Essential Moon Knight - Volume 3 [Paperback]

The Fist of Khonshu series of 6 is really the best work done on the Moon Knight character. I would like to see more of this type of story for MK. This is the series that made me a MK fan, and aside from the work done by Doug Meonch and Bill Sienkiewicz in the early 80's it is the best. (And that may be a tie.) Some of the other hero/morality tales where they tried to place MK as a socially relevant cleaner of the streets are less successful. I've always felt that MK was best when the focus was on the three main areas that have made him an interesting character-- 1. When MK is a reluctant servant of Khonshu, 2. When MK is "alone" even when he is surrounded by supporters, 3. When the writers do justice to the horror origins of this character, ie. when characters are introduced only to die in the same episode, and an overall sense of creepiness with brutality and insanity just on the edge of the page. When MK is treated in these ways, he is one of the most interesting characters in comics. When they try to shoehorn him in with the milieu of morality heroes, then it falls very short. Those comics take away the 5th star for me. But there are some really good stories in here, and I never thought I'd say this, but I think I like the black and white MK better than the colorized versions. Being a "second" or "third" tier magazine for Marvel, I think that the colorists working on those books in the 80's could ruin the dark feel that MK was meant to have. MK may benefit more than any other comic from being in the Essentials' b/w format.

In the third (and currently final) volume of Essential Moon Knight, we find Spector stopping his usual gang of thugs and brutes along with a dangerous mutant that's so bad, he requires help from both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four! On top of that, possession is another foe the Knight of the Moon is faced with and Dr. Strange is the only man that can help him in that regard! Finally, the death of Marc's father sends him over the edge as a crazed madman kidnaps the body for an evil ritual! After the collection of issues #31-38 of the regular series, #1-6 of the Moon Knight: Fists of Khonshu tells the tale of the Moon Knight and how Marlene can't handle Marc's crime-fighting alter-ego and leaves him and at the same time, Marc fails in trying to rid himself of the Moon Knight persona and merely falls deeper into it as he is given a new suit and weapons from ancient priests who are the guardians of the Moon god Khonshu. They summon Marc to fight off various foes like Anubis the Jackal, Dr. Arthur Harrow, the return of Morpheus, the evil Bluebeard, three deadly assassins for Saduhl Singh and the cannibalistic Mother White! In Marvel Fanfares #30,38, and 39, Moon Knight takes on Mother Earth herself along with a cursed relic drawing the youth from people and a crazed bomber! In Solo Avengers #3, Moon Knight faces the evil Shroud as a test to join the Night Shift and join along with Jack Russell; the Werewolf! In Marvel Super-Heroes Spring Special #1, Moon Knight travels to Houston to tackle the Raptor and at the same time, runs into Gena and learns that he had helped Gena, Marlene, and Crawley to get out of the "holes" in their lives and help them rise to better places in society.

We see Marc finally drop Jake and Steven Grant from his list of personas and stick with Marc Spector this time. However, he keeps Moon Knight around too and loses Marlene because of it. Marc struggles to fight a war with evil that he doesn't want to be involved in and he becomes a supernatural protector instead of the Werewolf-enhanced vigilante with multiple personalities that he once was. We see some nice guest appearances by Colossus, Nightcrawler, the Thing, Invisible Woman, and others along with the return of the awesome villain Morpheus! The new Moon Knight garb looks really cool and there was some nice closure at the end of the Super-Heroes Spring Special. Overall, this has been a wonderful black and white run of Moon Knight and the way the book is put together is very well done. Overall, I recommend it to any Moon Knight fan.

The best of the first series. The new and improved MK with kick@$$ art to booth. New weapons, new attitude, new woman?!

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