Moon Knight #192 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 192, April 2018

If there’s one thing which Max Bemis’ narrative for Issue One Hundred And Ninety Two of “Moon Knight” undeniably delivers, it is one of the best fight-scenes the Fist of Khonshu has been involved in since Warren Ellis’ “Scarlet” storyline was published way back in September 2014. Indeed, the five-page long sense-shattering sequence is arguably worth the cover price of this comic alone, as Marc Spector’s alter-ego initially busies himself simply biting Bushman’s hand, before becoming a physical whirlwind of devastation upon a crew of “disabled” criminals and ultimately severs a couple of the bald Burundan mercenary’s fingers; “You want to play pirates? Yo $%#& ho, mateys… I’m not one of those super heroes who won’t straight-up kill you, Bushman.” 

Sadly however, this flurry of fisticuffs is arguably all the New York-born lead singer’s script had to offer its slowly declining 20,923-strong audience in February 2018, apart from some simply bizarre conversational pieces between a cuiously ‘zombified’ Jean-Paul “Frenchie” DuChamp, a strangely therapeutic Truth, and a disturbingly polite Sun King, who, with his shades and casually open white shirt, would seem more suited to life as a Travel Agents’ representative than a living vessel of “the Egyptian sun god Ra”. Of course, this comic also contains the utterly surreal suggestion that if Moon Knight hadn’t been such a “bad, bad boy” he could have become a Herald of Galactus, the basis for a ‘mutant-loving’ series of Sentinels, or the very ‘voice of reason’ which somehow scientifically convinced Reed Richards not to undertake his ill-fated starship journey. But it's extremely doubtful that many perusing bibliophiles actually managed to make any semblance of sense from these escaped psychological patient’s mental meanderings within the titular character’s metaphorical mind...

Similarly as ‘hit and miss’ as this book’s writing is its artwork by Jacen Burrows. The one-time “Avatar Press” exclusive contractee really does an incredible job for this periodical’s (infuriatingly misleading) cover illustration by depicting the “deadly vigilante” tightly bound beneath the waves and encircled by a school of hungry sharks. Yet, besides the American’s aforementioned dynamically drawn ding-dong on board Bushman’s “death-barge”, seemingly struggles to subsequently bring any real sense of life or animation to the rest of his sketch’s figures, especially those post Spector’s altercation across “a rolling mysterious seascape” and set upon “Isla Ra.”

Writer: Max Bemis, Artist: Jacen Burrows, and Inker: Guillermo Ortego