Comic Review: Moon Knight by Bendis and Maleev – Ultimate Collection

Published: March 7th, 2018
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Art by: Alex Maleev

Marvel Comics, 264 Pages

Review:

After reading through the lengthy Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev run on Daredevil, I figured I’d give their run on Moon Knight a shot.

Reason being, I mostly liked Bendis’ Daredevil stuff other than how he didn’t know how to bring it to a close and his cringe romance shit. I also liked Maleev’s art, for the most part. Plus, I like the hell out of the Moon Knight character and wish I had read more of is stories over the years. I’m trying to rectify that now, as I’m older and have access to so much more.

This story is twelve issues long and it uses that space really well and wraps up much better than Bendis’ Daredevil run. I think that he went into this knowing where it needed to end and that since he had limited space to tell a story, he gave us something well structured that got to the point and gave us a satisfying conclusion.

In this story, we see Moon Knight dealing with his “hearing voices” problem in a fresh way. While he is recruited for a mission by Captain America, Wolverine and Spider-Man, he also starts seeing versions of them in his mind. Additionally, with such a close connection to them, he starts to use their gimmicks in his battles with L.A.’s criminal underworld.

That underworld is ruled by its own kingpin, similar to The Kingpin in New York City. However, this person’s identity is a mystery and Moon Knight is tasked with luring them out and discovering why exactly they wanted to buy a deactivated Ultron head.

Moon Knight also meets Echo, the two have a reluctant partnership but end up falling in love during their mission.

This becomes more and more high stakes as it rolls on. Out of the twelve issues, none of them are wasted on filler bullshit and the romance stuff is in there but it’s nowhere near as exhausting as what we got in Bendis’ Daredevil. It’s like Bendis improved in that regard and wrote something more natural and to the point. Nothing between Moon Knight and Echo seemed forced like it did between Daredevil and his wife Milla.

I also feel like Alex Maleev’s art was an improvement. It’s cleaner while also looking more detailed. It also fit the tone of the story pretty damn well.

I don’t want to say too much about the story, as there are some big reveals and twists but this is definitely worth reading if you want a superhero, neo-noir tale that isn’t Daredevil-centric.

Rating: 9/10

Comic Review: Moon Knight – Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Shadows of the Moon

Published: October 21st, 2015
Written by: Doug Moench, Jack Harris, Alan Zelenetz
Art by: Bill Sienkiewicz, Denys Cowan, Greg Larocque

Marvel Comics, 505 Pages

Review:

Man, I didn’t know if the coolness of the first Moon Knight – Epic Collection could be topped but it was topped with this immediate followup that picks things up where that volume left off.

This installment all takes place within the original Moon Knight comic title, so it is much more fluid and less chaotic feeling than the previous book, which jumped around from multiple comic book titles, covering the earliest Moon Knight stories before he had his own series.

The vast majority of this is written by Doug Moench with the art handled by Bill Sienkiewicz. They were really the dream team for early Moon Knight and frankly, this is still my favorite era for the character in regards to story, tone and the incredible art by Sienkiewicz.

In fact, over these fifteen or twenty issues, you really see Sienkiewicz’s art evolve. He has the same sort of style but it develops more character and its own uniqueness that is very much Sienkiewicz.

Moon Knight was one hell of a dark comic for the time, being born out of the heyday of Marvel’s horror era of the ’70s and moving it forward into the ’80s.

My only real complaint about Moon Knight, as a character, is that his regular life was too complex in the earliest stories. Apart from the Moon Knight persona, he had three other identities. It’s kind of tedious and I think it created more problems than it needed to with narrative flow.

Regardless of that, this series, especially in this era, comes alive when our hero is in full Moon Knight garb, fighting some sort of monster or occult themed villain. And since this has a lot of that, it’s pretty f’n awesome.

Rating: 8/10
Pairs well with: the other Moon Knight – Epic Collection volumes, as well as other late ’70s/early ’80s Marvel comics focused on street level crime, magic or horror.