus. Polhaus was working on a story about a Horus statuette (this is the first time that we are seeing MK involved with anything Egypt-based). He knows that Luxor wanted the statue, and that an assistant curator, Fenton Crane, is taking personal care of the statue. He goes to the museum and breaks in. He can tell that the statue on display is false, and also notices that a flintlock musket is missing from a display. MK flies to Crane’s place, where he can’t find any clues until he opens a closet door, and finds the killer he left in his cab. The first killer turns out to be a rival collector who wanted to get the key so he could cut a deal with Luxor or something. He knows that Crane was working with Luxor, and that Crane didn’t have the statue. MK gets Frenchie to fly him back to Luxor’s, and he sees his cab parked out front. He hears a shot. Inside, we see that Crane believes that Marlene was one of Luxor’s ‘sluts’, has shot her in the arm, and demands she tell him where the statue is, or he’ll kill her.
- Moon Knight busts in, and confronts Crane. He disables Crane’s musket by throwing his truncheon into the flintlock mechanism, and then smashes him into a display case. Crane tries to bash MK’s head in with a jade idol, but MK tosses it to Marlene, telling her to keep it safe. He knocks Crane out, and then removes his mask. He and Marlene talk about what’s happened, and we see that MK has figured out that the statuette he’s looking for is inside the jade statue. It isn’t though; instead, there’s the business card of Alphonese Leroux, Chile’s ambassador to the UN. MK figures that he can use Steven Grant’s persona to get close to him. He calls Frenchie to come and get them (I guess he just leaves his cab and Crane behind). They fly back to Grant’s place, and MK again dives through the pool instead of entering a normal way. As he swims in, he thinks about the new cape that he’s asked Marlene to make him, then changes into his Grant clothes. He asks Marlene to phone his connections, and she calls a friend of hers and gets invited to a party on Thursday that Leroux would be attending. At that party, Marlene starts to flirt with Leroux, and then brings Grant over to introduce him. Grant pretends to want to buy stolen artifacts, and brings up the Horus statuette. Leoux invites him to the embassy at midnight to buy it. Moon Knight (now wearing the full-length cape again) shows up early and starts to explore the large embassy grounds. He manages to distract some guard dogs by spitting on one of his crescent-darts (so they’ll chase his scent – I didn’t think it works like that). He gets them into their kennel, and they try to climb a tree to get at the dart. This distracts the human guards who go to check on the dogs. MK enters the embassy, and finds the statuette, displayed prominently. He hears Leroux talking on the phone to someone, and says that he’s going to rough Grant up when he comes because he’s suspicious of him. It sounds like the proceeds from Grant buying the statue are going to go to a terrorist group or something like one. With all the guards in the kennel checking on the dogs, MK locks the gate and then attacks them all. He manages to take everyone out. Leroux hears gunshots and the general ruckus, and comes outside to find his dogs locked up and his guards knocked out. That’s when Steven Grant arrives, and tells Leroux he’ll pay half a million for the statue, but he wants his friend, Moon Knight, to take the money to the terrorists.
While the Essential volume continues, the next Moon Knight stories in The Hulk! were also collected in the Moon Knight Special Edition baxter paper miniseries in 1983, in colour, so from this point, I’m going to be discussing those comics.
