#new years resolution: reread all of moon knight and take notes

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

sorry for the spam i just LOVED your gatekeeper jake meta!!

i do have a question as you seem like a pretty good source, if i were to read any of the comics which runs would you recommend?

Hello friend! No such thing as spam in Tumblr land. Like and reblog it all. Go nuts.

(Shameless plug: Check out my other meta that can be found in my intro)

It is true I have read all of moon knight comics. It is also true I have a serious memory problem.

BUT. General consensus, and I agree 100%, is that you need to read the Lemire x Smallwood run.

I'm going to be controversial. Start with Ellis (see long rant below to see why). 100% read Lemire. If you read nothing else, read Lemire. Then read Mackay.

I also recommend you pick up and read some of the original stuff, just to see where it all started. There's a lot of it. It suffers from old comic book syndrome, but some of it is really quite good and beautiful.

If you REALLY want to know more... Here's a Brief Timeline!

So the first Moon Knight was in Werewolf by Night, in which he was hired to hunt down Jack Russel.

They liked his character and design and he got his own comic!

This is the Moench run collection that spanned from the 70s through the 80s.

Then there was a long dry spell. LONG dry spell. He popped up now and then in the background and various other one shots.

But then Huston got his mits on him in 2006 with "The Bottom"

This is actually where I started because it is the more modern run.

However, this period is also very rough. He's called Schizophrenic, they use outdated terminology (Multiple Personality instead of DID). It highlights the crazy aspect and is very violent oriented.

But it's also a little fun and there are a lot of good classic moments found in these runs. You are also going to start finding some pretty amazing artwork in these runs (Deodato!)

The Huston and later Benson runs (The Bottom, Midnight Sun, God and Country, Death of Marc Spector, and Down South) are a good look at how messed up Marc lets himself get. Full of angst and him pushing people away. You don't see a lot of Steven and very little Jake in these. Marc is crawling through his mental health issues and you also get a look at his relationship with Marlene.

NEXT: 2009. The Hurwitz runs! (Shock and Awe, Killed Not Dead, and Shadowland.)

This run was actually pretty good. If memory serves me well (and it doesn't), I enjoyed the stories that were told here. You get a more messed up Marc, but Marc was TRYING. You see him struggle with his mental health and struggle to do good.

PLUS. Shock and Awe has THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ART. I loved the design of his suit and it showed peak Marc Spector fighting style of "I'm just going to throw my body at things until they don't get back up". You also get to see him interacting with other Marvel characters (Avengers, Captain America, Punisher, ect.). This is always interesting because they don't know what to do with him. You start to see the ableism set in and how much he's not just fighting himself but he's also fighting how others see him.

NEXT UP: 2011. Bendis. "The Heroic Age". This man nearly ended Moon Knight. It was bad. IT WAS SO BAD. No one talks about this run. It didn't happen. Skip it. Don't even pretend to buy it. If you want it, steal it. Get it from the library. Don't waste your money.

Bendis labled Moon Knight a Psychophrenic lunatic, sent him to L.A. to work on a 'team' then messed up his whole characterization and everything he stood for. It was bad.

NOTICE THE GAP HERE. NEXT RUN WASN'T UNTIL 2014!!!! That's how bad Bendis fucked up.

Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey took Moon Knight over in "From the Dead".

The story here is seriously lacking, but the art is amazing. This is ALSO where you are going to meet Mr. Knight for the first time and he is glorious.

Ellis is known in comic land for writing some of the darkest Punisher content that Marvel put out. He's known for blood and guts and violence. So… just keep that in mind.

But here we see someone that refuses to acknowledge who he is. There is no Steven Grant, no Jake Lockley, and he refuses Marc Spector. This is a man that had a serious mental break and is clawing up from the mudd and trying so hard to fix himself by not being himself. One might even say he's in a dissociative state this whole run.

Next we have "Dead Will Rise" by Brian Wood and Smallwood. It follows where Ellis left off and you start to get some of that Delicious Smallwood art. The story does pick up a bit here, but it's still very ambiguous and barely holds the Moon Knight title.

You see, Bendis really fucked up things and they didn't want him to be seen as "That crazy guy" anymore. So they play it safe and you get more of the original supernatural stuff that happened back in the day with Werewolf by night.

