Saturday Splash Page #242

"Dark of the Moon," in Vengeance of the Moon Knight (vol. 2) #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

The first volume of Vengeance of the Moon Knight - which I usually forget exists - came out in 2009, after volume 3 of Moon Knight. Which I bought for 11 issues, but retain only 1, which has no splash pages, and therefore did not get a Sunday Splash Page entry. This volume follows on from Jed MacKay's volume of Moon Knight, which I tagged as volume 8, and concluded with Marc Spector getting blown to bits.

With Khonshu imprisoned in Asgard, there's no bringing Marc back. So the rest of the cast - Reese, Soldier, Hunter's Moon, Tigra and 8-Ball - are trying to carry on the work of the Midnight Mission in his stead. Well, Tigra is really more intent on hunting down Black Spectre for killing Marc - though I'm pretty sure Zodiac took care of him - but in theory, they continue to protect those who travel at night and whatnot. Except, who's this guy in the palette-swapped outfit calling himself Moon Knight and beating the crap out of criminals?

The new guy's identity is the mystery of the first few issues. Once he demonstrated his powers in issue 2, I had him figured. I was even right about it, which was nice.

MacKay returns to the approach of inserting flashbacks of events between excerpts of conversations with Marc's psychiatrist, Dr. Sterman. Except it's a different character each issue. Reese in issue 1, Tigra in issue 2, Hunter's Moon in issue 4, and so on. A way to explore not only how each of them is handling Marc's death - Tigra, poorly, the others varying degrees of better - but what he meant to them.

(In the first issue, we see in flashback that, since Marc was Jewish and none of them knew what to do, Reese contacted Ben Grimm for help with the rites. Because Ben, as Mr. Knight mentioned at one point in MacKay's first volume, always sent Marc a card at Hanukkah. So Reese is trying to honor what she can of Marc's heritage. That was a nice little scene that I enjoyed.)

Then the book gets, should I say hijacked? Diverted maybe, into Blood Hunt tie-ins. Which, for those who can't keep track of Marvel's baker's dozen of events a year, was the one where someone hijacked all the Darkforce users' powers to blot out the sun worldwide, and vampires ran amok. Something to that effect. Vampires prey on night travelers, Fists of Khonshu are supposed to protect night travelers, one fist (Hunter's Moon) is apparently not enough, and so, they need Marc back. Which means freeing Khonshu. From Asgard jail. Well, shit, Loki escapes from there all the time. How hard can it be?

Alessandro Cappuccio draws the first 5 issues, and 7 in total. His work, with Rosenberg's colors, is much the same as it was in Moon Knight. Thin, sharp lines. Minimalist on the backgrounds, unless it was a particular setting like Sterman's office. New York City feels like a very sterile, empty place in Cappuccio's world. Rosenberg sticks to solid blocks of color for the surroundings, and leaves the shading for the characters. The world doesn't have much give in it, and the characters deal with that by closed themselves off in certain ways. Focused, in denial, deflecting with humor, diving into anger.

Devmalya Pramanik draws the other two issues, and is trying to find his footing with the characters. The designs are little rougher, proportions wonky at times, though some of that is Pramanik gets more creative with the perspectives and page layouts. But the characters are more detailed, a wider range of expressions that run towards exaggeration but don't go over the line, or at least not far over the line.

End result - and how they bust Khonshu out is clever, in the sense it makes me grin - Marc's alive again, vampires are defeated, and then he has to deal with the imposter. I guess because they're using his title and not Hunter's Moon's. That's where the volume ends, at 9 issues, and the next, which we might reach by year's end, begins. 

Random Back Issues #160 - Vengeance of the Moon Knight #2

New champion for most recently published Random Back Issue! Also, he's right. The Midnight Mission is not rent-controlled, and the landlord's taking overtures from gentrifiers.

Marc Spector's dead. Again. But with Khonshu locked up in Asgard jail, there's no resurrections. So make that, Marc's Spector's dead. For good. Or 5 months, whichever. So who's the new guy who showed up beating the crap out of former loser villain/current ally 8-Ball?

In this first arc, MacKay would have a different member of the cast talking with Marc's therapist Dr. Sterman in each issue, interspersed with whatever was going on. It's Tigra's turn. She was first to attack "Moon Knight," and got a face full of pepper powder to block her sense of smell, but she's already sure it's not Marc Spector in that suit. Why? We'll get to that.

As the new Moon Knight envelops her in the darkness of the new moon and sucker punches her, and takes down Hunter's Moon with some sickle-bladed axe things, Tigra tells the doc about her past loves. The first, a cop named Bill Nelson. He liked tradition, woman's place at home and all that jazz, and Greer loved him so she went along with it.

He died, she got angry, became a costumed hero called The Cat, and then a were-woman, which she describes as becoming who she wanted to be. I would say this overlooks all the stuff Englehart did about her struggling with her cat half, but all that is best stuffed in the garbage anyway.

Next up, Hank Pym. She describes him as smarter than any man she ever knew, because unlike Richards or Stark, Pym doubted himself. With good reason! But when it was the two of them, Tigra felt like they were moving forward. She could be with Hank and be herself, rather than someone he wanted her to be.

He died. Which brings us to Marc Spector, who Tigra thinks needed her in a different way from Bill or Pym. Marc needed someone who was kind of wild inside, like him. Used to things falling apart and having to put it back together. Marc's a lot more self-destructive than Tigra ever was, but maybe she's done a much better job dealing with the incredible amounts of shit writers heaped on her over the decades.

In the fight, Reese tells "Moon Knight" that if he wants the Midnight Mission, then go on in. Because the Mission belonged to Moon Knight. The Mission does not like the new guy, I think preparing to eat him before the new guy manages to escape.

But the Mission's reaction isn't what tipped Tigra off. No, she says she knew this new guy wasn't Marc because she loved Marc, and that means he wouldn't come back. Nobody she loves comes back. It's a good thing she admitted to Sterman at the start that she was not, in fact, fine, because that is a concerning view to have.

(I'm pretty sure Pym had been revealed to be alive in Al Ewing's Avengers Inc. mini-series by this point, and Marc knew it. But he didn't get around to telling Tigra before getting blown up, so she doesn't know it.)

