Moon Knight [2021] #1 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 1, September 2021

Long-time fans of Marc Spector's alter-ego may well have been somewhat nervous as to the quality of Jed MacKay’s narrative for “The Mission”, considering that the writer's earliest “exposure to Moon Knight… was from the 1990 Marvel trading cards”, up until he read Warren Ellis’s “classic” 2014 series. But whilst this thirty-page periodical’s plot could be unfairly critiqued for its surprisingly episodic format as the titular character efficiently deals with three separate cases consecutively rather than a single investigation, there can be little doubt that the publication’s author definitely pens an intriguing portrait of the “renegade priest of an unworthy god.”

Foremost of these fascinating hooks has to be the creation of Mister Knight’s marvellous Midnight Mission, within which the local people may petition the street-level costumed crime-fighter “for protection from the weird and horrible.” This premise genuinely seems to promise some terrific storylines, especially if this comic’s opening tale concerning viciously-fanged blood-drinkers unsuccessfully attempting to establish some sort of “vampiric self-actualisation pyramid scheme cult” on the super-hero’s streets is anything to go by; “They kidnapped us! We’re from this neighbourhood! We’re not killers! We didn’t ask for this! I was a Vegan before, for God’s sake!”

Equally as enthralling are the supporting cast members Doctor Sterman and Reese, who persistently ‘pop up’ throughout this comic’s multiple storylines. MacKay uses the female psychiatrist to great effect as a ‘prop’ to bring the reader right up to speed with Moon Knight’s origin, the ex-mercenary’s apparent immortality, the fall of his divine benefactor and Khonshu’s subsequent imprisonment by the Aesir in Asgard. Yet it is probably the decidedly prickly vampire-victim Reese who proves the more interesting, on account of her no-nonsense attitude towards her masked saviour and biological compulsion “to keep the same [night-time based] schedule you do”.

Rounding off this book’s brilliance is Alessandro Cappuccio, whose ability to pencil “the defender of those who travel at night” seriously laying a hearty smackdown upon a cadre of Vermin clones within an apartment building is debatably worth the cover price alone. Tom Brevoort admitted prior to publication that he had originally “been looking for a more established artist” than the Italian illustrator, however, such is the quality of this periodical’s layouts that the Editor must now be pleased he “took a chance and rolled the dice on him.”

The regular cover art of "MOON KNIGHT #1 by Steve McNiven & Frank D'Armata