Moon Knight [2016] #6 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 6, November 2016

It is unmistakably clear from Jeff Lemire’s narrative for Issue Six of “Moon Knight” that the “confident” Canadian cartoonist was indubitably trying to pen a script which whilst full of mystery, erred “on the side of intrigue, rather than alienation.” However, although the Joe Schuster Award-winner’s storyline for “Incarnations” does decidedly draw upon “Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz’s original run”, as well as “Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey’s recent spin on things”, it is doubtful either of the aforementioned creative teams would have been so “popular” if they’d produced so utterly unfollowable a confusing mess as this twenty-page periodical.

Indeed, for many of this comic’s 41,884 followers, the suggestion that “the mummies, Anubis” and everything that has occurred within the title’s preceding five editions has only actually taken place in Marc Spector’s unhinged mind must have proved tremendously frustratingly, especially when the result, as succinctly verbalised by Crawley, is that the titular character is unnervingly “right back where you started” at the beginning of the series.

Admittedly, Lemire does try and suggest that his audience’s time over the past five months hasn’t been entirely wasted by utilising both places and persons made familiar by the former “harrowing quest designed to wear away the last of Marc’s mind”; a technique which allows the Ontario-born writer to even incorporate Mercy Mental Hospital’s sour-humoured goons Bobby and Billy as waiters. But such nods to the five-part long “Welcome To New Egypt” simply makes matters even more befuddling as both Steve Grant and reader alike struggle to work out what is real and more importantly what on Earth is happening. Has the god Khonshu really betrayed his loyal servant? Is the ‘fist’ of the Moon God still trapped within the walls of a mental institution despite previously being portrayed as having “escaped through the subways”? Or are such images merely the schizophrenic delusions of a Manhattan-based movie producer, a taxi-driver called Jake Lockley, and the pilot of a futuristic space-fighter entitled Moon Knight One?

Sadly adding to the incomprehensible insanity of such “Moon Knight madness” is the bravely bizarre decision to utilise Wilfredo Torres, Francesco Francavilla and James Stokoe as the book’s illustrators. This innovative approach to the visualisation of Jeff’s tale certainly provides each of the titular character’s personas with their own unique individual look and style. Yet such inconsistent and contrasting artwork repeatedly breaks up the flow of the story, and eventually reaches the point where it becomes disastrously detrimental to the publication’s enjoyment.

The variant cover art of "MOON KNIGHT" No. 6 by Christian Ward