{12th longbox, 100th comic. Vengeance of the Moon Knight #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #365

"Mr. Knight's Neighborhood," in Moon Knight (vol. 8) #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Marvel apparently dispensed with volumes numbers in between this series and the Max Bemis-written one 4 years earlier. Maybe when they started back in with the "Legacy" numbering (this would be issue 201 by that count, fyi.) Whatever. My blog, my ordering rules.

I don't know what all went on in Bemis' run, nor the Jeff Lemire run that preceded it, but at this time, Moon Knight had (I believe in Jason Aaron's Avengers) just finished first helping Khonshu take over the world, then turned against him, leading to his god being locked up in Asgard. So Moon Knight's not on great terms with his patron deity or the other super-heroes (although they keep letting Stark hang out with them again, and Moon Knight didn't even make any cyborg murder-clones), but he's still doing the work of a Fist of Khonshu as he sees it. Protecting those who travel by night, although primary artist Alessandro Cappuccio, and Federico Sabbatini who takes over in the back half of the run, rarely draw anyone on the streets. I guess Moon Knight made sure all of them got where they were going safely already.

The art generally runs to thin lines and stark contrasts. Rachelle Rosenberg, who handles color duties for all 30 issues, uses solid blocks of color and sharp divisions between light and dark to help the linework stand out. More so when Moon Knight is in costume, versus when Mr. Knight is in his office, talking with someone. Cappuccio draws characters with faces that are sharp and precisely defined, not many spare lines in them or their surroundings. Sabbatini's approach is softer, more give in the linework, faces gain a roundness absent with Cappuccio.

With Moon Knight on the outs with most heroes, MacKay fills the supporting cast with new characters. Reese, a young woman turned into a vampire against her will in what is apparently some dipstick's notion of a vampire siring pyramid scheme. Soldier, a former HYDRA recruit trying to turn his life around. Dr. Badr, who turns out to be a fellow acolyte of Khonshu, none too pleased with how Marc's handling things. One character trying to make the best of a bad situation, another trying to atone for bad decisions in their earlier days, and Badr, who is positioned as a more typical Fist of Khonshu, to contrast what an odd specimen Marc Spector is.

As far as pre-existing characters, Tigra shows up a few issues in and eventually becomes a love interest, though MacKay does little with that. I think Marc's therapist, Dr. Sterman, is a previously established character, based on comments about being part of V-Battalion at one point. She serves as someone for Marc to have conversations with, which are usually broken up by whatever Moon Knight is getting up to at that moment. Eventually 4th-tier villain 8-Ball gets added to the cast, as someone Marc can easily intimidate into helping them out from time to time.

The first year of the series, Moon Knight's under attack from Zodiac, in one of those, "make you better" plots villains sometimes use. Except Zodiac thinks Moon Knight is denying himself by playing priest and superhero, when he ought to just embrace being a killing machine. Moon Knight doesn't really triumph in the sense of rejecting Zodiac's ploy, and he does get fairly sadistic with some of the guys that Zodiac throws at him. But he doesn't kill the guy, so I guess that's something. Although I found Zodiac's constant harping about how much of a real villain he was tedious. If you have to tell people you are, then you aren't.

There's a six-issue story about tearing down the vampire with the pyramid scheme, notable mostly because MacKay finally uses Jake Lockley and Steven Grant a little bit. He also seems to ignore Ellis' idea that Jake and Steven are an attempt by Marc's brain to handle whatever Khonshu did in the process of resurrecting him. The two conditions are treated as separate things, one more straightforward than the other. Then it's into the final arc, a year-long saga with a new Black Spectre moving behind the scenes. Though the character strikes at Moon Knight's former allies early on, his plan isn't so narrowly focused.

Despite feeling that he's caught on his own, Moon Knight is consistently shown to have gathered a little group around him, and to be willing to draw on them. Most of the arcs force him to call on resources he'd rather not. Against Zodiac, he needs Khonshu's assistance. Against The Tutor's forces, he not only has to make a deal for information with a different powerful vampire (vampires apparently being blasphemous to Khonshu, as they who prey on travelers of the night), he has to let Jake and Steven have their say.

In the Black Spectre arc, his entire supporting cast all help, but it comes down to Moon Knight needing the assistance of someone who can no longer reach him, and he has to go the last steps alone.

What I Bought 11/20/2024

I caught a bit of Spider-Man: No Way Home while I was in a hotel last week. Pretty much just the part once all three Spider-Men were in the same place. I found their conversations endearingly silly. The comparing of villains ("let's go back to the part where you were in space") and the stuff about Maguire-Spidey's organic webs. I'm sure the movie as a whole is a big mess, but that part, at least, I enjoyed.

Avengers Assemble #3, by Steve Orlando (writer), Marcelo Ferreira (penciler), Roberto Poggi (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I think the Night Stalkers ought to have checked with the Army on what happens when you shoot at a Hulk.

Four Avengers travel to a town where a bunch of vampires live and are under attack by a new team of Nightstalkers. The quartet - She-Hulk, Wonder Man, Living Lightning and Lightspeed - scuffle a bit, but ultimately protect the town. The main thing I took from that, besides remembering someone made Wonder Man a pacifist at some point (and it apparently still holds, for a particular value), is there's no sense of teamwork between this group. Last issue, you could tell Captain America, Hercules and Hawkeye had a track record of working together. This group, everyone just kind of splits up and flails about, fighting individual battles.

Meanwhile, Shang-Chi's figured out someone's been using the crises the team has faced as cover for heists and encounters this Tiger Snake. Who is a good enough fighter to sucker Shang-Chi into getting poisoned, though Shang escapes to alert Captain America. But the Serpent Society's got another new member, a very big one. OK, so? This Avengers squad has Hercules and She-Hulk. They beat up big dudes all the time. This is why the Serpent Society is a bunch of second-raters. "Our secret weapon is a guy on Pym Particles, but we named him after an extinct giant snake!" *extremely sarcastic golf clap*

I guess it's going to be a different artist every issue, then. Ferreira's art is a bit looser than Eaton or Smith's. Maybe a good touch to have when Bloodscream is sporting a mouth that could swallow a watermelon and huge teeth, but some of faces that don't belong to weird vampire-like people look kind of strange. He also likes overlapping panels, and squeezing together a lot of panels that are unevenly shaped. A tilted horizontal rhombus, on top of two narrower panels, all crammed into a quarter of the page. I don't know what effect it's supposed to have when I read it, beyond the sense maybe the page space isn't being allocated well.

