Moon Knight [2021] Annual #1 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT ANNUAL No. 1, December 2022

Undeniably containing plenty of spooky shenanigans, courtesy of a script which is chock-full of Werewolves, Vampires and super-heroes, Jed MacKay’s penmanship for this annual must have pleased the vast majority of its audience upon its release in October 2022. But whilst the Canadian writer does a sterling job in setting up a seemingly no-win situation for the titular character as he faces arch-nemesis Jack Russell in a supposed battle for Diatrice Alraune’s life, some of the contrivances which need to occur for the Darkhold’s prophecy to occur and subsequently fail are a little hard to believe; “I’ve come a long way from Malibu, Marc. I realised that this curse wasn’t about me.”

For openers, Marlene’s accusation that her daughter’s abduction at the hands of the original Werewolf by Night is all Moon Knight’s fault is a bit far-fetched, considering she is the person who bought the young girl back to America from the safety of France because “I thought we would be okay.” Sure, the adolescent was kidnapped by lycanthropes in order to impel the Fist of Khonshu into a ‘final’ showdown with the Legion of Monsters member. But none of the events depicted within this thirty-page tome would ever have taken place if the woman hadn’t unwisely chosen to attend her ex-husband’s funeral and brought Diatrice with her.

Furthermore, if all the former West Coast Avenger had to do was wait until “the terrestrial alignment or whatever is over” for Russell’s plan to fail, then why didn’t he do just that once Yehya Badr informed him about the prediction’s crucial planetary orientation.? Instead, this publication’s protagonists recklessly smash a silver-laden automobile straight through the front door of Jack’s hideout, violently wade into a pack of werewolves and resultantly repeatedly risk the girl’s life before she testily admonishes them herself once the configuration is over.

Happily however, those bibliophiles able to overlook these quibbles should still find this comic to be a rather enjoyable, pulse-pounding publication, largely thanks to some prodigious pencilling by Federico Sabbatini. Indeed, the Italian illustrator’s ability to sketch Spector’s shrouded alter-ego smacking both Russell and his fur-covered cronies about is one of the highlights of this book, alongside Khonshu’s evil-looking shadow as the Egyptian deity urges Hunter’s Moon to cold-bloodedly kill Diatrice once he finds her.

Writer: Jed MacKay, Artist: Federico Sabbatini, and Color Artist: Rachelle Rosenberg