Retro Review: Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1-24 by Dixon, Velluto, and others

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1 – 24 (June 1989 – March 1991)

Written by Charles Dixon (#1-24)

Penciled by Sal Velluto (#1-3, 5-24), Russ Heath (#4)

Inked by Mark Farmer (#1-3, 5-7), Russ Heath (#4), Tom Palmer (#8-9, 11-21), Keith Williams (#10), Chris Ivy (#17, 22-24)

Coloured by Mark Chiarello (#1-2, 4-7), Steve Buccellato (#3), Nel Yomtov (#8-10, 17), Christie Scheele (#11-15, 18-24), Gregory Wright (#16)

Spoilers (from thirty-two to thirty-four years ago)

After Moon Knight’s six issue reboot in 1985, the character languished for a while.  He turned up in West Coast Avengers, but that wasn’t a good fit for him, and he left the team.  A while after that, he got his own series again, by Chuck Dixon and Sal Velluto.  I remember buying this book, but flipping through the covers I have, I don’t remember a whole lot about it.  In that early 90s way, there were constant guest stars (that’s right, Spidey, Punisher, and Ghost Rider!), and Moon Knight became more integrated into the Marvel Universe than ever before.  He even got involved with all the Infinity War/Gauntlet/Crusade stuff, as I recall.  

Because Marc Spector’s name is on the cover, we can assume that he remained the dominant personality, but I really don’t remember if his mental health challenges were part of this title, if the original supporting cast returned, or much else.

I remember liking Sal Velluto’s art, enough so that I was happy when I saw his name associated with the beloved Priest Black Panther run, and that might have helped prompt me to start buying that book.  

Chuck Dixon is a controversial figure today, but when this book came out, he was building his career.  He was a ubiquitous writer in the 90s, and from what I remember, he was perfectly serviceable without ever doing anything that really stayed in my memory (did he write the Knightquest story in Batman?  I legit don’t remember).

Anyway, I honestly don’t have a lot of hope for this run, and am not sure if I’ll read all of it.  I dropped the book at some point, came back for some crossovers, and I think I maybe returned towards the end when Steven Platt took over the art, but am not sure.  We’ll see how far we make it, and if this book was any good, or was just standard stuff for the era.  At the least, it will remind me of all the supporting characters that Jed MacKay just killed off in his current and excellent Moon Knight run.

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

Villains

• Bushman (Roald Armand Bushman; #1-3, 11-14)
• Tector Glitch (#1-2)
• Lyle Glitch (#1-2)
• Midnight (Jeffrey Wilde; #4-5)
• El Brutale (#6-7)
• Doctor Friday (Culto de Muerte; #6-7)
• ULTIMATUM (#8-9)
• Flag-Smasher (#8-9)
• Anarchy (ULTIMATUM; #8-9)
• Killer Shrike (#10)
• The Ringer II (#10)
• Coachwhip (#10)
• Arsenal II (#11-14)
• Archie Simmons (#12-13)
• Dr. Bajete (#16-18)
• Bo Ollsen (#16-17, 22-24)
• The Secret Empire (#17-24)
• Chainsaw (Pretorians; #22-23)
• Mr. Ellister (Pretorians; #22)
• General Emmanuel Raposa (#23-24)

Guest Stars

• Spider-Man (Peter Parker; #2, 19-21)
• Black Cat (Felicia Hardy; #4-5)
• Brother Voodoo (Jericho Drumm; #6-7)
• The Punisher (Frank Castle; #8-9, 19-21)
• Silver Sable (The Wild Pack; #15-16)
• Sandman (The Wild Pack; #15)
• Paladin (The Wild Pack; #15)
• Microchip (#21)

Supporting Characters

• Frenchie (Jean-Paul Duchamp; #1-5, 7, 9-12, 14-23)
• Marlene Alraune (#1-5, 11, 14-19, 22-23)
• Chloe (Marc’s housekeeper; #1-2, 4-7, 14)
• Hal Parkinson (Marc’s accountant; #2, 4, 6-7, 22)
• Midnight (Jeffrey Wilde; #6-8, 11, 15-24) 
• General Jonathan B’Kosa (#12-14)
• Montana (#13-14)
• Carmilla Dominguez (#16-18)
• Presidente Silva (#17-18)
• Lynn Church (#21-23)

Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:

• I loved the Marvel equivalent to DC’s New Format at the end of the 80s; it’s still one of my favourite paper choices.  It’s three in the morning on Long Island, and a tired husband has been sent out for diapers.  Two guys attempt to mug him at the ATM but Moon Knight turns up and stops them.  He’s back in the classic outfit, but is still using the scarab darts.  He ties up the crooks and leaves via his helicopter.  When we see it, it’s a different design, with a horizontal crescent moon shape.  Frenchie talks about how crime fighting like this is a waste of Marc’s talents, and strangely Marc cites the rules as his reason why they couldn’t just shoot the crooks from the chopper, even though there are no rules for vigilantes.  We see a schematic of the mooncopter (as it’s now being called) which shows that it has three rotors mounted under the chopper, but I’m not sure how that would provide lift.  Frenchie flies them home, and they descend into a sub-basement (a schematic shows four levels under the house, which were apparently installed by the original owners who were bootleggers).  As Marc enters the kitchen, the phone rings, but there’s no one there.  We figure out that whoever is looking at these schematics called him to confirm that they have the right number.  Marc talks to the Khonshu statue in the hall, narrating his origin for new readers, and then heads to his bedroom, where he’s jumped by someone.  It turns out that Marlene decided to come visit, and since no one was home, she snuck into the house and decided to surprise him.  It’s clear that they are about to have sex.  In Manhattan, two guys in Hawaiian shirts celebrate that they’ve figured out all the information they have on Moon Knight.  Their boss comes to see them, and we realize that these guys (Tector and Lyle Glitch) are working for Bushman.  He refers to himself as General Bushman, and says that he needs this information for his country’s security.  The next morning, Marlene talks to Marc while he works out in the gym.  She wants to understand why he’s still Moon Knight, and he explains that he has to help fight crime (there is no mention of the Priests of Khonshu).  Marc wants breakfast, and comments that Nedda, his former cook, has retired, and that his new cook, Chloe, has the week off.  He refers to her as old and unattractive, but then a very young, skinny, and underdressed Chloe enters the room with breakfast for Marc.  Marlene is not too happy to see her.  A little later, Marc and Frenchie work on the helicopter together, and Marc mentions that he and Marlene are back together (that was easy) and that he’s sent her to the mall to shop since she was made at him.  She calls in from the car’s radio to say that she’s being attacked on the highway.  We see that two cars of men are shooting at her, and that she’s shooting back.  Moon Knight arrives in the copter, and attacks the gunmen who are now all out of their cars.  He doesn’t see Marlene, so he starts asking one of the gunmen as he chokes him.  Bushman reveals himself, and he’s holding Marlene at knifepoint.  Bushman says he will exchange something for the girl, and will tell him what he wants later that night.  He then shoots the guy Marc is holding to prove he hasn’t gone soft.  Bushman says he’ll call Marc at home, and they drive off.  Marc vows to kill Bushman.
• Moon Knight stakes out the embassy of the Republic of Burunda, which is the country that Bushman has installed himself leader of.  He figures that Bushman has taken Marlene there, and quickly figures it would be a hard place to get inside of.  We see that the Glitch brothers are aware that Moon Knight is across the street.  Bushman tells them to send out a messenger, and his personal guard.  MK sees someone leaving the embassy on foot and starts to follow him.  He, in turn, is followed by a half-dozen men in “traditional” African dress, with shields and spears.  He engages them in a fight, but continues to pursue the guy in a suit, who is walking into Central Park.  Spider-Man is swinging by and notices three of the guards.  He decides to take photos for the Daily Bugle, and captures MK knocking them out (it’s weird that he doesn’t take any time to find out what’s happening – what value do context-less news photos have?).  MK catches up to the guy from the embassy, knocks him out with gas, and drags him away.  Back at the embassy, Bushman goes to see Marlene, who is being kept in a well-appointed room.  She shows her spunk, and Bushman says that he hopes Marc will follow his directions.  Marc, meanwhile, is dangling his prisoner from the bottom of the helicopter.  He pulls him up, and the guy tells him that Bushman wants ten million dollars within the week or he’ll send Marlene back in pieces.  They drop the guy off and fly away.  Later, Marc yells at his accountant, who explains that Marc can’t get together that much money in a week, despite being rich.  He smashes a glass, and then apologizes to Chloe and Hal, the accountant.  He tells Frenchie they have to do things their way.  Soon, a cable repair truck pulls up outside the embassy, and a worker convinces the guard that he has to go in to install the Playboy channel on Bushman’s TV.  The guy doesn’t believe him, but when he calls the company, Frenchie convinces him by posing as a dispatcher.  Inside the embassy, Marc knocks out the guard assigned to him and starts opening doors.  The Glitch brothers see him on the monitor.  Marc keeps opening doors and comes across a couple of guards.  He changes into Moon Knight, and while the Glitches leave, Marc busts into the guards’ gym.  He fights some big guys, and when he defeats them, learns where Marlene’s room is.  When he knocks down the door, he’s greeted with a VCR recording of Bushman telling Marc that he’s returned to his country and taken Marlene with him.  Marc falls to his knees in despair, which seems a bit much seeing as they’ve only just started seeing one another again.