Also, why the heck do characters keep saying it as "AVENG.E.R.S." I know, it's an acronym now, in that stupid, Vril Dox, "R.E.B.E.L.S. has another acronym inside it," way, but you can't pronounce the periods. It's just "Avengers." That's what it sounds like they're saying, they are Avengers, so just write it like that.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I'm confident 8-Ball is not going to stick the landing.

Moon Knight asks Iron Man to look at this new drug, but Stark don't know shit about chemistry, so that's a bust. I was thinking this was a job for Hank Pym, and sure enough, that's who Stark mentions. Too bad he's dead. Or not, since that Avengers Inc. mini-series Al Ewing did established Hank's still alive, I guess. Something Marc knew even before his most recent death, but thus far neglected to mention to Tigra.

Well, I'm sure that's going to be a calm and reasonable conversation. Especially as the cops have decided to barge into the Midnight Mission, I presume being on this Fairchild guy's payroll, or under his thumb, or whatever.

Oh, and Moon Knight tried to hit one of Fairchild's shipments, but got punked by some old foe of his with perception-warping pheromones. Cubist has a nifty design, though it seems like one a lot of artists would get tired of drawing quickly. Rosenberg and Cappuccio have the background tilt to match whatever direction the action is going in a particular panel, so that the characters seem like they're always hemmed in by it. Nice touch.

What I bought 10/17/2024

Can't go a day without somebody wanting me to drive halfway across the state to help them with something. People have apparently decided I'm someone at my job who can be counted on to help solve their problems. It wasn't intentional, I swear.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight: he'll hit you with sticks. Daredevil's gonna sue for trademark infringement.

Moon Knight (or Mr. Knight) is on the streets, trying to shut off the flow of a new drug, which may in fact be fairy dust. The path leads to some former boxer turned Mista Big named Achilles Fairchild, who also has a chief enforcer named Carver. Carver doesn't talk, just carries a big magic sword, but Achilles talks enough for both of them. The conversation doesn't produce results, but it's probably more of a pissing contest, I mean, marking territory, I mean, a friendly warning.

Cappuccio keeps Fairchild sitting for the first half of the conversation, which means it was a surprise when he stands up and he's got several inches on Moon Knight. He didn't look that big, but it plays well as the moment when shifts from cordial businessman to hard-nosed drug pusher.

MacKay intersperses bits of a conversation between old Moon Knight supporting cast member (former) Lt. Flint, and a new cop, a Detective Frazier. Frazier is the cop who Doesn't Want to Play Nice with Vigilantes, and is openly scornful of Moon Knight's crew, who will therefore have to learn the error of their ways. Or die, I'm good with dying. Especially since Frazier is, gasp, working for Fairchild! Because she's hooked on the drug. I don't know, a bent cop is a pretty farfetched notion to expect me to swallow in this comic about a guy who dresses all in white and beats to shit out of people for his Skeleton Bird God.

I'm not sure if it's Rosenberg or Cappuccio, but the characters are less sharply defined than they were in the previous book. The colors tend to smudge and blur a bit, softens them a little. Or makes them dirtier, I suppose. Although maybe MacKay's going to have Moon Knight ease up a bit after his most recent death. Try a little compassion. You know, not hit people where it causes permanent disfiguring. Only temporary disfiguring.

Avengers Assemble #2, by Steve Orlando (writer), Scot Eaton (penciler), Elisabetta D'Amico (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I know Red Ghost can turn intangible, but his positioning on that cover is awkward. It looks like he's punching Night Thrasher, or waiting for Thrasher to run into the back of his knuckles.

A Massachusetts town is being haunted by ape ghosts. Lots of ape ghosts. Is it Silver Age DC month at Marvel and no one told me? So it's Captain America, Hercules, Hawkeye and Night Thrasher to investigate. Herc's the only one able to actually hit ghosts, so it's just as well the apes don't seem to be trying to hurt people. The heroes eventually figure out the apes are smart enough to speak, and that they were the Red Ghost's early test subjects. No powers, save enough intelligence to speak and plead for their lives. Pleas that were ignored.

The Avengers locate Red Ghost's house, let the apes torment him until they're satisfied and then Herc uses his mace's ability to absorb energy(?) to draw in the radiation holding the ghosts in the realm of the living. Another crisis averted, although the Serpent Society stole some bone fragments soaked in magic moonshine, so that's. . .concerning. I guess? I'd say the vocal dissent of members of the Society is going to short-circuit that plot before too long.

Anyway, credit to Orlando for an interesting problem for the team to confront. The ghosts of unethical animal experimentation. I didn't quite understand why, if Hercules can apparently understand the ghosts courtesy of the "All-Speak", why he let Hawkeye keep trying to read their lips. Did Hercules just not think of trying to understand their spectral cries? But that wouldn't explain why he's still letting Hawkeye have first crack even after that. I guess he just thinks it's a good challenge for Clint.

Oback keeps the colors murky while the team is dealing with the apes, then brightens things up considerably once they find the Red Ghost. Maybe because, once the team has a sense of the cause, things aren't so dire. Eaton's ghost apes are suitably anguished and angry looking.

What I Bought 5/1/2024

My movie rewatch marathon reached the letter M last week. Some weeks I end up with a lot of movies in a series - I had the first 3 John Wicks followed by Jurassic Park 1-3 a couple weeks ago - but this has been a better week for variety. Mad Max: Fury Road, Magnificent Warriors, Magnum Force, Major League, The Maltese Falcon, Man of Tai Chi and The Mask. A bit of silly to break up the cynical. Visual spectacle intermixed with snappy dialogue. It's been fun.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Tigra's tail looks really skinny where it's wrapped around Shroud's axe handle.

Tigra and Hunter's Moon continue their fight with Shroud, taking it to the streets when he throws them out with his Darkforce abilities. Cappuccio and Rosenberg go for some impressive visuals with Shroud's powers, making massive bat wings out of Darkforce, or what looks vaguely like a giant bird silhouette (which makes me wonder if Khonshu's not entirely displeased with having another, unofficial, fist.)

Shroud tries to justify his actions by saying that he can't put his life back together as the Shroud, but he can do it as Moon Knight, and honor his friend in the process. Yeah, Greer and Badr ain't buying that. this feels a little like Shroud doing Speedball-as-Penance, adopting another identity to escape past failure. Not a comparison I want to make (or am pleased to remember existed), but when has my brain ever cared about what I'd prefer to forget?