- The first issue of the Special Edition series has an introduction by Jim Shooter talking about how artist Bill Sienkiewicz, who came onboard with The Hulk! #13, and assistant editor Ralph Macchio have grown as creators, and it’s a little weird, because it had only been four years since the stories reprinted here were originally released. Hulk! #13 opens with two men looking through the Conquer-Lord’s slides about Moon Knight (which I guess got updated, as he’s wearing his long cape). As their conversation continues, we cut back and forth to other scenes showing what’s going on with Steven. He tells Marlene about how Moon Knight is going to take the money to Leroux’s terrorists in exchange for the Horus statuette. He changes into his Jake persona (just as Smelt tells his boss about him) and heads out for the night. He heads to Gena’s diner (now prominently called that on the sign in the window) and looks for Crawley. He asks the strange older man about any upcoming criminal jobs, trying to find information that would lead him to the terrorists. He learns they are going to be hijacking a truck, and then he gives him some money to bet on horses. Jake changes into Moon Knight and joins Frenchie on the helicopter. He takes him to the rendez-vous site, while Smelt runs down some of the people MK has fought for his boss. We learn the boss’s name is Lupinar. MK drops in on the people he’s set to meet, and hands them Grant’s money. The terrorists decide not to give him the statue, and instead decide to kill him. He fights them, knocks them all out, and leaves with the statue. When the terrorists (freedom fighters? It’s not clear what their cause is) wake up, they find that he’s left the money. MK and Frenchie watch from above and follow the terrorists when they leave. Smelt and Lupinar discuss the way MK moves through personas, suggesting that there are more than just Steven and Jake. They suspect he really is Marc Spector, and make the connection between Marc’s work in putting down an African coup and the money Steven made investing in a copper mine in the same country. The terrorists hijack a truck, but are surprised to find armed guards inside it. Marc runs around the side of the truck and shoots the guards (who are wearing vests) with gas canisters. He tells the terrorists that Leroux sent him to back them up, and after giving them gas masks, tells them to load up the cargo. The Mayor of New York receives a letter on his doorstep telling him that there is a nuclear threat against the city. He calls for NEST to help. Marc realizes the terrorists are stealing used plutonium. NEST, it seems, is a government organization focused on nuclear threats. Lupinar is fencing with some men as his workout, when Smelt interrupts him. We learn that these guys are behind the terrorists, and that they know Marc is playing them. They have a surprise ready though. As the terrorists continue to unload the plutonium, they are surprised to see Moon Knight in front of them. NEST confirms that the threat the Mayor received is real, and they prepare to deploy. Marc is confused to see Moon Knight in front of him, and we finally get to see Lupinar’s face – picture Oliver Queen with long hair, a long mustache, and sharp teeth (Siekiewicz’s stuff looks just like Neal Adams in a lot of this story).
- Marc attacks the fake Moon Knight while NEST continues to prepare to confront the nuclear threat (the people behind it are asking for one billion dollars). Marc takes out the fake (who was sent by Lupinar to confuse things). The terrorists prepare to leave with their plutonium, so Marc, now changed into MK, paints an x on one car with invisible paint for Frenchie to follow while wearing special glasses. He gets on the roof of the other car. The cars split up. As the sun comes up, Lupinar prepares to go to sleep for the day, and leaves some instructions with Smelt, asking him to have the terrorists come to his home. The terrorists learn this via telephone, and settle in for the day (MK is left in a tree, watching them). Frenchie keeps trying to get through to NEST to tell them the location of where the plutonium is, but keeps getting the run around. Local cops stake out the place where the terrorists are supposed to be getting the ransom from the city. At night, the terrorists make their move, and MK rides on their car again. They take him to Lupinar’s castle, and MK knocks them out. He knocks on the door, and then jumps Smelt, leaving him locked outside. He starts to move through the mansion, and finds Lupinar waiting for him. Lupinar offers him wine, and reveals that he knows who Moon Knight really is. Lupinar reveals his plan – to extort a billion dollars out of the city, and then to burn it, mostly because he’s bored. He reveals he has hypertrichosis, which makes him very hairy (it doesn’t explain the teeth though), and it’s made him evil? NEST helicopters approach Frenchie’s chopper, and these pilots finally believe him about where the bomb material is. Lupinar tosses a sword to MK and attacks him. As they fight, MK mocks him a bit, and Lupinar is overconfident. Frenchie contacts Marc to tell him the bomb is taken care of, which he then tells Lupinar. The villain decides they should fight to the death then, and attacks with more ferocity. He gets MK on the ground, and then jumps into his sword, killing himself. With Lupinar dead, MK secures Smelt and calls for Frenchie to come get him. We learn that the bomb could have worked. Steven Grant records his mission notes, and we learn that Grant gave the statue to the museum, which gave him a reward, which Jake gave to the reporter’s widow. Spector helped the FBI catch the rest of the terrorists. Grant and Marlene prepare to go out for dinner, and we learn in a footnote that Leroux was recalled back to his country.
- The Hulk! #15 had two related stories, both by Moench, Sienkiewicz, and McLeod. In the first, Steven Grant drives to the countryside to visit his friend Jason, an amateur astronomer. It’s the night of a lunar eclipse, and Jason is excited to show it to Steven through his telescope. As he sets up, Steven sees three men run from the woods towards Jason’s house, and makes up an excuse so he can go investigate. He changes into his Moon Knight gear and starts to explore the lightly-wooded area. As he explores, Jason worries that he’s going to miss the eclipse, which we see in its various stages. The men start freaking out, and one of them runs towards MK, brandishing a gun and yelling about a monster. MK disrams him and knocks him down. He knocks him out and ties him up, then goes to see where the other two men are. The moon is eclipsed, and things become very dark. He feels a large presence, and gets knocked to the ground, hard. As the moon starts to reappear, some light comes with it, but MK can’t find the other two men (we see that he is standing right over their unconscious bodies, but they are hidden from him). He checks on the first guy, and heads back to Jason’s so he can call the cops on him (I’m not sure what his crime was). Jason is sad that Steven missed the eclipse.