• Marc has arrived in Burunda, posing as Ian Waller, a British photojournalist.  Dixon employs a number of stereotypes in portraying the people of the country as poor, having only one taxi and one hotel in their capital city, Freedomtown.  Marc checks into the hotel and starts organizing his Moon Knight gear, planning on rescuing Marlene.  Marlene is swimming at Bushman’s Presidential Palace, and then she gets into a back and forth with Bushman, who boasts about being able to solve his nation’s problems directly.  As an example, he has his guards executing AIDS patients outside the palace walls (when this came out, it would have seemed like acceptable villain behaviour, but knowing what we know of Dixon’s politics now…).  Bushman knows that Spector is coming for him, and wants that.  After night has fallen, some soldiers come to “Waller’s” hotel room, but he’s gone.  Moon Knight patrols the roofs of the city, which is under a curfew.  He has a compound bow with him, and uses it to blow up a fuel truck and an ammo depot.  Bushman’s men come to tell him that the city is on fire, and he knows that means Marc is here.  To the south, Frenchie buys a helicopter from a group of soldiers and flies off.  MK slips into the palace.  Two guards are sent to get Marlene, and they are excited to see that she’s in the shower.  She is waiting for them, and attacks them in her bikini.  Some guards shoot at MK, and he realizes they are herding him towards Bushman (whose look reminds me of a few years later when a more seasoned Velluto drew the fight between Black Panther and Killmonger).  Bushman shows him a traditional sword, and they start to fight. They are evenly matched, but MK gets Bushman on the ground and wraps his nunchaku around his neck.  Marlene arrives in the courtyard and shoots an M-16 around Bushman, destroying his sword.  She joins MK, and Bushman’s men hold off on shooting them.  They hear the helicopter coming and get in.  Marc drops Bushman to the ground, and as the guards open fire, they fly off; Marc jokes that Marlene is dressed for a side trip to the French Riviera.
• A figure dressed all in black breaks into the offices of a graphic systems company in Atlanta that apparently Marc is the vice-president of.  He steals some papers from a safe and smashes a clock at midnight (we know who this guy is, don’t we?).  Marc is caught acting like a tough guy in his Moon Knight suit in front of a mirror by Marlene.  He’s trying on a new kevlar outfit.  She’s worried that Bushman might come after him again, but Marc downplays her fears and tries to put a move on her.  She leaves.  He asks Chloe, who is cooking in a microwave in lingerie (what is going on with her?), and she says that she’s leaving until Marc grows up.  Frenchie comes to let Marc know that his accountant, Hal Parkinson, is there to see him.  Hal lets him know that for six straight Fridays, companies that Marc is the main stockholder in have been burgled, and the feds are considering that he is responsible, because everyone knows that he’s cash poor lately.  When Hal mentions that the clocks are always smashed at midnight, Marc is surprised.  Later, Moon Knight interrogates a fence, breaking up a transaction involving stolen furs, and learns this guy still believes that Anton Mogart is dead.  Frenchie notices that Marc is pretty wound up about this whole Midnight thing.  Marc decides to throw a big charity party on Friday as a way of luring Midnight; he doesn’t explain that part of things to Hal, who is exasperated with him.  We learn that Felicia Hardy is at the party, but also that the FBI agents who have infiltrated it have nothing on her; this must be one of her hero-ish periods.  Marc wants to put the moves on Felicia, but is waylaid by the woman in charge of the charity benefiting from the party.  Marc gives a speech and a donation of one hundred thousand dollars to the charity, and the woman is handed a half million donation from Mogart.  Gas bombs go off around the party, and Midnight makes his move, grabbing necklaces from guests.  The feds shoot at Moon Knight when they see him through the smoke, and Midnight punches Frenchie in the gut on his way out.  Marc pursues him and kicks him, but Midnight dives out a window.  He’s set up a high rescue slide tube to help him escape.  Felicia, in her Black Cat gear, catches up to Moon Knight and assumes he’s the villain.  She kicks him.