At the same time, it's 8-Ball's turn with Dr. Sterman. For him, Moon Knight was a figure he once admired in the way you do someone who terrifies you. But he figured out Marc had completely fucked his life up in the process of becoming that guy, which was not something to emulate. That Marc was trying to put a life back together anyway, after all that, was something to emulate. The difference being, 8-Ball is still trying to make something of himself with his own identity, rather than by stealing someone else's.

Tigra makes much the same point to Shroud, and the fight goes out of him. It's a little odd MacKay has her spit in Shroud's face in one panel, but two pages later, she's giving him a hug as he collapses. Hey, I'm fine with her wanting to help him - it certainly didn't seem like anyone was all that interested in that when Waid used him in his Daredevil run - it's just an awfully quick turning off for the hostility faucet.

Anyway, before proper help can be provided, Shroud's powers start acting up as Darkforce energy erupts out of him - and apparently people with similar powers across the world - which is how the sun gets blocked and all the vampires come out to play. At least MacKay gave me some sort of conclusion before the Blood Hunt stuff barged in like Kramer.

What I Bought 4/3/2024 - Part 1

My weather luck when I need to go into the field isn't terrible, but when it's bad, it decides to be bad in unique ways. Snow in April, 50 mph winds in December, what's supposed to be 1 hour of rain turns into 5 hours of intense thunderstorms.

Doctor Strange #14, by Jed MacKay (writer), Pasqual Ferry (artist), Heather Moore (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Oh, don't give the Black Cat boob armor, Ross. She can't hide any tools in that!

Mordo's got the enchanted, living game book, so he's in charge. Strange draws the dragon away, seeing it as more than just something Mordo's using to destroy them. Which leaves the rest of his Secret Defenders to contend with Mordo. Hunter's Moon and Taskmaster are swept up in a scenario where they're leaders of opposing factions, who will ultimately fight to the death. It seems like a game with limited room for creativity, or maybe it just plays into their respective approaches.

Ferry lays out all the pages in curiously shaped panels that feel like they're meant to be symbols, but I have no idea of what. Circle atop three tall, narrow panels. Circle spilling off the left side of the page, on top of a wide panel with a little hill in the middle, on top of another circle spilling off the right side of the page.

But while Mordo's enjoying the show, he forgot about the thief. Felicia may not be into tabletop gaming, but she understands swiping the special book. So she does. Ferry drops the odd panel layouts, so I guess they were meant to reflect being in a game scenario, but it almost feels like the panels should be more rigid, because the game has set rules and only so many locales and creatures. 

Strange returns, having reached an accord with the book's intelligence. Mordo get punched out by Clea, Strange offers the book to I think an evil doppleganger of himself that is living in his house, and Mordo gets chucked in a crypt with the ghost dog and the snakes.

I am unclear if the dog and snakes wandered in by mistake and are now stuck - as Strange doesn't seem to know where they are - or if someone else (Clea, the general) chucked them in as part of a move against Strange, or if they have their own plans to harm Mordo. And then the last page is the start of the vampire event thing I'm going to try very hard to avoid the next few months.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - At least Hunter's Moon is a doctor. He surely knows a treatment for crescent-axe-in the pectoral.

It's Dr. Badr's turn on the sofa. He doesn't seem as bothered by Marc's death, as he is by the imposter. Well, that and the fact that with Khonshu sealed up, there won't be anymore Fists of Khonshu after the next time Badr dies. None except the imposter, and that's not OK with him. I think Cappuccio draws Badr as more physically expressive in his civilian duds than his costume.

I don't mean facial expression, since we can't see that under the mask, but his hands are more active in the conversation with the doctor. In costume, his arms are either at his sides, or in front of him, like he's guarding his heart. In civilian garb, he gestures a lot more. When describing how this fake Moon Knight fights, he moves his arms more than he does while actually fighting. Fidgets with his glasses, tents his fingers, puts his hand to his head. Maybe he's more relaxed around Sterman, or more controlled when on the job.

When not with Dr. Sterman, the rest of the issue is Tigra and Badr hitting the new guy where he lives. Which is where Marc died. Great strategy to keep anyone from looking for you, but not great in that it pisses off a tiger-woman once she's found you. And Badr has figured out some of the imposter's identity as a result of those past Khonshu Fist memories.

I like that, if MacKay's going to go the "long and storied" tradition route with Moon Knights, he picked something to differentiate it from other of the other, similar lineages. Iron Fists may have a book about them, but that's not the same as being able to relive their experiences.

Anyway, they unmask the guy, and hey, I was right, it's the Shroud. Sweet, I'm now 8-for-873 on predictions on this blog! Go me!

What I Bought 3/20/2024 - Part 2

So much time on the road last week. 300+ miles of driving on Tuesday, but it was a productive day. 400+ miles on Thursday, and it was a shitshow, as expected. 500 miles on Saturday, which was family-related, so it was, fine.

Fantastic Four #18, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I really wanted to see Ben Grimm clobber a meteor with a telephone pole.

Couple of reveals in this issue. First, once a year, Franklin Richards unlocks those crazy powers of his to look at what might be coming in the year ahead. This year, it was a swarm of invisible meteors, which he foresees his family not being able to stop. If you ever wanted to see Reed Richards pierced by dozens of meteors, this is your comic. 

Franklin uses his powers to nudge the meteors on a different course (that will not aim them at anyone else, which is a nice touch.) Then his powers shut down and he goes to sleep, not remembering any of it (until next year.)

Two, Nicolas Scratch and his terrible costume are watching the FF, so he sees Franklin's little show and reverses. Death by invisible meteors is go! Things start the same, but Alicia comes up with the idea of using the light Johnny generates with his fire, manipulated by Sue's powers, to create a laser which Reed and Ben guide visually. Death by meteors averted! Booooooo.

On the other hand, Jo-Nah asks if Johnny and Sue are going to visit to Cyclops and gloat about their cool laser eye power, and I think they should absolutely do that. Rub Cyclops' nose in the futility of his existence!

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - It'd be funny if he got the crescent blades tangled and whacked himself in the back of the head by accident.

It's Soldier's turn with the doctor, and he feels guilty. What a shock. He thinks he should have died instead of Marc, because that was his job, to die for his boss. Since it's a little late for that, he's taking his own approach to trying to stop the Shroud, I mean, this new Moon Knight. Which involves calling in a debt from the Chinatown vamps Marc helped out in the last year of his previous book.

