Retro Review: Moon Knight Vol. 4 #1-13 by Huston, Finch, Suayan, Coker, and others

Moon Knight Vol. 4 #1-13 (June 2006 – December 2007)

Written by Charlie Huston (#1-13)

Penciled by David Finch (#1-8), Mico Suayan (#9-12), Tomm Coker (#13)

Inked by Danny Miki (#1-8), Victor Olazaba (#3-4), Allen Martinez (#3-4), Crimelab Studios (#5, 7-8), Mico Suayan (#9-10)

3-D Models by Don Cameron (#13)

Coloured by Frank D’Armata (#1-12), Dean White (#13)

Spoilers (from eighteen to nineteen years ago)

I had not intended to keep reading Moon Knight for these columns to this point. Really, I knew that I didn’t like much of what came after the Fist of Khonshu series, but you know, as a comics person, you tend towards a completist attitude. One reason why I hadn’t intended to get as far as this series is that I tend to think of anything after about 2001 as not really a ‘retro’ comic, as it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago. This series is less than twenty years old, but it was, at least in my memory, responsible for some lasting changes to Moon Knight. In my memory, it was in this run that he became more brutal and where we also started seeing Khonshu as more of a supporting character. 

When I just took a glance at the covers of this run, I started to question my memory. I’d forgotten that Moon Knight had some involvement in Civil War, and that this is the era where Marvel had a lot of line-wide dictates around its events (in a more structured and lasting way than, say, the Infinity Crusade). 

Anyway, this run was written (at least at the start) by Charlie Huston, who didn’t really go on to do a whole lot in comics. The art was, at the beginning, by David Finch, and I don’t remember if this is the title that made him such a big name, or if he was a ‘big get’ at the time. 

Looking again at these covers, I’m surprised by how little of this stuff has stuck with me. I might not make it through the whole run, because I’m getting ready to move on to other things, but let’s see how it goes…

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

Villains

• Bushman (Roald Armand Bushman; #2)
• The Profile (#2-4, 6, 10-13)
• The Committee (#3, 5)
• Taskmaster (#3-6)
• Midnight (Jeffrey Wilde; #6-12)
• Lynn Church (#7-8, 10-12)

Guest Stars

• Spider-Man (Peter Parker; #7)
• Captain America (Seve Rogers, Avengers; #7-8)
• The Punisher (Frank Castle; #9-10)
• Tony Stark (#11-12)

Supporting Characters

• Frenchie (Jean-Paul Duchamp; #1, 3, 6-7, 9, 13)
• Marlene Alraune (#1, 3-6, 8-9, 11-13)
• Khonshu (#1-10, 12-13)
• Samuels (#2-3, 5-8)
• Bertrand Crawley (#2, 6, 8, 10)
• Rob (Jean-Paul’s partner; #3, 6-9, 13)
• Nedda (#5, 7-8)
• Hal Parkinson (Marc’s accountant; #6)
• Gena (#7)
• Ray (#7, 9-13)
• Lieutenant Flint (#8, 13)