• Black Cat is not interested in hearing what Marc has to say, and they fight briefly.  He locks her in a room, but when he turns around, two FBI agents approach him.  He takes them out and goes after Midnight; Felicia breaks out of the room and goes after him.  Marc gets to the roof and gets in the chopper with Frenchie; Black Cat snags it with her line.  Frenchie spots Midnight getting into a black Corvette and they follow.  They realize that Black Cat is on the roof, and she barely holds on as they have to maneuver across a bridge.  Marc drops from the chopper onto Midnight’s Corvette, while Felicia chases them by jumping from car to car.  Midnight drives into a dump truck unloading something on the bridge, and launches his car over the side.  Marc gets out of the water, without his cape, while Black Cat gives up on the whole thing.  Frenchie and Marc return home, where Marc finds Marlene waiting for him.  She apologizes for storming off before, but then gets irate when she finds one of Felicia’s hairs on MK’s costume, accusing him of cheating.  Marlene storms off again, and I have to wonder if Chuck Dixon ever knew women before starting to write this.  Marc heads into the house, talking to the Khonshu statue and himself about how life would be easier had Khonshu not resurrected him.  He’s surprised to find Midnight on top of his fridge.  Marc attacks him, but Midnight keeps trying to get him to speak with him.  Chloe enters the room and distracts Midnight, so MK knocks him out.  When he unmasks him, he realizes he’s not actually Anton Mogart.  He ties him up, and when he wakes up, the kid in the Midnight costume starts to talk.  He reveals that his name is Jeffrey Wilde, and that his father was Anton Mogart (although Jeffrey seems very lightskinned).  He never knew his father, but they met as Mogart was dying from cancer, and he taught him all of his thieving skills, and then admonished him to use them for good.  He wants to be Marc’s partner, an idea that Marc rejects.  He sends him away.  At the same time, a smelly, messed up looking guy gets on the subway at 57th street and rides to 110th, where he exits to the street.  Some drug dealers try to sell him drugs and he pulls out a machete.  He kills one, and shrugs off the bullets that are shot into him by the others.  He gets knocked down, and the guys who shot him speculate if he is a junkie or a zombie (he’s a zombie).
• Marc heads into work at Spector Enterprises (when exactly did he start personally running a company named after him?).  Hal is annoyed that he hasn’t been to work in a while, and tells him that because Midnight returned all the things he stole, the FBI is not investigating him further, but the IRS wants to audit him.  Marc has someone waiting for him in his office, so he turns Hal away.  Jericho Drumm, Brother Voodoo, has been waiting for him for three days, and we see that he’s been halfway turned into a zombie by the Culto de Muerte, which he tracked to New York from Haiti.  Midnight, aka Jeffrey, is staking out Marc’s office in his car.  He sees Marc and Jericho get in a cab and follows them.  Jericho eats salty chips to fend off the change in his body.  As they ride, he senses another ‘zhambi’, and they get out to follow it.  Jeffrey almost loses them in the traffic.  The zombie enters a building through its back door, and when Marc and Jericho follow, they find an injured caretaker, and see that the zombie is in the building’s service elevator going up.  They enter the building’s lobby and get in the elevator, alerting a security guard.  At the top of the building is a restaurant where two mobsters, Tony Muscato and Gonzallo Vega, meet to discuss how both of their crews have been attacked lately.  The zombie enters the room, and their guards prepare to confront it.  Moon Knight and Brother Voodoo emerge from the elevator, and Marc starts disarming the guards, as does Voodoo.  The zombie is revealed to be wearing a bomb vest, and there is a brief standoff that is interrupted by Midnight swinging in on a rope (tied to the roof of the glass-ceilinged restaurant?).  He knocks the zombie out the window so his explosion doesn’t hurt anyone, and Marc berates him.  MK decides it’s time to leave, and they get Jeffrey to drive them.  They decide to head to Marc’s mansion so Jericho can fight off the poison in his system.  In the South Bronx, while a bunch of zombies watch TV, Dr. Friday works on his plans for them.  He’s about to cross Muscato and Vega off his crime map, but his boss, El Brutale, comes to complain that this last assassination was unsuccessful.  We learn that El Brutale hired Friday and his zombies to kill his crime competition within a month; Friday promises to achieve his goals.  At Marc’s, Jericho trashes a guest room while Marc and Jeffrey sit outside the door.  We learn that Jericho knows where the zombies are, but can’t help until he’s better.  Chloe comes to see what’s going on as Jericho emerges, knowing the exact location of the zombies.

• Chloe, Frenchie, Marc, Jeffrey, and Jericho are hanging out in the kitchen watching Jericho eat a lot of food.  He recounts how he was captured by Dr. Friday’s men, and forced to take the concombre zombi potion that transformed him.  He had his medallion taken from him, which removed most of his powers, and was tied up, naked, with the other zombies in the hold of a ship (this is not a panel that reads the same today as it would have when this book was published), and brought to New York.  He is sure he can find the building in the South Bronx that Friday is operating out of, and he figures he can use the help of his brother’s spirit to end this.  They prepare to head out (Jericho will take the van while Marc, Frenchie, and Jeffrey take the helicopter), but Marc gets a call from Hal, who is furious.  It seems that he’s being audited by the IRS and Hal can’t understand some of his expenses, like the half million he’s spent on aviation fuel.  The chopper is cramped with Midnight in it, and they arrive at the same time as Jericho.  A zombie guard outside recognizes Jericho, who blasts his way into the building.  Moon Knight and Midnight land on the roof, and are soon getting shot at by the zombies.  Zombies attack them and they start to fight.  Inside, Brutale is upset to learn they are under attack, and he shoots Dr. Friday in the chest; he runs with his men.  Jericho keeps fighting his way into the building, shooting his way through a number of Brutale’s men.  Midnight notices Brutale running, but since he’s not a zombie, ignores him.  He and Marc fight their way down the stairs, with Marc protecting him, since his costume is not made of kevlar.  They keep fighting, and Marc finds it hard to put down a big guy, until he knocks him out a window.  He saves Midnight from another and they keep moving towards the sound of gunfire.  Friday, knowing he’s dying, gives something to a zombie that is coloured much lighter than the rest, telling him he knows what to do, and to leave.  Jericho keeps shooting zombies, and Marc and Jeffrey join him as he enters Friday’s main room.  Jericho can tell that Friday is dying and his power over his zombies is weakening, so he calls on his brother’s spirit, and they remove the spell over all of the zombies, making them collapse.  Jericho retrieves his medallion, and mentions that Friday’s influence might extend past the grave.  Brutale is at home on the phone, and doesn’t know that the lighter zombie is outside his place with a gun and his photo.
• Issue eight ties in to the Acts of Vengeance events (in the most minimal way).  Knowing that New York villains have been going wild in the streets, Moon Knight and Midnight are staking out a fine china export company that Marc has controlling stock in, to make sure it’s okay (because I guess a lot of big villains want to steal some china?).  Midnight is bored, but gets excited when they see a pickup truck fleeing from, and shooting at, a police patrol car.  The cop crashes, and they decide to go after the criminals; Jeffrey, who can’t stop calling Marc by his first name, steals a van from the china company, and they pursue them to Brooklyn.  They spot the truck entering a fenced compound guarded by gunmen, and while Marc wants to make a plan, Jeffrey drives through the fence.  The men, who are wearing berets and facemasks, start shooting at them.  At this point, the narration flips over to the Punisher, who is staking this place out.  He has been hoping to follow these guys to their bosses, but decides to help Moon Knight.  He knows that his name is Spector, although I’m not sure we’d ever seen the first meeting between these two (okay, it was in a Punisher Annual story).  He starts shooting people, and fires a grenade into their midst. Punisher, MK, and Midnight talk about how this is an ULTIMATUM operation, which prompts Marc to send Jeffrey home, as this is now too dangerous.  He and Frank drive around and talk about ULTIMATUM, Flag-Smasher, and the fact that Marc has a new sidekick.  They go to see a guy who has been financing ULTIMATUM, and they threaten him until the guy agrees to help them get to Flag-Smasher.  Later, they watch from Frank’s van as the guy waits for a meet he’s arranged.  A woman in a variation of the ULTIMATUM outfit approaches the guy and realizes that he’s nervous and hiding something.  She pulls out an assault rifle (from where?) and shoots him as Frank drives towards her.  She ducks the van (why didn’t he just shoot her?) and shoots Frank (in his vest) as he gets out of the van.  She also manages to knock Moon Knight down, but runs when the cops arrive.  Punisher and Moon Knight leave, and they discuss where Flag-Smasher might be hiding his weapons now.  We see that Flag-Smasher is holding an ULTIMATUM rally in a warehouse. The woman stands beside him as he rants, and brags about all the weapons he has (we see some small pieces of artillery).

