The Revolution loves Moon Knight. This is easily one of my Marvel titles. Huston is bringing back Moon Knight in all of his original goodness. The intensity of Huston’s story has made this a blast to read. I fully expect Moon Knight #5 to keep this train rolling and deliver another great story. Let’s do this review.
Creative Team
Writer: Charlie Huston
Penciler: David Finch
Inker: Danny Miki
Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: This issue starts with Taskmaster forcing Marc to watch a videotape of the Committee explaining that they have ruined Marc’s life and are now having him killed and then all of his friends killed as revenge for Marc murdering the original Committee who were the fathers of the members of this new Committee. (This scene has some great dialogue by Taskmaster.)
Taskmaster then goes to kill Marc when Marlene regains consciousness and shoots several bullets at Taskmaster. Marc them stabs Tasky in the foot. Then, Marc’s butler, Samuels, enters and blasts Taskmaster with a shotgun. Taskmaster makes a quick retreat. Marlene tells Samuels it isn’t safe here and they grab Nedda (the cook?) and leave for Marc’s old Manor Estate.
They arrive at Marc’s Mansion and drive to back entrance. The car is then lowered into the Moon cave or whatever Moon Knight calls his version of the Bat cave. Marlene takes Marc over to the medical bay and dresses his wounds. Marc then gets dressed in one of his Moon Knight suits. Marlene tells Moon Knight that the Committee said they were going to kill all of them. Marlene then asks Moon Knight what he is going to do about that? Moon Knight responds “Vengeance.” Moon Knight, still weak and broken down, collapses. Marlene helps him up and places him in his Moon Jet. Moon Knight hears Khonshu’s voice tell him “Don’t give them another chance.”
The Moon Jet takes off. We cut to Taskmaster at the Committee’s office building. Tasky yells at them because they told him the target was friendless, alone, out of fight and ready to die. The Profiler was wrong on all counts. We see the Moon Jet fly toward the Committee’s office building. Khonshu tells Moon Knight to “Announce me.” Tasky sees the incoming Moon Jet and dives for cover. The Moon Jet smashes through the window of the building plowing over the committee members sitting at the table next to the window.
Taskmaster jumps on top of the cockpit window of the Moon Jet. Moon Knight hits the eject cockpit cover button and the cockpit window blasts up smashing Tasky into the ceiling. Moon Knight exits the Moon Jet and says “Vengeance.” (Hey, does Ghost Rider know that Moon Knight is stealing his tag line?) End of issue.
Comments
The Good: Huston continues to blow me away with his unbelievable work on Moon Knight. Moon Knight #5 is even better than the first four issues. And I thought the first four issues were incredible. Huston’s story builds to a crescendo with this issue as we finally see Marc don the Moon Knight costume and proceed to dish out some much needed vengeance.
Huston is writing the best Moon Knight I have ever read. I have followed Moon Knight since his first issue written by Doug Moenich. I loved Moenich’s Moon Knight and up until now it was my favorite. However, Huston’s Moon Knight is quickly threatening to supplant Moenich’s Moon Knight as my all time favorite. Huston is making Moon Knight one of Marvel’s top reads.
Huston achieves what writers like Way wish they could. Yes, Moon Knight is extremely dark, brooding and violent. However, it is a success where other writers tend to go too far and fail. The secret to the success is that Huston doesn’t just provide a dark and ultra-violent story. Huston also delivers many beautiful subtle scenes that give the story wonderful depth and texture. Huston’s obvious talent is being able to deliver a dark and violent story with some restrain in order to keep it from becoming a parody of itself. As evidenced by the failure of other writers to do this, it is obviously no easy feat to pull off what Huston has done on Moon Knight.
Huston’s story is incredibly emotional and raw. The character’s emotions jump off the page and pull the reader into the story. The characters are nicely fleshed out and have nice complexities to their personalities that make them appealing to the reader. The sheer intensity of the emotions has a massive impact on the reader. Moon Knight #5 was a powerful read that grabbed me by the collar and didn’t let go until I was done reading the issue.
Moon Knight #5 had a wonderful pace. Huston masterfully blended plenty of action with slower paced dramatic scenes. Once again, Huston demonstrates that a comic book does not need to be crammed with massive amounts of dialogue and narration in order to effectively tell the story. Huston uses an economy of words and prefers to let the images speak for themselves. This gives the story a much more dramatic impact on the reader. The dialogue is well done and this issue has an excellent flow to it.
Huston has done a fantastic job fleshing out Marc Spector’s character. Huston has shown the reader that Marc may be heroic, but he certainly isn’t a “nice” guy. The reader also understands that Marc is probably insane. Clinically mentally ill and probably suffering from delusions and multiple personalities. I love how Huston has developed Marc’s newly found drive and determination to become a hero once more. In issues 1-4 we have seen a mentally and physically broken Marc Spector. In this issue, we finally see a flash of the old Marc Spector. He has pulled him out of his pit of self-pity and is ready to be Moon Knight once again.
My favorite scene was in Moon Knight’s cave. Marlene patches up Marc’s wounds. We then see silent, gritty and determined Marc walk past his arsenal of weapons and don his Moon Knight Costume. Marlene tells Moon Knight that the Committee said they were going to kill all of them. Marlene says “then asks Moon Knight what he is going to do about that? Moon Knight responds “Vengeance.” That was my favorite bit of dialogue from this issue. It was incredibly powerful. Marlene plays the role of the strong woman who stands by her man and reminds him of exactly what he has to do. Moon Knight, still weak and broken down, collapses. Marlene helps him up and places him in his Moon Jet. Again, this was very powerful.
This scene highlights the relationship between Marlene and Marc. That despite everything, she still loves him and believes that Marc owes this to her and his other close friends like Frenchy. Marlene physically carrying Moon Knight to the jet and placing him in it was like a young maiden helping a wounded knight get back on his horse to do battle with invaders threatening their home and country. No matter how tough the fight is going to be or how hurt Moon Knight is, he simply has to go on this mission of vengeance and emerge triumphant. Moon Knight hearing Khonshu’s voice tell him “Don’t give them another chance.” was the perfect touch to end this scene. It re-enforces Moon Knight steely determination to end this fight once and for all.
And the scene with Moon Knight flying his jet into the Committee’s office was classic. It re-enforced Moon Knight’s maniacal bad-assed attitude. He will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
I loved seeing Marc’s old mansion and the Moon Knight cave with all of his various gadgets and vehicles. I also liked how Huston had Marc rely on the help from his friends like Marlene and Samuels in order to defeat the Taskmaster. And speaking of the Taskmaster, Huston’s version of the Taskmaster was delightfully entertaining. Taskmaster gets the benefit of the funniest dialogue and he had me chuckling the entire way through this issue.
Finch’s art was fantastic and is the perfect match for this title. Finch’s art has plenty of emotion and compliments and boosts Huston’s story. Finch is capable of using just his artwork to convey Huston’s story during the scenes with no dialogue. Finch deserves a lot of credit for making Moon Knight such a powerful read. Finch’s two page splash shot of Moon Knight’s cave was jaw dropping. Incredible.
The Bad: No complaints at all.
Overall: Moon Knight #5 was an awesome read. Huston just keeps getting better and better. Huston’s strong writing is perfectly complimented by Finch’s art. Moon Knight is certainly one of Marvel’s best titles. I hope Marvel locks up Huston to a long term contract to write this title. I fear that without Huston, this title becomes a much weaker read. Definitely check out Moon Knight. If you like dark, brooding and violent then it doesn’t get any better than this.