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

• This series is definitely from the decompressed era. Across the first thirteen pages, Moon Knight stops two cars that are driving through Spanish Harlem, with the occupants shooting at one another. He does this in a pretty violent way, while narrating the story, talking about how he wears white both so his prey can see him coming, and because that is the colour of his ‘investments’ (I am certain that he means vestments, as he is referring to his service to Khonshu, which is notable because aside from the Fist of Khonshu series, this aspect of the character is pretty new at this point). His work done, he gets picked up by the mooncopter, and Frenchie, who is drawn with a pencil thin handlebar mustache, salutes him. They fly home where Marc (Steven?) makes out with Marlene in bed. We see that this is his nightly routine, and that he loves it, but then we are given a different view. Marc is alone, sitting in a wheelchair, with empty bottles and takeout containers on the floor around him. We are shown glimpses of Moon Knight, his legs shattered, Marc yelling from his wheelchair, Frenchie (with prosthetic legs) leaving, Marlene crying, Steven’s possessions being removed from his mansion, and Marc angrily striking Marlene when she comforted him. Between these images we see Marc, bearded and disheveled, unable to take a pill. He stumbles to the statue of Khonshu and asks to be a hero again. It’s a very effective first issue, and Finch’s art is so nice and gritty in it.
• Marc is still sitting on the ground in a messy room, looking at the scars on his legs and thinking about when he was a hero. We see through a flashback sequence how he got injured. He was having another fight with Bushman, his nemesis, and it was a really brutal affair. Finch does an excellent job of showing the ferocity of this fight, and highlighting Bushman’s filed teeth and wild eyes. As part of their fight, Moon Knight was pushed off a roof, and hit a fire escape a few times on his way down, breaking his knees. He lay on the ground, twisted and bleeding, and Bushman came towards him with a machete. Marc managed to toss a crescent dart into his neck, but Bushman crawled towards him and used his teeth to rip Marc’s mask off. Marc punched him, and took the crescent dart. We see a closeup on Marc’s eye, and blood splatter, and see him hold up Bushman’s face to the moon, saying Khonshu’s name. He’d basically skinned his foe, and thinking about this, he reflects on how he blamed his actions on Khonshu and everything but himself. Sitting in his room, we realize how he’s struggled to live with these actions. We see Bertrand Crawley go into a drug store and fill a prescription. Marc receives a knock on his door, and Samuels, his butler, comes in to help him back into his wheelchair. He tells him he has a visitor, and Crawley enters the room. Marc makes it clear that Crawley is not staying long enough to enjoy a cup of tea, and bristles when Crawley calls him Jake. Crawley is surprised to see Khonshu’s statue in the room, and it seems, when he looks away from the statue, its eyes glow blue. Marc is rude to the older man, demanding his pills from him, and cutting short any conversation. Crawley tells him that their ‘Gallic friend’, a likely reference to Frenchie, is in trouble and wants Marc’s help. After Crawley leaves, Marc asks Samuels to get the car, and tells him he’s going out for lunch, which clearly pleases the servant. We see Marc put his pills back in their bottle. Somewhere else, likely a government agency office, a man comes to tell another man, who is sitting at a desk smoking, that ‘asset prime’ is on the move. When the guy at the desk looks at the other guy, who is clearly an agent, we see information about his personality all around him in stylized (David Mack style) letters.

• Much of issue three cuts back and forth between Marc’s visit with Frenchie and the Profile, the guy from the end of the last issue, giving a presentation about Marc to a room full of people in shadows. Marc arrives at Frenchie’s Bistro, his friend’s restaurant, and we can see the toll their lifestyle has taken on both men. Marc stands with the aid of crutches, while Jean-Paul has two prosthetic legs, from the knee down. They sit and he insists that Marc have something to eat despite his protests that he’s not hungry. Jean-Paul introduces his partner, Rob, and the two old friends sit in silence for a while. Finally, Jean-Paul clarifies that Rob is not his business partner, but his life partner, and Marc is a bit surprised. Jean-Paul is surprised that Marc never knew, and talks about how his womanizing was a cover, revealing that really, he was always in love with Marc and that he told him many times. He reveals that Marlene always knew the truth. Marc starts to get angry, and then they both realize that Crawley manipulated them into meeting one another. Jean-Paul tries to talk about how Marc has changed, but Marc accuses him of being a liar and storms (hobbles?) out. During these scenes, the Profile takes over the briefing another man (the agent type from the previous issue) was giving, and talks about Marc’s life, starting with when he first connected with Frenchie and Bushman, and they worked as mercenaries. He details what happened in Egypt, and how Peter Alraune was murdered, and how it lead to Marc and Frenchie falling out with Bushman (it’s interesting how Frenchie has more agency, but not much, in this part of their history than when it was shown before). The Profile talks about how Bushman killed Marc, and how that changes the profile of him. He talks about how Khonshu, which he sees as an extra dimensional being, resurrected Marc to be its avatar, and that’s when Marc became Moon Knight, and took on the other identities of Steven Grant and Jake Lockley as well. The Profile explains that these different personalities are what made Spector unpredictable when he was first hired by The Committee. This is where we learn that The Profile is talking to the new Committee, the children of the original criminal organization. He talks about how ‘asset prime’, Marc, has been targeted as an initiative for a couple of years, hurt and pushed out of the hero game. He talks about how they can now introduce a new element to his life that will give him a reason, their reason, to live. While he’s talking, we see a tough guy approach Jean-Paul and Rob after they leave their restaurant. This man attacks them, and beats Jean-Paul viciously with his own prosthetic leg. In a few pages without narration or dialogue, we see Samuels tell Marc what’s happened, and see him awkwardly visit Jean-Paul in the hospital. He leaves just as Marlene arrives, and they don’t meet. Next we see Marc have Samuels track down Frenchie’s assailant, and then Marc approaches the guy in an alley, pulling a sword from his cane and slicing up the man’s face; it’s suggested that he kills him. At the Committee meeting, The Profile demonstrates his ability to understand the people around him. This is when we learn that the eager agent type already implemented the next stage of their plan, contracting the hit on Frenchie. The Profile immediately understands how at this point, doing so would change Marc, giving him a different reason to live than the one they wanted. We see Marc at home, approaching the statue of Khonshu, and looking more resolved than before. The head of the Committee calls for ‘contingency T’ to be implemented, and the villain Taskmaster enters the room and immediately throws two pens into the eyes of the agent guy.
• Issue four also employs a double-narrative, showing us Marc’s story, as he sits in front of Khonshu’s statue, praying, and also showing us The Profile’s narrative, as he lies in bed with a woman who is working for the Committee. Bushman appears before Marc, having draped his face over Khonshu’s, but it appears that this might be a vision that Marc is having. At first, Marc thinks he’s dealing with an attack from Morpheus, but Bushman, who turns into Marlene’s dead father, denies that. Tortured by these visions, Marc loads his gun and aims it at his own head. The vision switches from being Crawley to Frenchie, but it’s when Marlene speaks to him that he pauses. The vision becomes Bushman again, but we understand that Khonshu is speaking through him (or Marc believes he is), and he asks why he left him. Bushman/Khonshu insists that Marc stand. Bushman/Khonshu insists that Marc deal vengeance in his name. Marc continues to express his self-doubt, but the statue, which looks like Bushman, questions if he still doubts, and promises him glory if he acts in his name. At this moment, Marlene walks in and asks Marc if is crazy. Through all of this, The Profile has been talking to this woman, post-sex, about Marc. Profile explains how he is able to read the information people share through their gestures, actions, and interactions, but clarifies that he can’t see the future, only make predictions based on fact. He explains that no one in the world cares about Marc Spector anymore, except for the guys on the Committee, and even they are just more interested in recruiting him because they hate their dead fathers. He then talks about how Marc is similar, having rejected the Orthodox Jewish upbringing of his father to instead follow the path of an Ancient Egyptian god. The woman expresses sadness that because that agent-looking guy messed up, now Marc needs to be killed instead of recruited. The Profile does not believe that Marc was ever really a hero. Returning to Marc and Marlene, she tells him that the police questioned Frenchie about the fact that the guy who beat him was beaten so badly in turn. Marc points out that he’s standing, and Marlene gets even more angry, calling him selfish and stupid. She points out that Marc could have always stood on his own, but he rejected physical therapy after his injury, and instead wallowed in getting older and weaker. She claims he only ever did things the easy way. Marc tries to claim it wasn’t his fault Frenchie got hurt (this time, we still don’t know about his missing legs), but Marlene points out that it can’t be a coincidence. There is a pause in their conversation, and that’s when Taskmaster comes busting through the window, surprising them. Marlene jumps at him, while Marc throws the sword he left on Khonshu’s altar at him. Taskmaster takes care of both threats, and talks a lot. He throws a crescent dart into Marc’s hand, and says he’s going to kill him.