• Moon Knight and Punisher hang out in a cemetery in Brooklyn, watching Flag-Smasher’s operation coalesce around a warehouse.  Marc calls on Frenchie to come meet them, and he and Castle posture for a bit.  The plan is for Punisher to take on Flag-Smasher while Marc handles the woman.  They start to sneak onto the property, with Marc quietly taking out the guards.  Inside, Flag-Smasher gloats and yells about his plans, and talks to the woman, whose code-name is Anarchy.  Marc and Punisher are on the roof of the warehouse as Frenchie arrives with the helicopter.  Castle, who is narrating the issue again, drops some explosives into the warehouse and he and Marc descend while Frenchie starts shooting at the trucks full of weapons that are leaving the compound.  Marc is fighting ULTIMATUM goons when he’s attacked by Flag-Smasher.  Anarchy starts shooting at Castle.  Marc doesn’t want to hear Flag-Smasher’s nonsense, and they debate while they fight.  Castle makes his way to them, and Flag-Smasher moves away from them.  Anarchy and some goons pin them down behind a forklift, but Marc is able to take her down from a distance with his truncheon.  He stops Frank from killing her (he doesn’t seem to care as much about the goons getting mowed down), and they split up to go after Flag-Smasher.  Castle jumps in a boat to pursue him while Marc gets picked up by Frenchie.  Marc jumps into Flag-Smasher’s boat (Castle hasn’t caught up yet) and takes out the two goons that are with him.  While Flag-Smasher and Marc fight, they don’t see that they are headed towards a gigantic derelict ship; Marc jumps away just in time and gets pulled out of the water by Punisher.  He takes him back to the dock, and they talk about how Castle doesn’t feel bad when he kills, and Marc compares him to Flag-Smasher.
• A young woman named Lula jumps off a ledge, upset about her marks in school, but Moon Knight swings by and saves her.  As he brings her to the ground, he talks to her, but isn’t very delicate and gets her upset.  Frenchie lets Marc know that there’s a fire closeby, and he grabs Lula and takes her with him while Frenchie flies them over on the ladder.  He drops her off and has Frenchie maneuver him to grab a woman and her child from a collapsing fire escape.  He drops them off and goes back to help more, as we learn that supervillains continue to rampage through the city (it’s still the Acts of Vengeance).  Elsewhere, some heavily armed SWAT cops struggle to stop Killer Shrike from rampaging.  He’s annoyed he can’t find any superheroes to fight.  He’s joined by the Ringer (the new one) and they agree to hunt together, although Shrike makes fun of Ringer’s ring gimmick.  They come across Coachwhip, who joins them (and joins Shrike in teasing Ringer).  They spot Moon Knight above the burning building, and Shrike cuts through his ladder, dropping him to a rooftop.  Ringer and Coachwhip attack, and then Killer Shrike joins in.  The cops rush the people out of the way, and the woman and child MK saved shelter behind a cop car with Lula.  Frenchie targets Shrike with his guns and fires on him.  Shrike fries the mooncopter, sending it crashing into a building.  Coachwhip hurts MK, but he smashes her into a car.  He yells at the civilians to get away as he dodges Shrike’s blasts.  Ringer tries to get back into the fight, and ends up wrapping Killer Shrike in some of his rings.  MK punches him and kicks him in the face, until Shrike flies away.  Coachwhip catches MK with her whips, and is about to electrocute him when Lula blasts her with a water hose, shorting out her weapons system.  With the fight over, Marc rushes to the crashed chopper and tries to help a paramedic get him out.  The paramedic says that Frenchie is dying as the issue ends.

• Frenchie visualizes Moon Knight stopping him from dying.  We see that he’s in the hospital, and that doctors have stabilized him.  He needs surgery and might lose his legs.  The doctor goes to see Marc (who is waiting with Jeffrey) and explains how serious things are.  Marc feels guilty that he brought Frenchie into this life.  Marlene turns up and she and Marc embrace.  In Burunda, three men go to see the country’s main general, explaining that they think Burunda would be ideal for growing and producing cocaine and heroin for them.  The leader, who we learn is Raoul Bushman, kills them, but decides to implement their ideas himself.  Frenchie wakes up from surgery and Marc explains that whether or not he’ll ever walk is up to him.  Moon Knight and Midnight slip into an impound lot, tranquilizing the lone guard dog, so they can look for their helicopter.  They don’t know they are being watched by someone through a sniper scope who has other men surrounding the lot.  MK realizes he won’t be able to fly the copter out of the impound lot, like he’d hoped.  Midnight notices a red light on his chest and hand, and MK tackles him just as the unseen gunman opens fire.  Marc retrieves a bow and arrow from the copter and fires an explosive where he thinks the shots are coming from.  The gunman ziplines into the yard and reveals himself – he is covered with weapons (in a 90s way) and calls himself Arsenal.  He acknowledges that he’s taken the name from Nimrod Strange, and after Marc disables his shotgun, he fires curare-dipped needles at him from his wrist.  Midnight prepares to join in the fight but he’s grabbed by Arsenal’s men by the cape, and taken prisoner.  Marc disables Arsenal’s needle gun, but the curare starts to work on him and he collapses.  Arsenal threatens to kill Midnight, and MK passes out.  Arsenal says something about needing him for a job.
• Moon Knight wakes up on private plane, with Arsenal holding a gun on him.  He explains that he’s kidnapped him because he wants him to help him on a job.  When Marc realizes the job involves Bushman, he’s interested.  Arsenal explains that he’s been hired by the DEA to stop Bushman from getting into the drug trade.  He reveals that he knows Moon Knight’s identity, and promises to get the IRS off his back if he helps with this job, since he knows Bushman better than anyone.  In Burunda, Bushman has a guy making a film about him, and reveals that he’s razed some villages to clear land to grow cocaine and poppies (in a desert?).  In Marseilles, Arsenal has Marc (out of costume) meet his other mercenaries – Archie Simmons, LeGrange, Banning, and Akkad.  Marc knows Simmons.  We learn that a guy named General B’Kosoa is determined to take Buruna back, and they want to support him.  Marc explains that Bushman is so crazy he’s unpredictable, and then goes to get some rest.  Arsenal sends Simmons to watch him, and Marc knocks him out and heads out the window.  He calls Frenchie in New York to get him to ask his contacts about Arsenal.  Arsenal and his men hear Simmons knocking on the wall, and realize Marc took off, just as Moon Knight comes into the room.  He takes down the hired guns.  Arsenal starts shooting at him, and reveals that he’s not working for the government, but for some drug cartels who don’t want Bushman as competition.  They fight, as Marc talks about how he’s changed from his merc days.  Arsenal pulls out a grenade, and it explodes as the police arrive (having been tipped off by Marc).  The cops arrest Arsenal, and we see that MK is watching from a rooftop.  Bushman is on TV in Burunda, talking about his plans for the country.  General B’Kosa is watching.  He consults with a blind witch woman who shapes a lump of clay to look like Khonshu.