I have a hunch Soldier's actually setting them up, too, since he had 8-Ball get him into the Bar with No Name to meet with someone Cappuccio keeps obscured. Could be wrong. Maybe he was setting up the 4 super-villains attacking the Midnight Mission because they think Moon Knight's there, to try and impress the seriousness of the situation, but that seems a little much. Soldier describes them as a "gang", and I can't see a gang encouraging someone coming onto their turf and unloading machine guns and flamethrowers. But I've not been in a gang, so what do I know?

Soldier also seems like he might be embracing his vampiric side. Reese knows the mist trick and whatnot, but she doesn't show her fangs as much as Soldier, who takes full advantage of the resilience and healing. He runs right into the gunfire, doesn't care if pieces of himself get blown off. Guess we'll see how far that attitude goes if he gets a crack at the new guy.

What I Bought 2/14/2023 - Part 2

With the announcement of a possibly forthcoming Fantastic Four movie - third (fourth?) times the charm! - I was thinking about who would make a good Dr. Doom. Who has the bombast, the dramatic demeanor. Then I read some concerns about Pedro Pascal as Reed, because the person just sees Pascal as himself now, rather than whatever role he's playing. They mentioned Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and my brain said, "Nic Muthafuckin' Cage as Doom."

Then I woke up on the floor with blood pouring from my eyes and ears. Anyway, comics!

Fantastic Four #17, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - So it wasn't aliens that seeded Earth with life, but the Accursed Richards? Figures.

Sue's helping with an archaeological dig in Arizona (because North established or reiterated that's what she has a doctorate in) which has found peculiar skeleton. 20,000 years old, but with European skeletal features. Oh, and there are scraps on clothing made of unstable molecules on the body. Using invisibility to compare the remains to the FF's - Gomez's stretchy Reed skeleton is highly disturbing, but only present on a splash page, so I can't show it here - leads to the conclusion the body is Sue, somehow.

So then we get the somehow. Reed brought Sue back to a point when the earliest arrivals were passing by that point, as an anniversary gift. Sure, he's off by probably at least 100,000, if not 200,000 years, if The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is on the money, but it's the thought that counts. Anyway, Rama-Tut shows up to kill them, right after he promised to do so in 1963's FF #19. And he's going to cheat like crazy, as every time they thwart him, he jumps back to before that, until they're overrun with Rama-Tuts.

Reed and Sue retreat to their time (4 years after Sue finds the body) to concoct a plan. Which involves building a gun that does science stuff, but also 3-D printing facsimiles of themselves. Meaning Reed has a 3-D printer that creates human bone and tissue. That feels kind of creepy. Sure hope he doesn't hit the "Asgardian Thunder God" setting by accident (or "accident".) 

Anyway, when Rama-Tut uses time tricks to swipe the gun, after Reed spends 3 panels explaining exactly what it does, he unwittingly shoots the duplicates, kept invisible until then, instead of the real deal. North writes Rama-Tut as a big gloater. Bragging, talking shit, the whole nine yards. Gomez has draws several panels of Rama-Tut looking smug. 

There's some handwavey explanation for why Rama doesn't just try again when he eventually figures out it didn't take, but more critically, Future Sue invisibly communicates with Present Reed and Sue that there's nothing to worry about. Sue can apparently make Braille with her powers, which isn't that out of line for the level of power she's demonstrated.

Not sure what Present-Day Sue is going to tell the people who called her in for that dig.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #2, by Jed Mackay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Dead Pigeon Thunderdome.

It's Tigra's turn with Dr. Sterman, as she relates what happened in the confrontation with the new Moon Knight - she and Hunter's Moon got their asses kicked - and why she's convinced the new guy isn't Marc Spector. The latter of which involves a stroll down memory lane through her past lovers. We don't see any flashbacks, just her talking. Eyes darting away from Sterman's, or looking at something only she can see (figuratively). Fiddling with her hair or flexing her fingers, showing off the claws. Little tics, stuff like that.

As for the fight, this new Moon Knight has at least one new trick. Namely, he can envelop someone in total darkness, which he likens to the new moon. Rosenberg kind of blends purple with black for taht effect. That's how - combined with some pepper powder to mess with her nostrils - he can take out Tigra. Seems like that shouldn't help with a cat's hearing, but oh well. Reese dares him to prove he's Moon Knight by taking over the Midnight Mission, but the building rejects him. I think the building lifts from its foundation before dropping in an attempt to squash him, but it's not really clear. Either way he leaves, telling them to stay out of his way. 

It's the Shroud, right? Got the shadow powers, knows martial artist, wouldn't need light to fight anyway because he's blind, kind of nuts. It's the Shroud. Can't decide yet if this is better or worse than Mark Waid writing him as a pathetic stalker loser in Daredevil. See how MacKay plays it.

What I Bought 1/6/2024

Well, the snowpocalypse didn't materialize. They went from forecasting 5 inches of snow on Wednesday to half an inch by Thursday evening. *sad trombone* It is, however, cold as a welldigger's bum outside, so hooray?

There were no new comics I wanted out last week, and I only found 1 of the 2 from the week before. As always, make do with what I got.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  Feel like Moonie stole Deadpool's mask design.

MacKay writes the issue as a conversation between Reese the vampire, and Dr. Sterman the, er, doctor. This makes everything we see Reese describe a flashback. The cast sitting shiva (with some help from Ben Grimm, I like MacKay went back to that bit about Ben always sending Moon Knight a card at Hannukah) for Moon Knight, with other heroes filling in.

And then the cast goes back to the work of protecting travelers in the night. Which includes protecting them from weird demons from Mark Waid's Dr. Strange run. I like that Hunter's Moon is devout enough to Khonshu he can act as a priest, though it's undercut somewhat when Marc, whose relationship with Khonshu was much more contentious, can do some of the same tricks.. And Rosenberg smears or sort of "vaseline lens"es the colors to give him a glow during the exorcism, making him seem blessed or a conduit for something otherworldly.

Tigra's apparently tearing up the various henchfodder looking for Black Spectre (who is probably dead at Zodiac's hands). Not handling her grief well, blood on the claws, looking kind of feral. It'd be more effective if we'd had more than 5 panels of Tigra and Moon Knight actually dating and whatnot. I'm wondering how much MacKay plans to play up the hostility between her and Reese. They've not gotten along since it came out Tigra was watching Moonie on behalf of the Avengers, but it's been limited to snide comments by Reese up to this point.

