Il materiale di origine: u/Abhinitio (Reddit) / Redrawing of comic panel (with Oscar Isaac) from final issue (#14) of Moon Knight, 2016 series, written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Greg Smallwood.
Summary:Marc went through a lot already, good and bad, mainly bad, but with you came all the good.
Your pregnancy shook up Marc better than anything before. He never felt such anxiety as he did when you showed him that pregnancy test, and it was positive.
He was switching between himself and Steven a lot. Which you noted was due to his nerves getting the best of him. And just when you were about to feel bad about the whole thing, Steven calmed you, saying this was the best thing to ever happen to him and Marc.
Marc felt guilty for not being out more than he should have. He felt like he was leaving you all alone in this. And even if you said you don’t mind seeing Steven more and Steven did help a lot, Marc wanted to be there for you.
There were weeks, even a month when he didn’t even see you, it was all Steven.
“Marc, it’s okay honestly. It’s not like I don’t have anyone with me. Steven’s here and the baby.” you always told him, trying to calm him, but it barely worked. He was not convinced Steven could protect you if needed, it also didn’t help that Khonshu often asked Marc to go on missions.
Steven on the other hand enjoyed seeing you, he was scared, yes, but he was there to help and even went to the doctors with you. You often caught him talking to a mirror, hearing him tell Marc what happened while he was in control. He often showed Marc the pictures the doctors gave you, Steven even went to the lengths to show Marc your papers, stating everything was in order with the baby.
Then as your belly got rounder, Steven smiled a lot more, he touched your baby bump a lot more, begging to feel the little one move.
One morning something strange happened.
It wasn’t Steven and it was for sure not Marc either.
“Okay, looks like you know a lot about me, but I haven’t seen you, who are you?” you asked the man sitting in front of you drinking the coffee you made as he was talking about a cab or something.
“My name is Jake.“ He did look a bit offended, perhaps by the fact that you didn’t recognize him?
"Nice to meet you Jake.” you smiled. “I wonder…”
“You have seen me before, Babe, I mainly get in control during nights when you are already asleep. But we have been to the shopping centre together, usually I’m the one driving.“ Now it all made sense why Marc didn’t remember driving you all those times, you thought he was just joking.
"You’re the one leaving the flowers right? Steven just takes the credit for them.”
“Exactly, and you are pregnant, its ours right?” he asked so casually, so he knew he was one of Marc’s alters, but Marc didn’t know about him.
“Of course,” you showed the ring on your finger then pointed to his. “We got married last year.” you had a feeling Steven and Marc didn’t know about him.
“I remember, we danced. I don’t remember the baby-making though.” you were a bit confused as to what did he see or when was he present.
“Living with three different people is challenging even for me. Not even I’m sure who I was with during that time, but it doesn’t matter.”
He smiled and nodded. “That is true, the baby is ours, and you are our wife.” He turned his attention back to the meal in front of him
“Do you love me?” you asked suddenly.
“I do. You are always kind and you keep me calm. You are also stunning, Babe, pregnancy looks amazing on you. We should have more children.” You smiled and believed him, being with someone who has two other identities is strange, but there was something exciting about it as well.
“Let me push out this one first. Then the four of us can talk about another.” You said as you got his plate and started doing the dishes.
It was like, the same eyes looking at you, yet they were all so different. Marc, Steven and Jake. You wondered how it will all work out once you have the baby.
Jake looked like the kind to get things done, like he was to do the things Marc rather not. Jake would be amazing to have in the room when you give birth, he was even calmer and more collected than Marc.
But somehow, you loved them equally. They were all so different, yet the same.
They were all so gentle, kind and kept you safe.
Marc always promised to fight off whoever decided to even look you the wrong way. Steven made you tea and brought you snacks when you needed anything. And Jake, Jake brought you to places, driving you around, showing you around London, bringing you to parks.
They were all so different, yet they all loved you the same.
And you just knew, they will be amazing father’s for your little one.
Ok I just read a take that says Marc has already died once in Moon Knight 2021. After he got blown up and beaten up by Zodiac Dr Badr didn’t heal his wounds per se – he mummified him and set up a ritual that summoned Khonshu for help. That’s when Khonshu floated malevolently by and said, “I miss you my son. Pay me a visit soon.”
I honestly thought Dr Badr (the left fist) just treated him and popped him in the sarcophagus for spiritual healing or something. But going by this theory, Marc died. Again. And Khonshu, in prison and betrayed by his right fist,,,,,still came to resurrect him.
Also right after he died and came back he just popped out of the Dr’s and walked down the street to a Greer and Reece and street full of people who cared about him, who were totally none the wiser.