• Taskmaster stands over Marc and talks while also playing a recording from The Committee. The recording explains how the new Committee are seeking vengeance for their fathers, who Marc killed or mutilated in his first appearance, and how they are behind breaking him. They say they are going to kill him and everyone he loves. Taskmaster, meanwhile, talks about how he knows that hired killing isn’t his usual thing, but that he’s struggled with the costs of his villain training school. He doesn’t notice Marc pulling the crescent dart out of his hand while he talks. Taskmaster talks about how Marc’s fighting style is terrible, and then makes him watch the video the Committee sent, mocking it the whole time. He tells Marc he’s going to behead him, and when Marc tries to kick him, he tells him to calm down or he’ll kill Marlene first. Marlene has woken up, and starts shooting a revolver at Taskmaster, which he blocks with his shield while complaining about how she might hurt him. He fires a crossbow bolt into her gun, but this is when Marc plunges the crescent dart into his foot. Taskmaster knocks Marlene down with the crossbow, and this is when Samuels, the butler, enters the room and shoots Taskmaster with an elephant gun. Taskmaster falls out the window and takes off (this is the first that I’ve realized that Marc is living in an apartment building). Marc tells Samuels to wake up Nedda (the cook) and that they have to leave. Samuels drives them to the old Grant mansion, which we see is for sale. He drives through the gate and then turns on the generator in the garage so they take an elevator platform down to the underground space where Moon Knight basically has a bat-cave, complete with a mooncopter. Samuels goes to prep the copter while Nedda heads to the kitchen to look for food. Marlene sees to Marc, but then realizes that she needs to find their other friends to protect them from the Committee. Marc patches himself up and approaches his Moon Knight costumes. Geared up, he prepares for his vengeance, even though he can barely stand. He launches the mooncopter (it looks like Marlene is in the back seat). Taskmaster is complaining to the Committee, claiming that The Profile was wrong about Marc being on his own, friendless, and ready to die. He sees the mooncopter approaching and runs when Marc flies it right through a window. It looks like he hits at least one of The Committee with it. Taskmaster climbs onto the cockpit, but Moon Knight blows it off and emerges, yelling the word vengeance.
• Taskmaster fires crossbow bolts at Moon Knight, but they barely slow him down, as MK is so determined. Taskmaster collapses in fear, and especially freaks out when MK cuts his mask away. He leaves Taskmaster, clutching his face (it’s unclear if he cut him or not), and picks up the Committee’s file on him before departing, leaving the remains of the mooncopter in the side of the building. Below, The Profile vomits at the site of him. MK returns to Marlene. Much later, we see that Marc is living in a brownstone, and that he’s been studying his file. He’s shaved and is standing without any assistance. He drives himself to see Marlene at the museum where she works, and over lunch, she makes it clear she doesn’t want to end up back in his crazy world. Next he goes to visit Jean-Paul, who is being fitted with new prosthetics. He also visits with Hal Parkinson, his old accountant, who tells him that he has a few investments left, and one is about to make him very wealthy. We see that a month has passed since the fight with the Committee. Crawley comes by, and Marc apologizes for being so rude to him before, and Crawley realizes that he doesn’t have full memory of their encounter, after noticing something about Khonshu’s statue. Later, when Marc is alone, the vision of Bushman appears to him again, and it’s becoming more clear that this is Khonshu, and not a figment of Marc’s imagination. He complains that Marc is not providing him with enough blood and vengeance, and angry at being manipulated, Marc starts to chip away at the face of the statue with a hammer. Khonshu has been behind Marc’s misfortunes, not The Committee, and now he’s very angry. Khonshu strikes him dead and resurrects him immediately to remind him how their relationship works. Khonshu was unhappy that Moon Knight had slipped into obscurity (this is a little meta, I think), and wanted to remind Marc of the life he’d enjoyed before. Marc protests that he was always a hero, but Khonshu shows him the dictionary definition of avatar (“the descent of a god to Earth in incarnate form”), and then leaves, laughing. Later, as The Profile stands naked at the window in his apartment, Moon Knight comes bursting through. He makes The Profile look right at him, and Profile starts screaming. We see Moon Knight embark on a number of missions of vengeance, with the implication that he’s more violent than ever, and is ripping peoples’ faces off. He questions how he can live like this, but doesn’t know any other way to be. Elsewhere, we look at a clock while two people talk about making a mess and blood splatters. We see some of a woman’s body on a floor, surrounded by a clock face drawn in blood. At exactly midnight, a fist smashes the clock we were looking at (now, is this meant to represent Anton Mogart’s return, or does it have something to do with his kid, who Chuck Dixon abandoned ages ago?).