"In the Night" is next in this series by Cullen Bunn and Ron Ackins. Again, art is pretty good here and you start to get some of the old Marc Spector back in this. He crashes more vehicles and you see his reckless style start to creep back in. Story is still barely there, but it's descent. Again, we see Marc start to decline in mental health. He's alone, he's destructive, he's violent.

NEXT UP: 2016. ENTER LEMIRE. Bless this man.

Lemire saw the Smallwood art in "Dead will Rise". Smallwood loved working on Moon Knight.

But Smallwood is a busy man in the comic universe. Lemire knew Smallwood was going to struggle to keep up with the schedule. And Lemire had a hell of a story to tell.

THIS MAN. He broke his story up into three other parts and hired three other artists that had VERY unique and distinctive styles.

This let him break his story up so that you knew each part by the art!!

WTF. When the story was important and back on the main plot, Smallwood would come back in and tell it with his smooth and amazing art.

Then as the series progresses and gets more and more into it, you see all the art styles crash into the pages until he brings it back home in one final breath taking scene where Smallwood collects them again and sends them off.

Gonna fucking cry here. Gimme a minute.

So anyways: The Lemire run. (Lunatic, Reincarnations, Birth and Death.) Three volumes in which we see Marc Spector's mental break down, the fall out, and how he builds himself back up. We see his friends from the past, we see Steven and Jake find their place, and we see Marc start to accept that he is a broken man. It's a beautiful story. It's hard to follow sometimes and a little confusing at first, but once you get to the end it all makes sense and it's so beautiful. Lemire is what inspired the MCU show, in case you were unaware.

Ugh. Next. BEMIS. 2017. Fucking Bemis. "Legacy" (Crazy runs in the family and Phases) Bemis took what Lemire did and shit all over it. I swear this man did no research into the character. He just went, "Crazy huh? What if he's SUPER CRAZY AND EATS RABID DOLPHINS" (this happened. I'm not kidding). He tries to reboot Moon Knight. He fucking UGH. He tries to explain what caused his DID. He just… UGH. Antisemetic bullshit and he should have known better. UGH. Only good thing to come out of it is that you find out Marc and Marlene had a daughter and she's pretty badass.

Then in 2018 we got "Avengers Age of Khonshu" by Jason Aaron. This was a marvel tie in event. I have THOUGHTS about tie in events and none of them are good. Basically Khonshu tries to take over the world. He uses Marc. Now the Avengers think Moon Knight is a threat and needs to be watched in case his god tries to do anything again. Khonshu gets locked up in Asgard and Marc is now on his own.

Jason Aaron, much like Ellis, is also known for his incredibly dark and gritty comics. He also did Punisher Max and is a huge name in the comic world, but you have to have the stomach for him. I guarantee there will be vomit, spitting, and blood in everything he does. It's like a trademark.

This brings us to 2021" MACKAY! (Midnight Mission, Too Tough to Die, and Halfway to Sanity)

Mackay looks back at Lemire and goes, "Hey… what happened?" This man does the unthinkable. He doesn't reboot. He starts with the Mr. Knight that was given to us by Ellis and Wood, takes the story that Lemire gave us, and then acknowledges the bad in Bemis and Aaron.

HE TIES IT ALL TOGETHER. We see Marc that has started his heaing journey from Lemire but stumbled into his old bad habbits from Bemis. We see Marc trying to repair his reputation from Aaron and desperate to hate himself and forget himself.

We see him build back to his old habbits until Jake and Steven re-enter the picture and I couldn't be happier with how he does it.

He understands and runs with real DID awareness. He talks about Marc's PTSD. He lets the work as a system. He tells a story. He's bringing in Fucking Dracula. This man knows his memes.

The run is still going and I am excited to see what he does next. Can he just keep Moon Knight in his pocket for a while? I would love that. Just… Let him hold him a while longer.

.........TLDR: Depends on what you like. If you are new to comics and just want to get your food in the door, read Lemire then skip to Mackay.

If you like what you see and want to get more in depth. You want to know who Frenchie and Gena are (I love them so much) dip your toe into the early stuff with the OG Moench. If you want to see where Marc started to break down and a more modern Moon Knight came about, go to Huston and work your way through it. If you just want to see enough to get you to Mackay, start with Ellis.