Once again, the Moon System was left without a book, and once again he ended up in an Avengers book that completely misunderstood Khonshu. Oh, and Khonshu’s relationship with the boys.
Only that this time, it didn’t bring us hilarious mental images of Khonshu fangirling Hawkeye, although it made Moon Knight being one of the most dangerous and capable fighters of the whole MCU.
But let’s start from the beginning.
Avengers was written at the time by Jason Aaron, who gave us the incredible Mighty Thor, aka. Jane Foster, aka. The run that is inspiring Thor: Love and thunder. And as a Thor writer? Aaron is amazing. Seriously, go and read Mighty Thor. It’s great and you need a palate cleanser after Bemis. Unfortunately his writing on Avengers… wasn’t that good.
He ignored a ton of canon from each individual character in order to fit them into the story he wanted to tell, namely that there are certain superpowers that have been on Earth forever, since before Homosapiens were a thing, so that there have always been some sort of Avengers defending Earth. These powers are The Hulk, The Starbrand, The Ghost Rider, the Phoenix, The Black Panther, The Iron Fist, The Sorcerer Supreme, and of course, the Fist of Khonshu.
(He also completely ignored She-hulk’s last run and had Jennifer turning into a brute, OLD Hulk style, but that’s not here nor now and it has been undone so praise the gods)
Now, this is kinda interesting, and gave us great images such as a Ghost Rider riding a Mammut. Oh, and made Phoenix’s Thor’s mother which… ok. Strange but ok. But it also made things more complicated regarding the relationship of the characters who NOW wield those powers.
Because among other things? It insisted that Khonshu was always, ALWAYS in conflict with the others.
Once again: The God of Justice, the Defender, the Embracer, the Protector of the Travelers of the Night somehow was against… the protectors of Earth.
Please try to make sense out of that.
Anyway, the Starbrand had just been reborn into a baby that was left in the care of Ironman and Carol Danvers which is like leaving a nuclear bomb in the care of Pinky (from Pinky and the Brain) and Hei Hei (from Moana), Phoenix has been unearthed so she has no host at the time, and the Avengers have a new headquarters that is a Celestial’s corpse turned mountain, and are under the command of T’challa, the Black Panther. Their current line up is Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Thor, Ghost Rider, Blade, and She-Hulk.
Also, at the time Mephisto, who lost the throne of hell to Johnny Blaze, the first Ghost Rider, was manipulating different groups, including Atlantis -yes, Namor was evil at this point, due to pollution and whalers-, Vampires, Russians, and Coulson in order to conquer the world from his cell in a hotel in Las Vegas.
All of this is comic Canon, I kid you not.
Anyway, for some reason that absolutely no one explains, Khonshu is now summoned to Earth, being taken care of by his Cult in Egypt. YEAH, The Khonshu Cult is back, and they’re still considering Moon Knight an heretic most of the time, and have enough numbers to conquer Wakanda if they want to. And Marc goes in to talk to Khonshu after beating some priests as he has been having horrible visions that he thinks are being sent to him by Khonshu. An important thing is that, while Aaron doesn’t actually say so because some writers seem allergic to the words “Alter”, “Fronting” and “Did”, the whole run is Marc fronting, as he points at the very beginning that he is “not” off his meds, nor hearing voices at the time, which is Marvel-speak for “Some idiot doctor convinced Marc again that the only treatment for DiD is integration, and he decided to suppress his alters AGAIN”. And if you have been paying attention to this Primer? Every time THAT happens, Marc ends up doing something VERY stupid that makes every single person in the Marvel Universe get convinced that yep, Moon Knight is a crazy, unstable, dangerous individual.
This time won’t be the exception.
I am re-telling this in sort of a lineal form, as the comic begins a bit of medias res not really explaining anything. But this Primer is supposed to make things clear so, let’s make things clear.
Anyway, the visions Marc is getting are of Mephisto destroying the Avengers and then the world, but then he discovers that Khonshu has been getting the same visions, being tortured by them. So, in a twist, Marc ONCE AGAIN pledges himself to stop that from happening and instead of, you know, doing the smart thing of TALKING to the Avengers about it? Goes with Khonshu’s plan of stealing all of the other Earthly powers in order to give them to Khonshu so he can beat Mephisto one on one.
YES, the AMAZINGLY STUPID PLAN that Marc and Khonshu create is to LITERALLY Integrate the Avengers’s powers into one individual.
I could imagine Jake and Steven hitting their heads with the nearest surface in the mindspace, given that the Lemire and even sort of the Bemis run were ALL about how the communication between different points of view was Moon Knight’s real superpower.