• We get a ‘Casualties of War’ trade dress with issue seven, as Civil War edges around the periphery of this book. The recap references that Marc actually killed Bushman, which I guess wasn’t clear enough for me to pick up on before. Moon Knight is chasing a couple of thieves, and he falls from roof level, smashing into a dumpster. He still catches the two crooks, just as Spider-Man turns up and offers to help him. Moon Knight takes a broken board and smashes one of the crooks in the face with it, but Spidey takes it from him before he can hurt the other. He walks away, making a snide remark about hanging criminals up with webs. MK gets in his car, and Khonshu complains that he didn’t mark both criminals for him. He also complains about how getting Samuels to drive him around on patrol is not as effective a visual as the mooncopter. Later, at the mansion, Marc realizes he can’t fix up the mooncopter, while Samuels packs up the gold ‘Fist of Khonshu’ weapons. After that, he sees news stories that reference the Civil War between superheroes and calls the heroes ###holes. Elsewhere, we listen in on a conversation between a man and the woman who is fixing him up. We see her pulling away organic parts of his body (like his jawbone) while he lightly sexually harasses her. When they are done with this, he tosses a clock showing midnight from a rickety platform in a tunnel or shaft onto a pile of other broken clocks. Again, it’s clear that Midnight Man is back, but this makes me think it is the younger Midnight from the Chuck Dixon run. Marc wakes up in pain, barely able to walk or go down stairs. Later, in the car, he reads the news, which is full of articles about the hero registration situation. Khonshu asks which side he’ll be on, but Marc insists that none of the heroes want him involved in their fight. He goes into Frenchie’s restaurant, where Rob keeps up a lengthy monologue, encouraging him to return to physical therapy (he’s Marc’s therapist, which explains an earlier scene). Jean-Paul comes to him, and quickly realizes that Marc wants him to rejoin the fight, which he refuses to do. Marc just wants him to fix the mooncopter, but Jean-Paul knows that wouldn’t be enough. He gets Samuels to take them to Gena’s, which Marc somehow doesn’t recognize. When they enter the diner, Gena is furious to see him, and we learn that about a year before, her son Ricky was killed, and that Marc never came to the funeral or came to see her. She’s pretty angry, and her other son, Ray, isn’t able to calm her down. She kicks them out. Ray talks to Marc, trying to explain how Gena is not really that mad at him, and then shares that he left the military to help her. Marc learns he flew helicopters in the desert. As Marc and Frenchie separate, it’s clear that he’ll fix up the mooncopter and Ray will fly it. Jean-Paul suggests that Marc find and help Jeffrey Wilde, Midnight, and shows him a photo from the newspaper. Marc returns home, and Nedda tells him he has a visitor – Captain America is there to speak with him.
• Issue eight starts with a flashback to Marc’s days in the marines, where he worked as a sniper, and did morally dubious things. We return to the present, where Steve Rogers wants to talk to Marc, but Marc tries blowing him off. Nedda interrupts, wanting to thank Steve for his service, and Steve calls out Marc for treating her poorly. Khonshu shows up, trying to get Marc to kill Steve. Steve starts talking about how the heroes are divided into two camps, and Marc makes some assumptions, and then calls Steve out for being so focused on his hero drama that people with problems are being ignored. Marc makes it clear that he doesn’t want to work with him, but then Steve turns things around and makes it clear that he would never work with Moon Knight, because he disagrees with his tactics. He basically tells him he’s insane and that if Marc gets involved in the Civil War, he’ll put him down. A beam of energy appears to shrink Steve down and fly him across the street, and I cannot guess who is pulling him there. Later, MK breaks into a lush apartment from its roof, and believing he’s found Anton Mogart, tosses a crescent dart. It narrowly misses Lt. Flint, who is just standing around a crime scene by himself. Once again, someone has painted a huge clock on a floor with blood, leaving the victim’s limbs as the arms of the clock, pointing at midnight. Flint let’s MK know that Mogart is still dead (they exhumed him), and that he thinks this is all basically an invitation for Moon Knight to find the guy doing this. He also makes it clear that he doesn’t really care about the Civil War, and won’t run MK in. Later, Marc is parked outside the museum where Marlene works, because he wants to see her, but then she sees him with another man. Later, he chases down some guy in a suit and domino mask, and disfigures him with a chain with a hook on the end. It looks like he’s saving some woman with green hair from the guy, but none of this is all that clear. We see him knock the guy out, and use his truncheon to hammer some crescent darts into his knee or maybe elbow. At the same time, the person I figure is Midnight is performing another one of his murders, and splattering blood around an apartment, while talking to the woman we saw before about how Moon Knight hasn’t come after him. The next day, Marc looks at a newspaper article that shows the beaten up (or killed?) domino mask guy lying on his stomach with his pants pulled down. Samuels interrupts him to tell him he has a visitor who insists on seeing him, and while Marc assumes it’s Tony Stark, it’s actually Rob, who has come to force him to do physiotherapy, and to talk endlessly about superhero costumes. The last page of this issue spells Marc’s name wrong.

