Essential Moon Knight: Vol. 1
Moon Knight is kind of like the poor man’s Batman. This white-masked, white-caped superhero is a multimillionaire bachelor who spends his nights protecting the city from evildoers. But Bruce Wayne would never spend his days masquerading as a cabbie when there are models to bang. But that’s not to say Moon Knight isn’t worth hanging out with. On the contrary, he’s an absolute blast, judging from Marvel Comics’ new ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 1, collecting his first 26 appearances.
Aiding Moon Knight on his adventures are his super-hot girlfriend, Marlene; a sassy black diner waitress; a homeless man who always has a cloud of flies around him; and his personal helicopter pilot, a Frenchman named (now pay attention, because this is awfully subtle) Frenchy. The man first appeared in a pair of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT issues in 1975, as an anti-heroic, former Solider of Fortune turned bounty hunter, on assignment by a shady corporation to capture the living lycanthrope.
After that – and a bite from the wolfman that only strengthened his powers – he moved on to the straight superheroics in the MARVEL SPOTLIGHT tryout title, as well as the obligatory battle with Spider-Man and appearance alongside The Thing in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE. A heretofore just fine ESSENTIAL title gets truly essential from there, reprinting eight appearances from the black-and-white THE HULK! magazine of the ’70s. Because this mag was not technically a comic book (and thus not regulated by the Comics Code Authority), the stories are grittier and racier (i.e. Marlene sure does disrobe a lot), on a PUNISHER level.
These helped catapult Moon Knight into his own series, and the first 10 issues of that early-’80s title close out this collection. Commendably, the transition to it from the previous stories is seamless, because – with the exception of the aforementioned Spidey/Thing team-ups – all the issues were penned by Moon Knight’s creator, Doug Moench. You can tell he loves his own character, because the stories are invested with more creativity and imagination; they don’t often use the monthly “hero fights blank” formula.
Instead, they’re about ideas and concepts, like Moon Knight’s powers waning during a full lunar eclipse, a bioterrorism attack on the Chicago water supply that turns people mad or a trip to St. Lucien where the locals are disappearing and turned into zombies. And when the issues do fall into the villain-of-the-month category, at least the situations are interesting, like placing Moon Knight and his foe on a lifesize chessboard, booby-trapped with explosives.
Prior to ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT, my experience with the character was extremely limited. Now, some 500 pages later, I feel like I’ve known him for years. With ace art from Bill Sienkiewicz and others, this is not to be missed by fans of Marvel’s more idiosyncratic heroes. –Rod Lott
When I was a kid, I always tried to make Moon Knight’s accessories out of legos and assorted construction materials. Unfortunately, I was one of only two people in town (Algoma, Wisconsin) who knew who Moon Knight was. Once again, chicks failed to dig my style.
[...] Like the recent ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT, ESSENTIAL GODZILLA benefits from having Moench drive the thing from beginning to end, as well as a regular artist. With the exception of two early issues, they’re all drawn by the very talented Herb Trimpe, whose bold style is well-suited for this property. –Rod Lott [...]
[...] There’s a reason NOVA isn’t that well-known of a title: It just wasn’t very good. But it definitely was a product of its times – dig those ’70s references to Mike Douglas and Donny Osmond! To MARY HARTMAN and THE GONG SHOW! It wasn’t given time to develop into something special or distinctive, and thus, ESSENTIAL NOVA merits only a minor recommendation, especially when there are much better recent ESSENTIAL volumes out there. –Rod Lott [...]
[...] “Get ahold of yourself,” said I. “You’ll always have MOON KNIGHT.” [...]
[...] THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #1 (Marvel) I don’t care who it is – give a D-list Marvel character a new book, and I’ll be first in line to try it out. You can have your Spider-Mans and Captain Americas, but for me, the best, most intricate, most interesting characters are the ones that tend to stay in the shadows of the biggies. In the past few months, we’ve seen the returns of Blade, Moon Knight and now, after about six failed relaunch attempts in the past decade, it’s time for Danny Rand – aka Iron Fist – to get a gritty new feel, courtesy of writers Ed Brubaker and Matt Faction. Seamlessly interweaving the history of the Iron Fist lineage with the current Iron Fist whipping a whole army of Hydra operatives, this is a great start to the series. Wisely, they are going for a darker, Daredevil-esque style that works very well with the character. [...]
[...] of Avengers. But you’ll also get your fill of supernatural horror and fantasy with Man-Thing, Moon Knight and Hercules, as well as lesser ’70s heroes like Captain Marvel and [...]