• As the Marseilles police take Arsenal and his companions to jail, Arsenal manages to free himself and leaves the other mercs behind.  In Burunda, some poachers are confronted by Moon Knight.  Shortly after, Moon Knight delivers them and their truck to General B’Kosa’s men, and has them take him to the general.  He’s impressed with the likeness Mother Nzaga made of him, and he explains to the general that the drug cartels he was partnering with will not be good for the country.  Instead, he offers to help, and is happy to learn they have a helicopter, piloted by an American mercenary named Montana.  Marc orders him to cut a hole in the bottom of the chopper for him, and the general agrees.  Soon, Marc shows B’Kosa’s men the barrel bombs he’s made, and borrows a bow and quiver from one of the tribal soldiers.  He learns that the men think he is Khonshu.  That night, Montana flies over one of Bushman’s poppy fields, and Moon Knight drops his explosives onto it, causing a large fire.  There’s a large billboard displaying Bushman’s picture, and he shoots an arrow into the head of his foe, leaving him a message.  Bushman is enraged to learn that Marc is in the country, and shoots one of his underlings before promoting another.  Marc and Montana talk, but Montana doesn’t believe that Marc’s story is true.  As they return to their base, they are spotted by some of Bushman’s men, who radio in their location.  Bushman receives this news and prepares to lead the attack himself.  Arsenal blasts his way across the border of Burunda, hoping to kill both Marc and Bushman himself.  Marc and B’Kosa make plans, but then realize that Bushman has found them when they see lights in the distance.  They scatter B’Kosa’s people and prepare to leave in the helicopter.  Bushman starts shooting at the general when he sees him.
• Bushman personally shoots at B’Kosa’s people from an airplane, and kills B’Kosa as he tries to get onto Montana’s helicopter.  Marc and Montana take off, and Bushman pursues them into a rainstorm as their helicopter starts to fail.  Back in New York, Marlene finds Frenchie practicing walking, with Chloe helping.  She admits that she knows she needs Marc in her life, and that she wants to help him be Moon Knight.  Bushman’s men find the abandoned helicopter, and search for MK and Montana.  The two Americans debate heading to the capital to help B’Kosa’s rebels, but also consider making a move to the border.  In Freedomtown, B’Kosa’s men are joined by Arsenal, who tells them B’Kosa and Moon Knight are dead, and decides to lead the men himself.  Marc catches a nap, but Montana wakes him to tell him that some of Bushman’s men are nearby.  Marc takes them out and uses their radio to hear reports from Freedomtown.  Bushman refuses to send his men there to secure the city, and they hear the rebels kill the soldier reporting to him.  Marc gets on the radio, taunting Bushman so he’ll commit all of his men into searching for him.  Arsenal sits at Bushman’s desk in the Presidential Residence, and hands out jobs like president to the men with him.  Marc and Montana are close to the border, but will have to cross an open field.  They are spotted by Bushman, who shoots Montana.  He pulls out two hooked swords and he and Marc start to fight.  Marc takes him down, but refuses to kill him.  He kicks him in the face and walks away, helping Montana towards the border.  Bushman orders his men to shoot them, but they turn on him, arresting him to take him to their new President.  Marc and Montana walk to the border gate into Wakanda, and Marc’s Avengers ID card gains them entry.  Later, when Marc returns to America via commercial flight, he’s surprised to see Marlene waiting for him.  She makes it clear that she’s back.

• Issue fifteen starts the Trial of Marc Spector arc.  It begins with MK stopping some skinheads from robbing some tourists in Central Park.  Marlene picks him up in a car, and they talk about how he hasn’t recovered fully from his ordeal in Burunda.  At the same time, Silver Sable briefs her Wild Pack (including Sandman and Paladin) about Marc Spector, who they’ve been hired to arrest and take to the nation of Bosqueverde where he is to stand trial for having killed Ricardo Dominguez, the former elected President, during his mercenary days.  We learn that Spector helped put Emmanuel Rodrigo Raposa in power, and the man was a human rights nightmare.  Sable wants to make sure that they capture Marc without putting anyone else at risk, and they plan to tail him so they can catch him when he’s alone (although I would think just walking into his office when he’s at work would be easiest, but then so would getting him extradited be even easier).  Marc’s friends trick him to seeing a doctor, and the doctor is concerned about the number of injuries he has.  Frenchie and Marlene try to get him to go home, but he heads to the office instead.  Sable and her people watch him.  Marc has a dream about his past, and wakes up in his office when the phone rings.  It’s Jeff calling to tell him that he doesn’t want to be Midnight anymore, and makes a vague reference to having a lot of work to do.  We see that Jeff is wearing a Moon Knight costume while they talk, which is odd.  Marc heads to the washroom, worrying that Jeff is up to something.  As he returns to his office, he sees two of the Wild Pack entering.  He’s spotted by others, and they pursue him.  He knocks them down and goes out through a window.  He lowers himself to another floor and smashes his way in, where he finds Sandman waiting for him (it’s a strange contingency plan).  Marc can’t figure out why he’s being hunted as himself, and continues to evade the large number of Wild Pack goons that are everywhere.  He notices a cleaning lady still working, despite the late hour, and puts her in an elevator to get her out of the building.  Sandman corners him, but he uses a fire hose to wash him away.  He escapes down the stairs, but finds Paladin there.  He avoids Paladin’s shots, and finds himself above the building’s atrium, confronting Silver Sable.  He learns why they’re after him, and defends himself by saying that his involvement with Raposa was a long time ago and that he’s repaid his debts.  He jumps off the atrium ledge and makes his way down to the subway station beneath his building.  He jumps across the tracks just as a train arrives, blocking his pursuers.  Sable tells her people that they’ll catch him another day, but when the train leaves the station, Marc is waiting and is willing to go to Bosqueverde.
• Marc is loaded onto a plane by Silver Sable, and as he flies to Bosqueverde, he remembers what happened ten years before.  He and another merc named Bo Olssen were sent to Presidente Dominguez’s office.  Marc thought the man was pulling a gun from his desk drawer, so he shot him, which is what allowed Raposa to take control of the country.  Marc continued to work as a merc after that, but this was the beginning of his conscience starting to bother him, which is what put him into conflict with Bushman.  In Long Island, Marlene and Frenchie rush to go help Marc (I’m not sure how they know where he’s going).  Jeff shows up and offers to come with them, but is rejected by Marlene.  Marc arrives in Bosqueverde and is immediately set upon by the press, and then by a big guy who promises that Marc will hang for what he did.  As he’s taken to prison in the back of a truck, Marc sees the poverty and misery that Raposa’s regime placed the country in.  At the prison gates, Marc is confronted by the woman that was in the room when he shot Dominguez; he learns she’s his wife.  Marc is tossed into a cell and comes across Bajete, a sadistic doctor who used to run Raposa’s death squads.  Jeff learns that Marc is in Bosqueverde from reading the newspaper, and decides that gives him the chance to make his next move as Midnight, which involves being a thief like his father. We see he has a Moon Knight costume in his car.  Marc’s trial, which is being held in a stadium in front of a huge crowd, begins with a preliminary hearing.  He’s being tried alongside others, and their charges are read out collectively.  Later, in his shared cell, Marc has to fight off someone who wants his food, and after he knocks the guy out, Bajete offers to help him escape if he agrees to help them kill the country’s new leader, Presidente Silva.  Marc doesn’t want to get involved, as he’s ready to face his actions.  Senora Dominquez talks with Silva, and we learn that he doesn’t want to be in charge.  Marlene and Frenchie have made it into the country illegally, and are looking for guerillas that Frenchie knew back in the day.  They are surrounded by gunmen, and Frenchie introduces himself using his full name, Jean-Paul Duchamp, for the first time since he turned up in these comics.  He learns that his friend, El Hacón, is dead, and things don’t look safe for them.  Marc’s trial begins, and it’s clear that he’s not going to get a fair shake, but he also seems to feel that is justified given his past.