• David Finch left with issue eight, so issue nine debuts Mico Suayan as the new, capable artist on the book. Marc is working out his legs while Rob peppers him with questions about what powers he may have once had. Marc is rude to him, as Khonshu whispers various things in his ear, but Marc starts to soften and they almost share a moment. It’s interrupted when Midnight comes bursting through the wall (which is odd, as it looks like they’re in a basement). This is the first good look we’ve gotten of him, and he looks a right mess, with his remaining facial flesh hanging off his cybernetic frame. Marc attacks while Midnight assumes that Rob is a new sidekick. Midnight is mad that Marc hasn’t hunted him down yet, and Marc starts to insult him, impugning his short time as a sidekick, and making comments about how weak he was as they fight. Midnight knocks Marc down, and talks about how he’s holding back. He pulls out one of Marc’s teeth and talks about how he’s going to go after Marlene (while commenting on how hot she still is). He insists that Marc assemble his team and start hunting for him, or he’s going to come after his friends. He leaves. Later, Frenchie talks to Rob about Midnight and his father, The Midnight Man. Marc calls Crawley to get him to start looking for Midnight, and then tries to call Marlene to warn her, but she doesn’t want to talk to him. We see that Moon Knight has Ray taking the mooncopter out for the first time. They head into the city to look for trouble, and soon spot some burning cars. MK sees Punisher standing on a rooftop shooting at someone.
• Moon Knight and his vision of Khonshu watch as the Punisher snipes at a bunch of punks, who we can assume are criminals because of how they’re dressed and the fact that they’re carrying guns. Frank sees him and they talk for a bit about how neither side of the superhero Civil War want Marc to join them, and about what Frank does. Marc brings up the fact that Frank killed his brother, but Frank reminds him that he would have too. Back in the mooncopter, Ray talks about how the Punisher was popular with the soldiers he served with in Iraq, and how they had to make use of symbols like him to help them get through what they had to do. The Profile sits in a seedy bar, manipulating the scarred woman next to him. We see that Crawley is outside the bar, and is soon joined by Marc, who is out of uniform. Marc confronts The Profile in the washroom, threatening to make him look at himself in the mirror if he doesn’t give him what he wants. Marc threatens him some more, but the scarred woman tries to defend him. The Profile points out that he put her down before because she confuses abuse with affection. Marc gives him a file on Midnight, and the Profile arranges to meet him the next day. As he leaves, he lets Marc know that the bartender is a wifebeater, and tells Crawley that what happened to his family is his fault. Marc goes back into the bar and gives the bartender a beating. We learn that Jeffrey and the woman that’s been helping him are surveilling the bar, talking about how Marc operating out of costume in the daytime is not what they wanted to see. We get our first look at Jeffrey and the woman, and see that they are both badly disfigured.