- The second story features Bruce Banner, who has come to the sparsely populated area to avoid the problems caused by the Hulk. As he wanders, he sees the three thugs from the previous story preparing to break into Jason’s home. Bruce snaps a branch, and the men start to pursue him. As he runs, Bruce starts to transform into the Hulk. He approaches the men, who try to stab him, and stare in awe as the Hulk demonstrates his strength. He knocks two of the men into each other, knocking them out (he tosses them under the overhang where Moon Knight stood at the end of the previous story). The third guy starts to run. Hulk is confused as the moon disappears, and thinks it has something to do with him. Once he’s in total darkness, he senses someone’s presence and lashes out (we know this to be MK). Once the moon starts to return, Hulk wanders off into the night.
- There was no Moon Knight story in The Hulk! #16, but issues 17 and 18 contain a story that the Special Edition series combined (the Essentials volume shows where the story split, and I see that the SE editor removed a recap splash page from the start of the second chapter, likely due to space constraints – the last page of the story is printed on the inside back cover). It’s also notable that Klaus Janson inked this issue, starting his long series of collaborations with Sienkiewicz. As I’m reading this in the SE, I’ll write about the story in one entry. Some guy goes about the city buying the things he needs. He picks up a hatchet from a sporting goods store, then a frightening mask from a novelty shop. He ducks into a porn theatre to try it on, before going to buy a striped pajama shirt. He heads home to work out for three hours, then waits by an alleyway into the night. He grabs a nurse who walks past with the pajama shirt, and cuts her up with the hatchet. The next day’s newspaper reveals that ‘Hatchet-Man’ has now killed his ninth victim, all nurses. Jake sees the paper and heads to Gena’s Diner, where he talks to Crawley about this. He learns that Crawley thinks he’s a cop, and that the killer left a note this time, that says he’s killing nightly until he “gets Lisa and her lover”. This freaks Jake out, and he remembers something that Marc did ten years before, that is connected. Steven talks to Marlene about this, leaving out some details. He reveals that he believes Hatchet-Man is someone named Rand that Marc knew back in his mercenary days. Marc and Rand were working for the CIA, running guns to anti-Communists in Italy, when Rand turned on him. Marc chased him for three days and when Rand hid behind some cover, he threw a grenade at him, but didn’t kill him. Later, Rand escaped from his hospital bed after killing a nurse. Steven thinks that Rand is killing nurses as a way of getting revenge on Marc, and he wants to stop him. Marlene insists on dressing like a nurse and being used as bait. Steven hates this plan, but ends up going along with it. We see Rand getting ready to go out and kill again, and he remembers how he killed the first nurse ten years before, when his face was all bandaged up. Marlene and Steven work out a route for Marlne to take, while Rand remembers the night Marc tried to kill him and he hid under a tree. Steven suits up as Moon Knight and follows Marlene from above. Hatchet-Man tries to grab Marlene, but she runs. MK follows, but some cops get in the way and start shooting at the killer. They hit Marlene in the side; Rand picks her up and runs. MK knocks the cops down and goes after Rand, who runs into Central Park. He trips him with his truncheon, and Rand buries his hatchet in Marlene’s back. MK flashes back to the fact that Rand killed Lisa, Marc’s girlfriend, when he first turned on him. MK kneels over Marlene and vows to kill Rand, who he reveals is his brother. Some cops approach, and get angry when MK tells them to get an ambulance. He has to knock them out before pursuing Rand. Rand runs through the park, and decides he’s going to kill everyone he comes across, which includes a man begging for change. Marc tracks Rand through the park, and while that goes on, we meet Mary Beddoe, a nurse’s aid who cuts through the park every night. MK tracks Rand into the bird sanctuary, where his brother jumps him and then flees. He comes across Mary Beddoe and decides to take her hostage. He carries her to the carousel, and MK continues to track him. He remembers how as children, when they played ‘cowboys and ‘Indians’’, Rand would always double back on Marc. He does this again, and manages to sink his hatchet into MK’s chest before going off with Mary again. Moon Knight gets up and continues to pursue Rand. Finally, they confront one another in front of a pond. Rand pushes Mary away and MK yells for her to dive into the water. He hits Rand with a dart, but Rand takes off. MK pursues him again, cornering him in a cave or tunnel. He reveals that he is Marc Spector, and Rand jumps out at him. Marc dives out of the way. Rand comes at him again with his hatchet, and Marc ducks again. Rand falls over the edge of a small cliff and impales himself on a tree branch. He dies. Moon Knight is next seen in the hospital, having had his wound treated. He stands over Marlene and learns that no one knows if she’ll survive the night. Some cops approach and he tells them to leave him alone until morning.