At any rate, the big development from Reese's perspective is someone claiming to be Moon Knight kicked the bejeezus out of 8-Ball and told them to get out of the Midnight Mission, and that's basically where the issue leaves off. The costume design is, fine? I don't know the significance of the crescent moon on the chest being tilted so the ends point at the ground. Marc's was usually angled so the open face pointed to 2 o'clock, and Hunter's Moon has a full moon symbol. Must mean something.

What I Bought 12/15/2023

Owing to tagging along with Alex on the Quest for Archaic Turntables, I hit up the comic shop in the next town over again last week, and found both the comics I wanted. Was that worth the 5 hours in the car, dealing with every driver on Interstate 70 having lost their minds? Eh, hard to say.

Moon Knight #30, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Come on Marc, you get let a little thing like multiple bullet wounds stop you?

Plesko monologues about how he just really likes to study the horrible things people do to each other. He worked with Bushman after the guy appeared to kill Marc, then helped Moon Knight later on. But he's tired of being an observer, hence the plan to drive the entire city murderously insane. Although that feels like he's still an observer, especially since he flies off in a helicopter, but I guess it's a matter of how much control the average person will have over themselves and what they do when the plan goes live.

Either way, no one can get to Marc to help, and he's bleeding out. Rosenberg, who has mostly kept the colors starkly defined in this series, matching the sharp edges of Cappuccio and Sabbatini's art, does a lot more blurring here. Not just the bloodstains on Marc's costume, or the smudged look of Zodiac and Plesko's masks. There's a lovely couple of pages of Marc asking Khonshu for help as he tries to move. Where the bid-skeleton's mostly been rendered in sharp detail up to this point in the series, here he's swirls of light and dark taking the shape of a beak or talons. Moon Knight's cloak seems to get bigger and heavier, weighing him down. It's a lovely couple of pages of a self-destructive guy at the end of his rope.

But with Jake and Steven urging him on, Marc drags himself to the control panel and blows the whole thing up, and him with it. Right. Sure. I note here that in issue 28, we saw Eight-Ball crawling through ventilation ducts without an explained purpose, then never saw him again until the last page of this issue, when we see he and the rest of the cast are apparently keeping the Midnight Mission going.

As for Zodiac, he didn't realize there's no more resurrection for Moon Knight, and makes a deal with the Midnight Mission where it lets him leave. To hunt and torture Plesko to death, apparently. So he's still on the loose, which is, unsatisfying to say the least. I hope he's not going to start calling himself Moon Knight, that would be obnoxious, even if it feels fitting for such a wannabe edgelord character.

Blood Run #1, by Evan K. Pozios (writer), Stefano Cardoselli (artist), Lettersquids (letterer) - I would say parallel parking that thing would be a pain, but I imagine the driver just blows up cars until there's a line of open spots.

Blood Run is a car race between a bunch of weirdos and their souped-up, heavily armed machines. There's a near constant string of commentary by an unseen announcer, making a constant string of sly jokes (using the term loosely) and puns. So, about as annoying as your typical pro wrestling announcer.

The main character, to the extent there is one, is Avalon Red, a bubblegum popping redhead in a boxy muscle car, but Pozios and Cardoselli surround her with a bunch of other unusual vehicles, their drivers given some brief introduction. Ice cream man, sheriff, mortician, trashmen, genius daughter of a time-traveler and a horndog stock car racer. Wait, what?

There's not much to it beyond the announcer describing these characters and the action, while we alternate between overhead or profile views of the cards (which are mostly muddy-colored outlines) and close-ups of the drivers. For most of them, that means close-ups of their deaths, while for Red, it mostly means close-ups of her glaring or blowing a bubble. Cardoselli still has an exaggerated, selectively simple style. Meaning, when he wants to go into more detail, the design on Red's shirt, the specific number of teeth one of the trashmen has, he'll do it. But when he doesn't think he needs it, stuff can really become just vague shapes in one color.

There's a few pages near the end about a specific grudge Red has against the trashmen (and vice versa), but characterization and plot are thin on the ground. The last page offers a reason for that, and I don't know how I liked it. Taken on its own terms, it works with the comic, it's that my expectations going in didn't match what Pozios and Cardoselli were looking to do.

What I Bought 5/6/2023

Monday may have been a bust, but last Friday was a lot of fun. It didn't rain, so I went to the zoo, then to a couple of bookstores. If I ever get through the book I'm currently reading (I hope to be 80% done by the time you read this), I'll have a few more ready. Switch back to non-fiction for a bit.

Moon Knight #23, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - So I thought the chains were from Venom escaping, but apparently the new kid just runs around with chains wrapped around his arms like a discount Ghost Rider.

Alchemax would like to experiment on the Venom symbiote, and possibly Eddie Brock's kid, who has it. Eddie told Dylan he could trust Moon Knight, because Moon Knight knows what it's like for people to think you're nuts and unrealiable. Um, Eddie used to routinely threaten to eat Spider-Man's liver. He's nuts, period. I hate this revisionist shit about Venom now that they made Brock some sort of god-thing. "Oh, he was just misunderstood and suffering from great pressures, boohoo." It's like all those apologist Vegeta fans got jobs writing Marvel comics.

Deep breath. Marc agrees to help, warns the mercs to leave (while knowing they won't because that would mean they won't get paid) and lets them follow him into the Midnight Mission. Then he and Dylan kick their asses, because Eel, Thermite, Blitz and Tangle are losers. And yes, the chains around the forearms are apparently part of DylanVenom's look. I don't know why. Cappuccio gives him the prehensile tongue Venom's had since Erik Larsen drew him, but draws it as so thick it basically fills his mouth. Which just looks weird. The tongue also wraps around his own neck a lot of times, like it's an ascot or something.

Afterward, Marc notes that with the symbiote, Venom should have been able to handle them alone. Dylan agrees, and notes there's some weird sonic frequencies blanketing the city that are messing them up, which Marc intuits are probably related to the guy controlling people with sound he's after. So Dylan helps track it to the source, and they find Mr. Sarnak has sealed himself in a panic room and called the police to come arrest him. Because that's safer than letting Moon Knight get his hands on him. Fair, but leaves Moonie back at square one.

I actually like that. Moon Knight is seen as unstable and dangerous, even by super-villains. Eel was vocally uneasy about fighting him, which is where it's an advantage. Where it's a disadvantage is when the guy you're after is so scared of you being arrested is preferable and since New York is apparently still non-vigilante friendly (depending on whose book you're reading), Marc probably can't walk in a precinct and demand to talk to the guy.