• Marc’s show trial continues, and he realizes that everyone believes him guilty.  Frenchie and Marlene get away from the guys in the jungle and realize they need a new plan.  At the trial, a number of victims of Raposa, maimed in various ways, come to accuse Marc and the others of causing their injuries.  In New York, Jeff puts on a Moon Knight costume and gets on the roof of a building he wants to rob.  He looks through the skylight of his target, a building supposedly full of valuable artwork, and sees a bunch of robed men looking at a map of the Western Hemisphere.  Some guards find him, and he has to make a quick escape.  Marc sits in his cell reflecting on his life and wondering what his father would think of his situation.  Frenchie and Marlene are in a nearby hotel, checking out the prison from the balcony and talking in code, since they correctly guess that their room is bugged.  Carmilla Dominguez, the widow of the former president, testifies against Marc, describing how he burst into a room and shot him.  The defense lawyer asks her if Dominguez was armed, and she hesitates briefly.  This causes Marc to remember that after Bo Ollsen told him to shoot the president, he left the room, and it seemed like Carmilla and Ollsen talked about something; he figures she is hiding something now.  The people’s council retire, and then return to declare Marc guilty and sentence him to hang.  When Bajete and his men work on their escape plans that night, Marc tells them he’s planning on going with them.
• Marc leaves the prison with Bajete and his crew, but when he stops them from killing the guard that helped free them, Bajete turns on Marc.  He pretends to be more injured than he is when he is hit over the head, and Bajete’s people toss him over a wall before heading out to start their coup.  Marlene and Frenchie are in the woods around the prison, and they find Marc.  They get him to their rental car just as the guards approach, having realized there is a prison break.  Frenchie manages to drive them away.  Marc explains that he wasn’t framed for killing Dominguez, but that he’s realized there’s something more to his murder and he decides he wants to go save Presidente Silva from Bajete as a way of making up for his past.  Marlene gives him his Moon Knight gear.  Back home, Jeff talks to himself about how his attempt to ruin Moon Knight’s reputation didn’t go well, and he wonders about the people he found the night before.  The Secret Empire decides to go after Moon Knight.  Bajete’s men attack the presidential residence, blowing up a truck at the gate.  Marc slips into the building, taking out a few of Bajete’s people on his way to Silva’s office.  He remembers being there before, and gets to the office as Bajete holds a gun to the president’s head.  Marc fights his men, taking most of them down.  Bajete threatens to kill Silva, but Frenchie shoots him through the window with a sniper rifle, knocking him out.  Silva and Moon Knight talk; MK tells him to free Marc Spector and in return, he’ll find and bring him Raposa, the man he’s really after.  Marc reveals his identity to Silva, and then leaves.  He returns to the prison, and the next day is taken to the stadium, where he sees that Bajete’s men have already been hanged.  Marlene and Frenchie prepare to attack if things don’t go well, but Silva gives a speech and pardons Marc, to the shock of the crowd.  Marc promises himself he’ll return to bring down Raposa, and comes to peace with the shame of his past.  Later, Carmilla Dominguez prays, admitting that she sacrificed her husband, which she wants kept secret.  Back home, Marc visits his Khonshu statue and talks about how he wants to find Raposa, but Marlene suggests he take a bath first.

• Issue nineteen doesn’t leave any doubt that the 90s have begun.  The terrible Rob Liefeld cover features Spider-Man and Punisher prominently, in front of MK, and the text declares that Wolverine is not in the comic, making an early joke about a mainstay trope of the era.  The Secret Empire sends a call out to its lower tier members to keep an eye out for Moon Knight.  Marc has a bad dream about Bosqueverde and decides he should go on patrol.  He discovers that his MK costumes have been stolen, and realizes that it was Jeff who did it.  He goes to Frenchie, who has bought a surplus military helicopter to use while he builds a new mooncopter.  Since Frenchie put trackers in his suits, they figure they can find Jeff easily.  Punisher searches the Secret Empire location that Jeff discovered.  Jeff flies across the city on a hang glider he stole from Marc (the glider cape conceit that Moench and Sienkiewicz used so much is gone in this run).  A Secret Empire stooge spots him and calls it in.  As Jeff starts to break into a building, he’s discovered by Spider-Man, who quickly figures out he’s not the real Moon Knight.  Jeff tries to get away from him, and while they squabble, they are attacked by the Secret Empire who are using a flying platform and some smaller gunships.  Spidey works to protect Jeff, who he realizes is pretty young.  Moon Knight drops in from the chopper and starts to fight the guys on the larger platform.  Their leader blasts at him with an electric spear thing, but misses.  One of the guys on a smaller flier tries to go after Frenchie, but Spidey intervenes, and takes out a few of them.  He returns to Jeff, who rants about wanting to prove to Moon Knight that he’s just as good as his father.  Jeff jumps up to Frenchie’s copter, but doesn’t let Spidey come with him.  He orders Frenchie to take him over the platform, where Marc is still fighting the Secret Empire guys.  The leader is about to zap him again, but Jeff drops onto the platform and takes the hit instead.  The force of it knocks Marc off the platform, and Spidey has to swing in to save him.  He believes that Jeff is dead, and as the Secret Empire departs, he has no way to go after them, with Frenchie’s chopper running low on fuel.  Spidey tries to stick one of his tracers onto the platform, but the leader cuts it in half with the spear.  Spidey offers to help find them, and the Punisher turns up and makes the same offer (I guess it’s lucky they landed on the roof he was already on).
• The Moon Knight/Punisher/Spider-Man team-up goes sour quickly, as Marc takes offense to Frank putting down Midnight.  Spidey calms things down, and they speculate as to where the Secret Empire’s base must be.  Frenchie approaches with the chopper (I guess he got it refueled) and Frank says he’ll follow them in his van.  Jeff is still alive but in bad shape; he hears the Secret Empire leaders plan to use him as a subject in some experiment.  Frenchie can still track Jeff’s costume (which leaves us wondering why they were worried about the spider-tracer before), and he takes the heroes to a junkyard in New Jersey.  Frank explores it on foot and is soon attacked by robot guns.  Spidey and MK drop into the yard and are attacked by a small tank.  Soon they are also attacked by goons in a jeep, and they fight them.  The Empire leadership is concerned, with Number One ordering Number Six to deal with his failure while he leaves with Jeff.  The heroes enter the underground complex and Punisher goes off on his own.  Spidey and Moon Knight are attacked by a guy in a big battle suit, which they defeat while Marc compares his motives to the others’.  Number One and Number Seven slip past a gunfight.  Frenchie notices them leaving on their flying platform, and opens fire on them.  They shoot his helicopter down, but their delay allows the Punisher to catch up to them, and he shoots them down from below.  Frenchie walks away from this crash and notices a truck leaving.  This is Number Seven transporting Jeff, who appears badly burned.  Marc and Spidey find the room where Jeff was treated and find his costume; they believe he is still alive.  Number Six zaps Spidey, and Marc chases him and catches him.  He claims he doesn’t know where Jeff was taken, and stabs Moon Knight with a knife.  He runs again, and MK knocks him into a car crusher, which he turns on.  The Empire agent keeps claiming to not know where Jeff is, and it looks like Marc is going to kill this man.  Punisher joins them and grabs the guy, getting him to whisper information to him.  He then tosses the guy back into the crusher and kills him, which angers MK.  Spidey joins them, and things get tense, especially after Frenchie shows up ready to shoot Frank.  In the end, they all back down and agree to follow Frank’s leads.