- In The Hulk! #20, Moon Knight is given a pass by the police that wanted to arrest him earlier, and goes for a walk while waiting to learn if Marlene is going to live. He reflects on responsibility, and pours out the bottle of a drunken doorman, knowing he’ll be drunk again the next day. He tosses a man rooting through a garbage can for some food some money, but worries he’ll drink it away. When he watches one cabbie let the air out of another’s tires, he slashes that man’s tires. He saves an overdosing teen from drowning in a fountain and smashes his gear. He sees a pimp give a sexworker a hard time, but when he threatens the pimp, the woman yells at him. He manages to stop a purse snatcher in Central Park, and talks to his victim, who moves between the Park and Washington Square, where she sleeps on benches and feeds pigeons. He returns to the hospital and learns that Marlene is going to be fine.
- Moon Knight next turned up in the lead story of an issue of Marvel Preview (#21). Samuel (or is it Samuels, as he’s called in this issue?) receives a phone call about a delivery for Marc Spector at Steven Grant’s address. Moon Knight finishes a night of patrolling and changes into Jake’s clothes to drive his cab home to Steven’s mansion. When he arrives, he doesn’t want to hear what Samuels wants to tell him, preferring to go to his bedroom to change into Steven’s clothes. Marlene, naked in his swimming pool/tub, surprises him and is about to seduce him when Samuels interrupts, wanting him to come look at his crate. He worries that it might be a bomb so he has Frenchie join them. When they open the crate, it contains a dead body. It takes Steven a bit to recognize the man as Amos Lardner, an old friend of Marc’s from the days they both worked with the CIA. He explains that he and Lardner told each other more about their jobs than they should have, until Lardner had him smuggle him across the border and drive him to Montreal where he went to Ravencrag, an asylum. Marc never saw him again, and found his brother, James, who soon joined the Agency, to be hard to talk to. As they all talk, someone fires an incendiary grenade at the front of the house. Steven has Samuels put out the fire while he asks Marlene to look into Marc’s files about something called Operation: Cobra. Soon, Frenchie and Marc fly to Montreal. Moon Knight breaks into Ravencrag, and is attacked by some of the inmates. As he avoids them, he comes across a masked man setting a bomb. They fight, and the guy takes off. MK defuses the bomb and then chases him. The guy gets away after tossing a gas bomb at MK. The next morning, Marc visits the person in charge of the institute, a man named Hanson. Marc thought a guy named LeBlanc would be running things, and they talk about how the CIA used the institute to test mind control techniques on the patients, but now it’s legit. Marc learns that LeBlanc is practicing psychiatry in Paris, and he calls Marlene to book him a flight there. Marlene wants to come with him, but he insists she stay home. He tells Frenchie to return the chopper to NY and come meet him in Paris. When Marc lands in Paris (on a Concord, which really dates this comic), he finds Marlene waiting for him. They check into their hotel, and Marlene is annoyed that Marc won’t do stuff with her. MK goes to LeBlanc’s office and learns about how Cobra was arranged to simulate parts of the human brain to gain control of them. As he continues to interrogate the man, the masked guy from before (it’s the same guy who attacked Steven’s home) tries to shoot LeBlanc. He reveals himself to be James Lardner, wanting revenge for his brother. He says that he wants to kill a list of people, including Marc, and MK explains that Marc wasn’t involved in anything. Lardner escapes, but Marlene turns up with a car that lets them chase him. There is an accident, and MK and Marlene are knocked out. When he wakes up, LeBlanc has Marc prisoner. He’s drugged and interrogated, and we learn he doesn’t really know who he actually is. When he realizes that Marlene is in trouble, he escapes, and moves through the building he’s in. He finds a room full of naked women who aren’t Marlene, and then finds her tied to a bed. He escapes with her and is pursued, but Frenchie arrives with a rented helicopter and saves them (he explains that he figured he should check out LeBlanc’s estate). We see that LeBlanc has captured Lardner too, and has gone ahead with his Cobra experiments on him, putting a bunch of devices into his skull that now give him control over the man. LeBlanc wants to use him to kill MK. Steven is feeling better and remembers that he has to go to the Gate of the Moon by six to stop LeBlanc. Frenchie helps him figure out that it’s at the Tatin Museum, and the three of them head out. MK poses dramatically on the gate and sees Lardner arrive (he doesn’t see another car pull up). Lardner reveals the devices on his head and starts fighting MK while Frenchie and Marlene sneak up on LeBlanc’s two goons. Soon everyone is fighting, and MK struggles against the much stronger Lardner. He notices LeBlanc with the control device and tosses his truncheon into it, smashing it. Lardner goes nuts and starts to chase LeBlanc. LeBlanc gets in his car and attempts to run Lardner down, but MK tosses a dart into a tire and instead LeBlanc drives into a tree. Lardner starts beating on the car itself until the car explodes killing them all (at the same time, Frenchie kills the second of LeBlanc’s goons). Later, we learn that Steven sent the crate with the body in it to CIA headquarters.