What I Bought 4/12/2023

The temperature is climbing, but I refuse to turn on my AC! For now. Hold off on letting my electric bill take a hatchet to my wallet as long as possible. After all, it's the job of comic books to deplete my finances.

Fantastic Four #6, Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Aburtov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Oh crap, it's the Civil War schism all over again. At least Sue got the Fantasticar in the divorce this time.

The mirror dimension algae is on the loose. The FF purify a lake in under 3 minutes, but given the extent of spread already, that's not good enough. Johnny, remembering Reed mentioned the algae just needs light and air to make food, gets the idea of having Sue make the Sun invisible until the algae starves to death. But only for 16 hours a day for three consecutive days, and only over a few states.

So Johnny keeps her company in the upper atmosphere while she does that, and Reed, Ben and Alicia try to keep people from freaking out, and beat up Dr. Octopus. They fail (at keeping people calm, not beating Doc Ock, they haven't fallen that far), but the mobs wait until Day 3 to combine torches with pitchforks, so it doesn't get too out of hand. Then Maria Hill shows up.

I trust that sentence speaks for itself.

This seems like an attempt to give Sue more focus, and at least as far as her interactions with Johnny, it sort of works. North lets Sue be less of a "mom" to Johnny, and more like close friends. She can needle him about stuff, but not in an exasperated "why won't you grow up?" way. When he pauses in reading Jane Eyre to her and she comments her audiobook narrator has mysteriously stopped.

Beyond that, North's Sue is empathetic and observant, in that she recognizes that Reed stresses himself with how often they've beaten the odds saving the world, and how close some of those successes have been. And so she actually relishes this year away from that - recent adventures notwithstanding - because it lets them all decompress. But that's really more a matter of luck, isn't it? If the world were in danger, from say, mirror dimension algae, they would be back into the world saving business, It's just happened to take this long for such a situation to arise.

North's mostly moved away from the approach he had in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the first issue of this book of ending pages on some sort of joke or gag, but not entirely. I don't think the artists' styles really suit that approach. Neither Fiorelli or Coello's work leans towards humor. The body language and expressions don't exaggerate enough to really sell the moments. North might need to move away from that sort of thing even further.

Moon Knight #22, Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Someone got into the Pym Particles again.

Marc's old enemy Midnight Man is on the loose, committing robberies, but Marc shows little interest in pursuing him. So Tigra decides to handle it herself. Talks to Moonie's old cop buddy Flint, investigates the victims for connections, randomly talks with Hawkeye, and figures out the next target. Catches the bad guy, who is someone she knows, and we know. Who needs money, because he made a big show of not caring when Zodiac stole all his cash 15 some-odd issues ago.

There's a big argument and, well, of note here is MacKay brings up the fact that Tigra's son is the product of her sleeping with a Skrull who thought they were Hank Pym, and who Tigra thought was Pym, but was not, in fact, Hank Pym.

Which I don't remember anyone ever addressing beyond (I think) Christos Gage in Avengers Academy having Tigra worried her son would manifest Skrull traits. I'm not sure Tigra really needs her son being the product of sexual assault added to her backstory, on top of the crap Bendis did, on top of the crap Englehart did with having her want to jump everything with a dick (because cats are apparently always horny in Steve Englehart's world), on top of when Byrne had her go feral and then Pym shrunk her down to pet cat size, and. . .goddamn Tigra's gotten a shit hand from writers.

Over the course of the issue, MacKay's weaving Tigra's investigation in with her life as a single mother who apparently has no paying job. She describes herself as living on a partial Avengers pension, as using her old Avengers login to steal Stark's wi-fi so she can upload photos of her son for her parents. She's not going to get her security deposit back, because her and William's claws have done a number on the floors (and Cappuccio makes sure when we see the floors in the next panel, there are lots of scratches. He also shows William playing with his mom's hair while she's sitting and thinking, like when you see lion kittens chewing on the parents' ears or whatever.)

And so far as William knows, Hank Pym is his dad. He doesn't know about the Skrull or anything like that and she intends to keep it that way. So that's a thing she has to carry, because she doesn't want the circumstances of his birth to burden him. It's a rough emotional situation for her. Cappuccio has her body language all over the place. She's in Marc's face, teeth bared, but sometimes she's crying. Or she's turned away and she shifts from sad to furious in the span of one panel. Arms spread wide or with a finger jabbed aggressively at Marc, or pulled in close, practically hugging herself. She's letting a lot of stuff out all at once, I'm guessing because she's got no one else to tell if she's telling friggin' Moon Knight. That's maybe one step up from discussing emotional trauma with Frank Castle.

I mean, who are Tigra's friends in the superhero community? Mockingbird? Times like this, I wish writers hadn't cast aside the friendship Tigra started to develop with Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman so Carol Danvers could be Spider-Woman's Only Lady Friend Who's a Superhero.

What I Bought 3/8/2023 - Part 1

One thing I've noticed from watching the Midsomer Murders channel on Pluto TV is nobody in Causton locks their friggin' doors. All these killers just waltz right in to people's houses. Makes you wonder if the people around Causton are even dumber than all the oblivious people that inhabited Sunnydale on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Sure, I'll walk down this dark alley with this guy I just met who was strangely adverse to sharing my spicy garlic buffalo wings!"

Moon Knight #21, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Marc's always happiest when surrounded by people he can punch of be punched by.

The issue is presented in flashback, Reese explaining what she's experienced to Dr. Sterman. Which is that Reese and a couple of her other vampire friends took Soldier to a nightclub to have him enjoy himself. Even got Jake Lockley to play chauffeur. Rosenberg colors the nightclub scenes in purples and reds, and I don't know if it's Cappuccio or Petit doing it, but he music basically forms the background, going for that ambient sense of being immersed in sound.

Unfortunately, during the festivities, just as Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince warned, someone stole the DJ and played a record that caused all non-vampires to go crazy and start attacking each other. Moon Knight dives in, Rosenberg adding a beam of blue and white light that disperses the reds and purples on his arrival. Reese is actually the one who stops the mayhem, reaching the stage and smashing the turntables to stop the music. She also gets shot by a guy with a burlap sack over his head, but eh, she's a vampire, it's fine.