• Issue eleven is the first that doesn’t have an appearance by Khonshu, but it does jump around in time a lot, making it a little confusing. We see that Moon Knight is badly hurt and is being mocked by Midnight, who we assume is the one who hurt him. Previously, Marc saw the Profile (he came to Marc’s house), and felt the need to smack him around a little before getting information from him. Profile offered him a pill he found on the ground, and that just led to more beating. At another time, Marc found Ray loading bullets on the mooncopter, and they argued about it before Marc saw the wisdom in Ray protecting himself. At another time, Marc went to see Marlene at her work and told her how he felt. She was dismissive of him, and he struggled to understand why telling her his feelings didn’t make her swoon or something. Marc was not happy when she left with her boyfriend. Back in the present, Midnight continues to mock Moon Knight, and we can see that they are somewhere underground, and that Marc is badly hurt. MK thinks he’s found Midnight, but he ends up attacking the disfigured nurse woman. Midnight grabs him by the neck, and we see he’s dressed in a version of MK’s own costume. Profile told Marc that Midnight is in his father’s old hideout, which he found to be really obvious. When Marc dismissed him, Profile instead continued talking, knowing that Marc would come after him again. He told Marc that Marlene doesn’t love him, but suggests that he could change that. He talked about how Marc misread things after they got back together, and didn’t put any effort into their relationship, which is why she bailed. Ray tried to get Moon Knight to take a gun with him into Midnight’s hideout, but MK refused. At some point, maybe after she left her office, maybe another day, Marc confronted Marlene and her boyfriend outside the museum. When the young man put his hand on Marc’s shoulder, he hurt him. The scene was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Tony Stark (I guess they needed some reason to put a ‘The Initiative’ box on the cover). We see that Midnight has Moon Knight tied face first against a giant clock face.
• Issue twelve maintains the multiple time frame narrative, and opens with a grisly view of Moon Knight, trussed up in front of a giant clock, getting his bare back cut into by Midnight while the nurse (who the internet says is named Lynn Church, although I don’t think Benson ever named her) and Khonshu watch. Back at his place, Marc continued his conversation with The Profile, who called him a sadistic maniac. Marc asked why in their first confrontation The Profile was afraid to look at him, and he reveals that Marc is different when he’s not in costume. Before Moon Knight attacked, Midnight showed off his “Moon Knight” uniform, which has a clock on the chest instead of the moon, and he and the nurse (I guess I should call her Lynn) talked. Moon Knight grabbed Jeffrey with a chain around his neck and they started fighting. Tony Stark’s conversation with Marc didn’t go great. Marlene kneed him in the privates before taking off, with Tony watching. In the present, Khonshu carries on about how Marc never listened to him and that got him to this current state. Khonshu talks about being depleted, and encourages him to kill Midnight, but Marc refuses, saying he’s not a killer out loud. Lynn takes a big hammer and smacks Jeffrey across the face with it. The Profile continued to explain how Marc is different without his vestments, but no less crazy. We see more of the start of the fight between MK and Midnight, when MK fled from Jeffrey’s attack. We learn that all of this Midnight stuff came about because the two cyborgs want MK to kill them. Stark was not interested in recruiting Marc to his part of the Civil War, but instead wanted to ask him about his conversation with Steve Rogers. He leaves Marc with his business card and asks him to call if Rogers gets in touch again, but Marc tears it up. Lynn talks to Moon Knight about how bad her life is as a deathless machine made of rotting flesh, and how neither she nor Jeffrey can kill themself or each other, due to their programming, so they hoped Moon Knight would kill them. She starts to choke MK, but this makes Jeffrey upset. They argue, and as they do, MK frees himself, grabbing one of the hands off the big clock. He jumps at Midnight, and rams it down his throat, killing him. At this point, the three threads of this comic come together in alternating panels. The Profile left him, referring to his madness as a form of magic, and reminded him to talk to Marlene. After Tony Stark left, Marc called Ray to get the mooncopter ready. In the present, Moon Knight walks out of the tunnels they’re in, towards the moon. She walks ahead of him, and we see an energy beam or something hit her, and the mooncopter fly off. We see a burning clock face left on the ground with cyborg bits around it.