These early Moon Knight appearances are all over the place, but as Moench got to spend more time with the character, they really started to gel and become interesting. When we first meet Moon Knight, he’s a pretty generic character, but then in the Marvel Spotlight issues, more things are added to him that make him more unique. The idea of him having different identities is intriguing, but at first it seems like he just effortlessly slips between them.
It’s not until the Hulk! stories that we start to see how there is something more going on, as each identity begins to speak of the others as separate individuals. This becomes even more clear when we see Steven, wearing Jake’s clothes, admonish Samuels for calling him by the wrong name. It’s not clear from the beginning that Moench was doing anything special with this (it reminds me at first of when Batman adopts his ‘Matches’ Malone character to talk to lowlifes), but that clearly became a topic of interest and held appeal for the character. I like the slow burn aspect of it, and look forward to seeing it explored more in the regular series.
I thought it a little curious how Moon Knight has such an established operation and support team, but none of it is really explained. It feels like Moench chose to retcon the Committee’s part in his origin (in his first appearance, they give him his costume), but also nowhere is there anything to do with Khonshu and the Egyptian aspect of his long-established true origin. Sure, we saw some reference to Egyptian gods and his interest in the moon across the different stories, but they don’t seem fundamental to his character yet. I also don’t understand yet why Marc does what he does, and that’s essential in a superhero book. This is another thing I’m looking forward to seeing the ongoing book explore.
I find it interesting that we just accept that MK has a helicopter pilot working with him, without knowing anything about him. Frenchie was there from the first appearance, but was given zero development. Similarly, is Marlene really just Steven Grant’s secretary? She is a trained fighter and a willing partner in his work, but with no reasons given. I find Marlene the most irritating part of this book, because she is clearly very capable, but Steven wants to keep her sidelined for the most part, until he needs her. Samuels also deserves something, as butlers are the most overlooked characters in comics at this time.
I really liked the way Gena and Crawley became regular characters in these stories, and don’t feel like they needed more development. They work best as plot devices, although I do wonder how Crawley knows so much about what’s going on in the city.
It’s cool to see Bill Sienkiewicz’s early art in these last stories. I’m glad that they refined MK’s cape, giving it the crescent moon shape when it’s fully extended, as Sienkiewicz does some very cool things with it. Likewise, he draws the cowl and mask very well, giving them depth and expression.
Early Sienkiewicz is very much indebted to Neal Adams, but you can start to see some signs of the abstraction he’ll become known for later, especially on the pages he inked himself. He’s been a favourite artist of mine since his New Mutants run, but I haven’t read all of his earlier work, and am enjoying it.
Moench is a highly skilled writer, but I found that a lot of his stories are needlessly complicated, like the whole plot around the Horus statue. I don’t know if he was consciously padding out his stories or what, but there were times towards the end of these books that my attention wandered a lot while I was reading.
I’m thankful that this Essential volume collected these early appearances, as I don’t know where I’d ever read them otherwise. I also like that Marvel published the Special Edition back in the early 80s, as it’s nice to read these magazine stories on good quality paper.
Early Moon Knight wasn’t all that different from Batman, but he dealt with pretty dull villains and situations. I can see how Moench was using some of these threats to build out Marc’s mercenary days, and how they have lasting consequences for him, but it is interesting to see that he’s not all that embedded in the Marvel Universe at this stage of things. I’m sure there were many discussions about how to better distinguish him from Batman, and I’m sure that’s where the multiple personality angle became more important.
I’m looking forward to reading the first ongoing series for my next column. I’ve only ever read about half of it, and never in sequential order, so this is kind of exciting for me, especially as I’ll get to watch Sienkiewicz’s growth from month to month.
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