• Our heroes catch up to the Secret Empire leadership on their flying platform, and as Frank drives his van over a bridge, Moon Knight and Spidey jump down to attack.  MK gets on the platform, but Spidey doesn’t get there quickly enough.  As the platform flies over the water, Marc fights the guys, but is hit hard and jumps off, into the water.  Punisher tracks them with binoculars as they fly towards Manhattan, and MK returns to his companions.  Punisher puts in a call to Microchip to try to learn who owns the junkyard, so he can search for their other holdings.  Jeff wakes up bandaged and burned in a cell equipped as a hospital room.  There is a nurse there to look after him.  Number One still plans on transforming Jeff, but first he decides that the Empire should go ahead with their secret plans early, and launch Skyclaw, a satellite that will destroy other satellites.  He intends to use it to get ransom from other companies.  Microchip tells Frank that the Secret Empire owns a building on 34th street that has been under construction as a new mall for many years.  Spider and Marc talk about how they feel about working with Frank, and he informs them of the location.  When Frank suggests that Jeff is dead, Marc decks him.  They fight, and Spidey breaks them up, and they decide to work together again.  Spidey heads into the construction site from the roof, while Frenchie stays with the van and Marc and Frank enter from street level.  Spidey finds a long vertical shaft and starts crawling down it.  Marc and Frank take out some goons, and Marc thinks about how similar they are to one another.  The alarm sounds, and as guards rush them, Frank again presses the point that Jeff must be dead.  Marc struggles to come to grips with that.  Spidey discovers the rocket that is going to launch Skyclaw, which infuriates Number One (he can’t launch it until the bay doors Spidey destroyed are fixed.  Moon Knight enters the control room and confronts Number One.  Punisher guns down all of the other SE leaders, and Number One prepares to fight.  Marc defeats him easily and starts choking him.  Number One insists that Jeff is dead, and Spidey has to convince Marc not to kill him.  Frank chides him for showing mercy, and the heroes head out.  Somewhere else, the nurse, Lynn Church, continues to look after Jeff.  He says that he’s angry at Moon Knight for abandoning him, and vows to kill him.
• A few weeks have passed, and Marc returns to the Secret Empire building, evading the cops outside and gassing some SHIELD guards inside.  He evades more SHIELD guards, and taps into the building’s computer looking for information about Jeff Wilde.  He doesn’t find anything about him, but does find reference to the Pretorians, a white supremacy group in New York.  He’s surprised to see that Bo Ollsen, the man that was with him when he killed the President of Bosqueverde is connected to the group.  He leaves just as the guards start looking for him, and thinks about how Ollsen can lead him to Raposa.  Elsewhere, some young man runs through a labyrinth, evading gunshots from the people above.  A guy on a motorcycle wearing a fright mask catches up to him and kills him with a chainsaw.  The crowd watching from above chants Chainsaw’s name.  Marc meets with his accountant, Hal Foster, who tells him that his business has lost five million dollars while Marc was on trial; Hal is furious that Marc doesn’t care all that much and storms out.  Marc explains to Marlene that he doesn’t care about money after all that’s happened, and worries that he’s not acting very heroically.  At the Secret Empire’s headquarters, Number Seven talks about how their plans for Jeff continue.  Number Two wants to be put in charge of the organization, and the remaining members of The Ten argue.  Frenchie takes Marc out for a spin in the new mooncopter, and Marc questions why he has a heavily armed gunship if he wants to avoid killing.  Lynn tends to Jeff, who is in pain and worried about what the Secret Empire wants with him.  Some SE goons come and take him away.  On a Manhattan news show, some guy who is eventually identified as Mr. Ellister rails against immigrants, and the show’s producers note that half the audience seems to agree with him.  A brawl breaks out, and Frenchie, using a fake American accent, gets Ellister to safety.  Marc and Marlene listen from their surveillance van as Frenchie gets Ellister to invite him to a Pretorians meeting.  The team runs recon at the warehouse where the group is meeting.  Marc is in costume on a nearby roof while Marlene stays in the van and Frenchie enters the meeting.  Some guys approach the van.  When Marc lands on the roof, he’s attacked by a bunch of punks (because of course they have ten guys guarding the roof).  As Marc takes them all down, Chainsaw appears in front of the crowd inside, and runs through a bunch of racist tropes (I wonder if 1991 Chuck Dixon agreed with him, or if that change came later).  He tells his large following that he has some entertainment for them, and mentions the maze we saw before (they are all standing on the walls of it).  Marc thinks it’s time to pull them all out as there are too many people, but Frenchie tells him he can’t raise Marlene.  Marc sees Bo Ollsen standing next to Chainsaw, just as they realize that they intend to toss Marlene into the maze.  When she hits the ground, Moon Knight busts through the skylight, feeling the fury of Khonshu.

• Marlene runs from Chainsaw while Marc fights his way through the Pretorians to get into the maze.  He spots Bo Ollsen pulling a gun and moving in the opposite direction.  Marc reaches Marlene but isn’t able to swing out of the maze.  As Chainsaw approaches them on his motorcycle, we see that Frenchie has his hands full fighting other Pretorians.  Marc stops to face Chainsaw while Marlene keeps fighting.  Marc manages to knock Chainsaw off his motorcycle and Marlene, having gotten a gun, shoots at everyone else to get them to stay out of the fight.  Chainsaw throws a gas pellet on the ground and drives his bike towards a door.  The door opens and Bo Ollsen shoots Chainsaw twice in the chest, killing him.  Marc runs after Ollsen.  Frenchie joins Marlene in the maze and they go after Marc.  Marc catches Ollsen, who explains that he was never really in the Pretorians; he’s after the conspiracy that funds them to exact revenge for abandoning him in a job in a developing country, where he had to serve five years in prison.  Moon Knight and his crew get in their van, taking Ollsen with them.  Marc offers him information in return for information, and asks about Raposa.  Ollsen explains that Raposa was in league with President Dominguez, who sold him the presidency for one million dollars.  Raposa didn’t want to share, so he sent Ollsen to stop him.  Ollsen explains that the young merc with him, who we know was Marc, shot the president on his orders and he then arranged with Dominguez’s widow to let him take the money.  Ollsen says that Raposa is set up in Miami, running drugs.  Marc tells him that the leader of the Secret Empire is in Riker’s Island, but that no one knows his name.  After Ollsen leaves, Marc tells Marlene that the fact that Dominguez was corrupt doesn’t absolve him of his murder.  In Miami, Raposa orders his men to kill one of his pilots who has been skimming drums from his shipments.  At the Secret Empire’s base, Number Seven watches as surgery is performed on Jeff.  When he is brought back to his nurse, Jeff wakes up and realizes that his arms have been replaced with robotic ones, and he starts screaming.  Moon Knight starts hunting Raposa, going through his low level dealers and working his way up the chain.  Later, he leaves Marlene sleeping and takes the mooncopter on his own (it looks like he’s still in New York, which is a weird place to hunt for a Miami drug lord).  As he flies the copter, he thinks about how he might die facing Raposa, which seems a little dramatic.
• Moon Knight attacks a motorboat on a canal outside of Miami that is transporting drugs for Raposa.  He gets the pilot to tell him who Raposa’s biggest rival is, and makes him dump his drugs into the water.  We get a quick recap of Marc’s time working with Raposa and why he’s hunting for him now.  The pilot reports to Raposa, and then gets killed by having money stuffed down his throat for throwing away the drugs.  Raposa decides it’s time to launch a military-style strike against his rival, Valdez, partly to show that he’s not worried about Moon Knight coming for him.  The secretive Number One of the Secret Empire resists interrogation in prison.  Bo Ollsen, posing as one of his guards, gets to him, revealing that he was undercover for the US government when he worked for him, and then Bo kills him.  At the Secret Empire’s base, the newly augmented Midnight is brought out to fight a bunch of men.  In the fight, his face is cut and it’s clear that Jeff is now almost completely a cyborg.  He goes berserk and starts killing the men.  To stop him, Number Seven has to shock him into submission; Number Seven believes that with a little more work, Midnight will be ready to be his operative.  Valdez lounges at his place, and once he’s alone, is confronted by Moon Knight who talks to him about Raposa, although I don’t really know why.  It’s at that moment that Raposa attacks Valdez’s place, firing on it with helicopter gunships.  He spots Moon Knight running for the woods and has his men go after him.  MK raises the mooncopter into the sky (it’s weird seeing him pilot it himself) and starts shooting at Raposa’s copters.  He manages to make one crash, but then pulls away, towards Miami.  The enemy follows, and Marc is able to get behind them, but as they fly between office and condo towers, doesn’t want to open fire.  He uses the side of the copter to cut the prop of one of his foes, and Raposa has his men land his chopper on the roof of his building.  Marc takes out Raposa’s men on the roof.  Raposa tries to empty his safe, and is suddenly surprised by Bo Ollsen, who somehow made it down to Miami in a hurry, and then had to fight his way through Raposa’s men, getting badly injured along the way.  Marc enters and disarms Ollsen, and when Raposa pulls out a gun, they almost reenact the night when Marc shot the former president of Bosqueverde.  Instead, Marc tosses Ollsen’s gun at Raposa, knocking him out.  Ollsen explains that he wanted to back Marc up, revealing that he’s figured out who he is, and then promises to hold off Raposa’s men, who are approaching, so our hero can escape (it’s clear that Ollsen’s wounds are going to kill him).  Marc flies to a Bosqueverdian freighter that is anchored a ways from Miami, and drops Raposa off before turning to fly home.
• The Statement of Ownership for 1990 reports an average press run of 97 000, with no newsstand returns (we’ve entered the direct market era, clearly).