• Issue thirteen was drawn by the excellent Tomm Coker, whose work never took off the way it should have. Moon Knight sees Khonshu wearing Iron Man armor, and they talk about why Marc doesn’t like the new direction Khonshu wants him to take. We also see from a newspaper clipping that an accused war criminal, Rado Milic, will not be going to prison. Moon Knight heads out to do Khonshu’s bidding. Later, a man is talking at the police station to Flint about how Moon Knight bust through his window while he was ‘disciplining’ his kid, and now the guy has a crescent moon carved into his forehead. We learn that because MK is not registered (this issue has ‘The Initiative’ on the cover), Flint will continue to have to deal with the fallout of MK’s actions. He sends the guy home, but makes it clear to him that MK will come back if he keeps beating his kid. Elsewhere, Frenchie sits on the edge of his bed, having woken Rob up with his musing and brooding. Marlene’s new boyfriend accuses her of being distant, but also understands that she’s adjusting to a quieter life. Ray works on the mooncopter and talks to Gena on the phone (she doesn’t know what his job is). Frenchie heads out. Marlene and Taylor get attacked by two muggers. The Profile is sitting in a car with someone, watching somebody else, and sharing the subject’s secrets. Jean-Paul pulls up outside Marc’s manor. Marlene beats the crap out of the muggers, terrifying them. Ray pulls a gun on Jean-Paul, expecting him to be an enemy, and then they head into Marc’s underground facility. Marc enters a government building, going through security, and heading to a meeting with a bureaucrat who is going to decide his registration status. The guy starts by putting him down, in a poor attempt to goad Marc into overreacting. He talks about the injuries Marc’s suffered over the years, and asks why he hasn’t declared any powers. Marc explains that he doesn’t have any, at least not anymore, and elaborates how they made him cocky. The guy continues to explain that he needs to know how crazy Marc is (sanity is really not part of the chat). The guy wants to speak to some of Marc’s associates, and brings up Jake Lockley and Steven Grant. It’s clear that the guy has hypnotized Marc, and he manages to bring Jake’s personality out, followed by Steven’s. He leaves Marc asleep, and starts dictating his notes about how he feels that Moon Knight should be given a low-red risk factor, unless he gets his powers back. Khonshu starts to speak through Marc, putting the guy down and revealing the things that The Profile had talked about before. He demands the guy kneel to him, and he does. As he finishes up his work, he tells Marc that he’s been registered as an independent hero. Marc leaves and returns to The Profile, paying him for his help. Next, we see Moon Knight waiting in a car for Milovic (called Milic earlier in the issue), the war criminal. He does some typically violent stuff, while listening to Tony Stark speak on the radio. It’s not clear if he kills anyone or not, but we see that the guards have crescents carved into their foreheads. Ray and Jean-Paul talk about their traumas, and while they talk, we see that someone (likely Marc) goes to see Marlene, who is sitting outside her brownstone with blood on her hands. He takes her inside and they end up in bed together. Jean-Paul explains to Ray how Marc wants to live in his past, and can’t let things go, which is why he is the way he is.

I’m glad I read these comics again, even though they remind me of why I was becoming frustrated with a lot of books during this time. I like the way Charlie Huston thought about and worked to revive Moon Knight in this comic. He took a ‘grim and gritty’ approach that involved portraying him very differently than the character we knew, especially in the terrible later days of the Marc Spector series. 

Huston stripped away so much of the nonsense that had fallen into Marc’s orbit and returned the focus to the character, while also pushing the envelope for a more mature depiction of him, albeit using a highly decompressed style, which is what bothered me.

So what did I like most? It was good to see the old supporting cast back, but after they’d all moved on from Marc. Marlene still found him hot, but was generally over the idea of being with him. I like how Marc had such a hard time accepting that she was over him, and thought that the issue where he told her how he felt about her, and she didn’t reciprocate, did a lot to show how Marc sees the world.