The burlap sack puts me in mind of one of Marvel's versions of the Scarecrow, who was more of a contortionist thief than a master of fear if his appearance in Untold Tales of Spider-Man is anything to go by (and if you can't trust Kurt Busiek's grasp of continuity and character backstory, whose can you trust?), but that's probably just coincidence. If Cappuccio and MacKay are using any character as inspiration for that looks, it's more likely Christopher Nolan-Batman movies, Jonathan Crane Scarecrow.

Anyway, the cast's conclusion is this must the be the work of the same "ghost in the telephone" mentioned last issue. Someone trying to use sound to control people. A cable news network, in other words. The issue ends on a panel of a shadowy outline in front of a sunlit window, who I assume is the mastermind. I also assume it's Marc's old merc buddy turned psychologist that supposedly got blown up last issue, but that's just going by tropes.

Mary Jane and Black Cat: Dark Web #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Vincenzo Carratu (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - MJ using the old Nintendo Power Glove to keep people away from her stash of Laserdisc players back there.

MJ is rather annoyed she's going to die because Felicia's feeling guilty about keeping her relationship with Peter a secret. Fortunately, the Guardian kills S'ym first. No big loss there, Maddie really should have done that herself the moment she took control of Limbo. Felicia tries to buy MJ a chance to run, by shooting the claws from her hand into the monster's eye. I think Carratu could have laid out that panel better, because at first read, I thought Felicia somehow slashed or stabbed his eyes. MacKay had to explain two pages later it was something Felicia could do, but typically didn't because it was of limited utility.

Anyway, Mary Jane instead used the chance to yell at Felicia for feeling guilty over being happy with MJ's ex. Which seems to settle things so MJ gets a power that makes her look like Herald of Galactus Nova, albeit with blue fire. But actually she rewrites reality, so after the Guardian is dead, she resurrects S'ym.

Boooooooooooooooooooooo.

But this kind gesture convinces S'ym to warn them that if either of them touches Belasco's Soulsword, it will bond to their soul. Then Belasco will kill them to get it back, and they aren't magically adept enough to stop that. I mean, I feel like Belasco's track record of getting pantsed by Illyana or Maddie suggests he's kind of a loser, and that magic or no, Felicia and MJ can handle his stupid ass, but whatever.

Felicia appears to choose to fall on the sword, so to speak, although this is MacKay writing the Black Cat, so there's some sort of fakeout coming. As they exit the tower, they meet all the groups that were afraid to go in themselves, but still want that sword. And that's that.

It feels a little ridiculous that MacKay spent three issues on Felicia internally monologuing about how worried she was about MJ finding out, only for it to be resolved so easily. But that's probably the point. Felicia made things much harder on herself (and Mary Jane) with her guilt and keeping secrets than if she just told the truth. Although I don't really think of them as having been friends 'for years' at this stage, but I also haven't seen them interact much prior to MacKay's work since. . .before Straczynski's run on the book? Maybe Nick Spencer did more with them, but they still seemed somewhat antagonistic in that one-shot MacKay wrote last year.

*shrug* Everyone defines friendship different, I guess.

What I Bought 2/3/2023

I love that Kyrie Irving demanded a trade. The Nets spent 3.5 seasons covering for and excusing all his dumbassery. Whether it's throwing his teammates under the bus as not being good enough to help he and Durant, or refusing to get vaccinated, or promoting movies that claim Jews made up the Holocaust, the Nets always make excuses and empty promises that Kyrie's gonna do better, and nothing changed. 

And now the Mavericks traded the only guy on their team who plays defense, plus draft picks for Kyrie Irving, whose teams never show any real drop-off in performance after he leaves, and who can't be counted on not to get hurt or say or do something stupid or hateful that gets him suspended. And he's a free agent at the end of this season! They gave up actual useful players and draft picks for the basketball equivalent of a 5-month migraine! Just spectacular.

One book last week, one book this week (that the local store won't have). Maybe three books next week. Why is everything waiting until the last week of the month to ship? Like February isn't depressing enough already.

Moon Knight #20, by Jed MacKay and Danny Lore (writers), Alessandro Cappuccio and Ray-Anthony height (artists), Le Beau Underwood and Scott Hanna (inkers), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Moon Knight can sense a fashion disaster somewhere nearby, but he just can't find them.

In a much earlier volume, Moon Knight had a group of agents and informants. Someone is now killing them, including a poor guy who looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Ruh-roh. Marc's rushing to the home of his buddy Plesko, the guy who talked with Zodiac last issue, but the place blows up. Which is strange when the other victims are being killed in more hands-on ways. Totally not suspicious!

They've managed to save a couple of people so far, which gives Reese the idea to have Jake figure out what route the killers are taking. Nice panel of Marc stepping aside for Jake by pulling the mask off while the burning building puts their face in shadow. Jake figures the route, Moonie finds them, i.d.'s them with some help from 8-Ball, and beats them up while they make cryptic statements about a 'ghost in the telephone.'

I had thought, based on how Sabbatini and Rosenberg illustrated them in the glimpse we got at the end of last issue, that they were robots. Actually, I thought they looked like the droid goon lackey for Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs!, but they're actually some guys called the Harlequin Hit Men. The masks are supposed to look stitched together from different pieces of fabric, I guess. Whatever, someone did a number on them mentally, and while Marc lets Dr. Sternman take them in, now he's in a mood.

The second story, by Danny Lore and Ray-Anthony Height, is set in the 1970s and involves Blade teaming up with a Moon Knight of that time to deal with some yuppie vampires that are abducting people to feed on and buying up the abandoned buildings at a discount. Ah the old double-jump snatchy-snatchy, seen it a million times. 

Moon Knight and Blade take care of the vampires, but when Moonie decides to try and kill him, too, Blade points out he'll owe her a favor in the future. Or, it'll be owed to another of Khonshu's fists. Which is why, in the present, Blade agrees to help Reese learn about being a vampire as soon as Marc asks.

It's a nice twist. I was expecting a fight or some sort of confrontation between Marc and Blade about Moon Knight dusting all those vampires that came to New York for the sales pitch, but Lore used the fact Blade's been around for a while, and there have been a lot of Moon Knights. Height's art is very different from Cappuccio's, less sharp and minimalist. His 1970s Fist of Khonshu is a much more elaborate look, and while she does rock a big cape, it doesn't swallow up her movements. Rosenberg does away with the high-contrast, deep shadows approach she uses for the main story.