We know that the end of the 80s launched an era of pretty mediocre comics, and I didn’t have very high expectations for this run, given that I couldn’t remember more than maybe one issue out of these twenty-four, but even still, this was a very mid run.  There’s nothing really wrong with it, but it’s not memorable or good, either.

To start with, I want to examine some of the choices Chuck Dixon made in how he decided to portray Moon Knight.  Following on the Alan Zelenetz run, there is no appearance made by any of Marc’s alters, which is really the thing that makes him a unique character.  Without his dissociative identity disorder, Marc Spector is a pretty basic businessman who never does any work at his company (which is no longer an international chain of art galleries, but instead appears to be a basic unspecific corporation).  When his company gets in a lot of financial trouble, he doesn’t appear to care.  While the Khonshu stuff gets referenced from time to time, it’s not something that makes Moon Knight special (the getting stronger depending on the fullness of the moon, for example).  Basically, Dixon turned this book into a second rate Batman comic, which is something that has always been on the periphery of MK’s existence.  This was a complaint I had when MK was in the West Coast Avengers too, but his time on that team was shadowed by a darkness in him that is largely lacking here.

I do like how Dixon chose to explore some of the consequences of Marc’s past some more, having him confront Bushman twice, and deal with his time in Bosqueverde, but the atonement angle never seemed like it was enough to justify him becoming a masked crusader, plunging his fortune into the job.  Without the notion of Khonshu pushing him, he is as generic as they come.

Similarly, Dixon’s writing really flattened out Marc’s supporting cast.  Marlene went from being a hot-headed, formidable partner in Marc’s life in business, as we saw in the Moench run, to becoming a skilled combatant and partner in the hero game.  Frenchie also didn’t get to do much here, but he felt more fleshed out than Marlene did.

Gone are the most interesting cast members of Marc’s first series, Crawley and Gena.  Marc is not investigating crime anymore, he seems to just swing around (he doesn’t hang from his helicopter or use his glider cape so much anymore) looking for robbers, or waits for problems to come to him.  I liked how Jake would go to the diner to learn what was happening in the underworld, but now he just seems to let happenstance determine all of his plots.  It’s less interesting.

The new characters that Dixon added to Marc’s life aren’t all that interesting.  Chloe is the underdressed housekeeper, cook, and sometime physiotherapist who seemed to only exist to drive a wedge between Marc and Marlene, and then she was forgotten (given Dixon’s views now, I want to speculate that he isn’t all that interested in female characters, but I know his time on Birds of Prey suggests otherwise).  Hal the accountant is there to try to add some drama to Marc’s business life, but he’s not interesting either.

The only new character of note in this run is Jeff Wilde, who became Marc’s sidekick Midnight.  He’s portrayed as the illegitimate son of the Midnight Man, Anton Mogart, and his portrayal is also very odd.  He starts out as a thief, then weasels his way into Marc’s life, only to turn on him later, try to ruin his name, get targeted by the Secret Empire, and then get turned into a murderous cyborg whose story does not get resolved here (if ever).  Is this what Dixon intended for this character?  Was he trying to play with Batman/Jason Todd Robin tropes?  It’s hard to know, as I felt that Jeff’s story was constantly getting sidelined, as if Dixon didn’t really know what to do with him.  It’s also odd that a kid with no real training could even keep up with Marc on patrol or in fights.

There are other characters that Dixon introduces that appear to have more to them, but then are quickly abandoned.  Arsenal, the guy that tries to recruit Marc to take on Bushman, is a terrible early 90s character, with his ridiculous getup and weapons, but his earliest appearances gave the impression that Dixon wanted to do more with him.  Instead, he gets left behind in a hurry.  The same thing happened with Montana, the mercenary helicopter pilot that Marc met in Burunda; he’s introduced and abandoned even more quickly than Arsenal.

I know that Dixon has publicly swung hard to the right in recent years, and it makes me question many of his writing choices? Are the women weak characters because that’s how he view women? Did he see the Pretorians as sympathetic characters? You could drive yourself nuts wondering things like this.

Following other 90s tropes, Dixon relies a lot on guest stars to keep this book going.  We get early appearances by both Spider-Man and the Punisher, and then they circle back for another bunch of issues where they share second billing.  (It’s also telling that the issue after Dixon leaves features an appearance by Ghost Rider, the most 90s of heroes).  

I liked seeing Moon Knight going up against the Secret Empire, but the way that organization ended up being linked to Marc’s unfinished business in Bosqueverde was too easy, especially considering the fact that they only started going after him because of Jeff’s bumbling attempt to rob them while dressed in a Moon Knight costume.

I was also disappointed with the visual portrayal of Moon Knight in this run.  I want to declare that I’m a big fan of Sal Velluto’s art; his Black Panther run, which I’ve written about before, was brilliant, and I liked other comics he drew.  Perhaps this run was his first, but his work did not stand out all that much to me, and I was left feeling cold towards it.  

A big part of the problem is that he drew Moon Knight like he was any other hero, and did away with the flourishes of Bill Sienkiewicz’s portrayal that made the character look so cool and unique.  Moon Knight was rarely drawn in shadows, and the part of his mask that covers his face was drawn more plainly than ever before, making him look typical.  It’s like Velluto looked to the artists of the Fists of Khonshu run, or even worse, Al Milgrom’s workaday portrayal in WCA, instead of looking at what Sienkiewicz contributed to the character.

Also responsible for the ordinariness of this run is the way the colourists took away the metallic sheen of Marc’s costume, and made him look like he was wearing dingy white cotton sheets.  

I didn’t hate these comics, even though it sounds like I’m being a little harsh.  I just didn’t feel like I was really reading a Moon Knight comic; things were just pretty generic, and that was disappointing.  It was also indicative of where the industry was heading, but of course I didn’t know that at the time.

For my next column, I’m going to keep reading this book, looking at a patch where there wasn’t a consistent writer for long, before another writer took over for a longer run.  Some of these issues were written by JM DeMatteis and feature Bill Sienkiewicz covers, so I’m going to allow myself to hope for better days ahead…

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