I also really liked the idea of Frenchie having always been in love with Marc, but Marc never really figured it out. Taking Frenchie’s legs was a bold choice, and I’m sure that in 2006 putting him with a male partner was also bold. It helps explain why Frenchie would have stuck with Marc through so much, and as this was a bit of a gap in the Moench run, it felt important. I’m not sure what the state of online translation was in 2006, but with only my barely remembered high school French, I could tell that the French Jean-Paul was speaking was terrible. I also liked Frenchie’s boyfriend, and thought he was a good addition to the cast (especially since nothing terrible happened to him).

Another thing I liked was the way that Huston brought back Crawley, Gena, and Ray, her only surviving son. It helped give the sense that time had passed in the comic, and Ray’s service in the War on Terror helped make the book feel contemporary. 

One big addition to this book is the way that Khonshu became a character in it. Previously, he was never more than a statue in Marc’s home, and was so rarely invoked in the first runs that MK’s mystical aspects were always downplayed. In Huston’s hands, it’s never clear if Khonshu is real or a new personality in Marc’s head. Steven and Grant are no longer a part of Marc’s story, aside from a brief appearance in issue thirteen, so replacing them with a god figure, who Marc sees in the form of the foe he killed, is another bold choice. I first thought it was this run that made Khonshu into the bird skeleton creature we see today, but I guess there was evolution to that portrayal. I think I like the way it was done here best. I can’t decide if he’s a real character or a figment of Marc’s fractured psyche, and that is so much more interesting than an anorexic bird skeleton. I wish we could go back to this approach.

The biggest change to the character under Huston’s pen is the relentlessness of him, and the way that everyone just recognized him as always having been crazy. In this book, Marc leans into punches, and goes about his mission in ways that always cause him more pain than his adversaries. He’s so reckless and hurt so often, that he sees these things as virtues, and I can’t think of another superhero who has been written this way. 

Huston brought a lot of bloodiness to this book. It’s his MK that wears knuckle spikes and does things like cut up the faces of the villains or ‘bad guys’ who cross his path. There’s a ton of blood in this book, and that works well with David Finch’s art. It’s easy to see why Finch became a superstar after leaving this comic; he’s dynamic and bold, and very detailed. Likewise, I thought that Mico Suayan had an interesting style that complimented Finch’s, and made the book continue to stand out, even if his storytelling was a little unclear in parts.

I like that Huston used this comic to wrap up the dangling plotline of what happened to Midnight, Moon Knight’s short-term sidekick in Chuck Dixon’s run. The end of that decompressed storyline was a little rushed and unsatisfying, but I always appreciate when forgotten characters are brought back and given resolution. Likewise, I like how he brought back The Committee, in a new form, giving this comic a sense of coming full circle, returning to Marc’s first appearance. (I’m also going to give points to any writer who makes good use of Taskmaster, a favourite character of mine).

My absolute favourite character in this run is The Profile, and I can’t believe that no one else has made much use of him since. His central notion – that he can fully understand someone by looking at them – is a pretty cool one and is useful in a lot of different ways (like how Marc uses his information to trick the Registration agent in issue thirteen). That The Profile can’t look at himself in the mirror is a great wrinkle on the character, and he’s someone I’d gladly read more about. It looks like he’s turned up a few times, but I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential there.

I found the way that this book integrated into the Marvel Universe is interesting. The Civil War era was one that brought a lot of editorial coordination, and I’m sure it was a challenge for a writer like Huston to weave into his story. He did this well, though, using it to underline the extent to which Moon Knight did not fit with either camp. Even Frank Castle, the Punisher, sees that he has more value for the hero community than Moon Knight does, and that’s a bit surprising. 

Another challenge from that would be the way that Moon Knight would never be allowed to continue operating as he does in a post-Registration world, but Huston found an interesting way to address that too.

I’m not sure why Huston left this book just as he was finished establishing his take on Marc and his world. I know he’s a novelist, and maybe never intended to stay with the book. I would have liked to see more of his work, but it is what it is. My next column will look at the rest of this run, which was taken over by Mike Benson, working at first with Huston’s plots. Benson is a TV writer, best known for his work on Entourage, a show that does not in any way make me think he’d be a good choice for Moon Knight.

I own Huston’s run, but dropped it with issue twelve, probably because the decompression frustrated me. I’ve never read Benson’s run, so I’m curious to see what it’s like.

I know it’s been a long time since I published one of these columns, but I’m hoping to get back to it this winter.

If you’d like to see the archives of all of my retro review columns, click here.