Moon Knight #199 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 199, November 2018

It is reasonably clear from Max Bemis’ narrative to Issue One Hundred And Ninety Nine of “Moon Knight” that the “primary composer… of the band Say Anything” was being entirely truthful when he told the website “Newsarama” that “he didn’t have a long-term blueprint for the book” and instead “often relies on improvisation.” For whilst this twenty-page periodical contained a modicum of entertainment for its 17,344 bibliophiles in September 2018, courtesy of the titular character finally ridding himself of the increasingly annoying former member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, “Uncle Ernst”, it’s somewhat self-contained story bears absolutely no resemblance to the events which preceded it in this ongoing series’ earlier instalment.

Indeed, those within this comic’s audience anticipating a ‘no holds barred’ battle between Marc Spector’s alter-ego and the lethal-looking mass firepower of the Societe des Sadiques, as seemingly promised by the this book’s previous cliff-hanger, must have been entirely thrown by this particular publication starting with a far more sedentary sequence of Moon Knight simply supping tea with the elderly war criminal inside the Carbonatium Café, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Of course, fans of the New Yorker’s penmanship could argue that the “lead singer” was merely replicating with his readership the severe sense of helpless disorientation his tale’s central protagonist was feeling being in the devilish clutches of "the Nazi-disguised-as-Rabbi he had befriended as a youth".

But whilst so a clever writing technique is potentially plausible, the inclusion of such bizarrely unconnected additions, like a diminutive Cthulhu nonchalantly wandering through an extended street scene or the Fist Of Khonshu inexplicably suddenly facing a ferocious host of imaginary daemons, seem far more likely to be examples of Bemis simply working “through his own struggles with mental illness.” Whatever the reasoning though, these befuddling distractions certainly lessen the impact of an already arguably actionless adventure, and actually makes following Ernst’s rambling rhetoric even more of a dissatisfying challenge; “Prepare to meet yours, you Nazi geezer…”

Sadly, this sloppy story-telling also belittles some excellent visuals by Paul Davidson, whose artwork imbues even this befuddling misadventure with some prodigiously pencilled ‘belly laughs’, such as Spector desperately trying to punch the aforementioned phantom Cthulhu and taking a beating from an innocent passer-by for his troubles. Distinctly cartoony, and definitely comical in style, the professional illustrator’s drawings undoubtedly add an element of dynamism to an otherwise snooze-inducing script.

Writer: Max Bemis, Artist: Paul Davidson, and Color Artist: Matt Milla