Anyway… Marc goes and does that: He beats Danny Rand, Dr. Strange, STEALS the Demonic Charger that the current Ghost Rider is using, Literally forces T’Challa to surrender by arriving to Wakanda with the whole Cult of Khonshu behind him -and yes, we will talk at LENGTH of how problematic that particular part of the arc is as Black Panther’s is one of the powers that he can’t just take, as it’s in the blood of T’challa, unlike the others who have sort of a mystic aura that can be stolen; takes out Thor by fighting him in the Moon and remembering that Mjnolir may be enchanted to be only picked by a worthy man, but it’s still made of Moon Rocks, and is chasing Iron Man and Carol to get the Star brand.
YES, Aaron wrote Marc Spector willing to hurt a BABY for his god.
Never mind that that’s NOT how any of those powers work. You can’t get the Iron Fist by just beating Danny Rand because if you could? Misty Knight would’ve been the Iron Fist long, long, long ago. Becoming the Sorcerer Supreme is not just “Oh, I got the Eye of Agamotto” and it requires a LOT of work -as Loki found out when HE was the Sorcerer Supreme a couple of years back. You can’t JUST steal Ghost Riders’ powers as that involves getting possessed by a demon named Zarathos and the LAST thing Marc needs is more people inside him. As I pointed out, Mjnolir has a spell that makes it so that only those worthy can lift it and while I will always headcanon that both Steve and Jake are worthy? Not that sure of Marc, and this Khonshu? OH, so, so, so unworthy. Plus, Aaron himself said that Mjnolir was sentient (in the Mighty Thor run) and those who touch it… become Thor. Which did not happen to Moon Knight because we were robbed of an amalgam of Thor and Moon Knight. And yeah, you can’t get the Starbrand by just, dunno, chucking a baby into a portal to hell.
As getting the Phoenix and the Starbrand is still not happening, Marc hands the powers he got to Khonshu (giving us a WEIRD image of Moon Knight kneeling at Khonshu’s feet and Khonshu calling him his son), and under Khonshu’s orders goes and kills Mephisto. Well, ONE aspect of Mephisto because Mephisto is the cockroach of the Marvel Universe and a ton of alternate universe Mephistos keep coming back to try and kill Khonshu in revenge. And so, once Marc did that, Khonshu keeps the powers to create the Age of Khonshu and protect the Earth by, you know, dominating it.
And Marc is STILL ok with it, still occasionally joining the Cult in their weekly torture of T’challa to see if T’challa is willing to give up the power of the Black Panther despite T’challa constantly telling them that the only way to get it is by bleeding him dry -something that thankfully Marc is completely unwilling to do. The fact that these pages include a Black Man in CHAINS, kneeling in front of a man dressed in white, with a white cloak and who despite being Jewish, is drawn as white at the time, and some of those were published in the issues with the tribute to Chadwick Boseman is… an extra drop of racism irony that I still wonder how no editor caught in time.
(Thankfully the issue where Marc takes off his mask in front of T’challa to make CLEAR that yep, Marc is white-passing, was the PREVIOUS issue to the tribute. But still)
Marc, thankfully, didn’t give ALL the powers to Khonshu, keeping the Ghost Rider for some reason, and he travels to the Moon where he meets The Unseen, aka. Nick Fury as the new Watcher (And THAT is a box I can’t unpack right now), who confirms what T’challa had told him previously: Khonshu has gone a BIT crazy with power, and is weakening Earth’s defenses against Mephisto instead of strengthening them, which seriously, a blind monkey could’ve told Marc and Khonshu at the beginning of this run. T’challa, by the way, ALSO can control Mjnolir because Jason Aaron doesn’t know the difference between a mystic hammer and a puppy. (I kid you know, Khonshu throws Mjnolir at T’challa, and Mjnolir first avoids T’challa and then literally swings excitedly around him as T’challa says “Hello, Old Friend”. Khonshu also bewitches Marc into seeing T’challa as Mephisto at first because of course Khonshu has to manipulate Marc because we’re still dealing with a Fake!shu no matter what everyone says.
T'challa then beats some sense into Marc as Fake!shu flies off to try and find the Starbrand – but then we realize that Marc has a plan. See? All his fighting with T’challa, all his bleeding and being beaten to an inch of his life? Is his PRAYER TO THE PHOENIX. He even HITS HIMSELF when T’challa refuses to keep punching him as he won’t be part of Marc’s Suicide… and the Phoenix Listens and yep, despite this NOT being how the Phoenix Force works at ALL (and being tied mostly to the Grey family life, until Avengers got a hold of it) and so he goes from being the Fist of Khonshu to be the Fist of the Phoenix which… yeah.
