Week of 12/16/09 – Vengeance of the Moon Knight #4
December 22nd, 2009
Crab cakes and brutality, that’s what Moon Knight does. Well, I’m making an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ with the crab cakes. But Konshu’s unreasonably angry avatar on Earth is gonna turn down a fresh crab cake if he’s crashing a cocktail hour? I say no. The rest of the time? He’s knocking out teeth.
My relationship with Moon Knight is long and torrid. When I was younger my comic universe was limited to what my older brother was picking up. A lot of Punisher, a lot of Silver Surfer, strangely some West Coast Avengers, and a pretty good pile of Moon Knight. Even then I was less drawn to the cosmic stories. I was never particularly interested in the real far fetched fantastic stories. But Moon Knight was a guy who just flew around NYC in a helicopter and beat up bad guys. Tough to not get behind that.
I have stepped on and leaped off the Moon Knight train many times. One of those times I got back on was in 2006 when Moony relaunched with Huston writing and Finch drawing. And the stage they set was just awesome. Marc Spector was coming back to the game and he was more brutal than ever. But then the multiple personalities came back and the inner crazy was moved to center stage and it lost me again. I realized that all along I sort of wanted to see the flip side of the Batman coin. I wanted Moony to be all about vengeance, sure, but I wanted him to be up front about it. As he narrates in that series, “I wear white so they can see me coming”. Yes! But then he has long conversations with a dead villain in his mind. No!
On a whim I picked up Vengeance of the Moon Knight #4 and I was pleasantly surprised by the art. So much so that I tracked down the previous three issues. But the ridiculous crazy is still there with tiny voices that appear like ’shoulder devils’. It’s making me nervous. Might be time to leap off again.
Honorable Mentions
Who knew that all you had to do to the Ultimate Iron Man armor was change the helmet and you get Master Chief?
Military Organism Designed Only for Killing. M.O.D.O.K. It just never gets old.
I still hate Mike Deodato, don’t get me wrong, but this was a cool look at Loki.
I think officially, yeah, I hate that there are now all different color rings in the DC universe but if you have to keep any of them, keep the red rings. Rage always looks good on heroes.
Max Damage is Incorruptible! Now strike a pose good guy!
I remember avidly collecting Punisher and Silver Surfer, and I have a vague memory of a few issues of Deathlok. But Moon Knight and WCA are not ringing any bells. I call for an inventory of all comics bought between the years of 1986 and 1992, to find out what my tastes really were.
Send in the TechLand intern!