Anyway, as the Phoenix, Marc punches Khonshu from the Moon to the Earth, declaring that they don’t need any of the Old Gods so Khonshu… goes and calls ALL the cult forces (mummies AND werewolves included) And declares he’ll destroy the world barren before leaving it for Mephisto and once again, I do wonder WHO THE HELL is this Khonshu as it makes no sense with any of his previous incarnations and I am including “KILL EVERYONE IN YOUR PATH AND BLEED ON MY ALTAR” Khonshu.
This gives the Avengers time to recover the powers from Khonshu and… uhm.. Blade becomes the Sorcerer supreme because seriously, Jason Aaron has NO idea how that title works, and She Hulk is temporarily the Iron Hulk.
Moon Knight is temporarily tempted by the Phoenix to destroy the world, but he manages to resists, renounces the power and lets himself be knocked down by a now freed Thor. I have to admit, the baddass boast he gives when he lets the Phoenix go? Is 85% perfect because see, it’s this:
“My Name is Marc Spector. I wear white so the bad guys will see me coming. And so I will always be able to find my true self. Even in the darkest night.”
See, this would’ve been perfect if it had been: “ My Name is Marc Spector. My Name is Steven Grant. My Name is Jake Lockley. Our Name is Moon Knight. We wear white so the bad guys will see us coming. And so we will always be able to find our true self. Even in the darkest night.”
See? Not that hard to you know, remember to acknowledge the system. But no, Jason Aaron doesn’t do this. It’s just Marc and Marc alone.
Anyway, the Avengers kick Khonshu’s butt, put him in chains and send him off to Aasgard to be dumped in the farthest dungeon for his crimes against All Father Thor (And, I guess, all of mankind because that’s what the God of JUSTICE does. I harp a lot about this, but I hate when writers forget that, manipulative or not, secretive or not? Khonshu is at the end of the day a good guy because if he wasn’t? He wouldn’t have gotten an agent to defend the defenseless in the first place). Marc doesn’t end up in a wakandan prision because T’challa runs the Avengers like a Monarchy so even if everyone ELSE wants Marc gone, T’challa goes and offers him a place in the team.
As you do.
Marc, thankfully, refuses the offer as he points out that, as misguided as Khonshu was with his plan (Because yes, it was a very, very stupid plan) he was right about Mephisto being the biggest threat and Namor, the Vampires and the Russians being just distractions. And since the Avengers weren’t helping against Mephisto, Moon Knight isn’t going to help against the other things.
We will find a bit later that there are more conditions to “We’re not throwing Moon Knight into Wakanda’s dungeons” but for now? Jason Aaron managed to make it look as if the reason was “Well, he DID kick our collective asses so what about if we don’t mess up with him”?
I hate/love this run, personally, because on one hand? It gives Moon Knight a bit of respect showing that yes, Marc IS a power hitter in the MU and for the first time in YEARS uses Khonshu’s divinity and his powers in a way to help Marc and not just as one more reason to insult the guys due to their mental health issues. And I am not gonna lie, Phoenix Moon Knight? Kinda epic. BUT…
Once again, we have the weird patina of “White-coded gods are superior to other-ethnicity- coded gods” (In one of the past flashbacks, the Moon Knight of the past is a literal ape, while the other powers are clearly wielded by homo sapiens, for example). While again, I know that mythologically speaking, Khonshu started as a sometimes-cruel god? In Marvel he had never been cruel until the Grim-dark-edge of the 2006, and in fact was always, ALWAYS on the side of true Justice, not vengeance, and the whole thing about reviving Marc was about CLEANING his stale, making up for all the people Marc had killed. And just ONE run earlier, like, literally the run preceding this? Khonshu HAD gone against his father Ra who wanted to do the whole “I will control everyone to make sure to protect everyone” fascism route, arguing in favor of people having the right to choose their own paths so it makes no sense that Khonshu would now go the fascist route of “Kill all my enemies and those who oppose my way of saving the world” not 10 issues later. Much less that the boys, not even if Marc is once again suppressing everyone else, would agree with it.
Oh, yes, and the fact that Steven and Jake are nowhere to be seen? Horrible. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am sure that both heard ONE line of Marc and Khonshu’s plan and noped out of it as it was stupid, but just imagine Jake having the chance to drive the demonic charger?! Or Steven wielding the Eye of Agamoto’s powers (even if, again, NEITHER of those powers work that way. You just don’t hold the Eye of Agamoto and become Sorcerer Supreme. That takes STUDYING and TRAINING) Not only that, we have AGAIN people assuming that if Marc is being weird, is “A Multiple Personality Episode” despite the fact that we, readers, know it’s nothing of the sort because again, the Alters -not personalities, Aaron, seriously, even in 2019 people knew that was not the term- are not around, and Marc constantly says he has no voices in his head. And I miss them talking in plural so much.
Worst part? This arc will not have real consequences for Avengers, as 20 issues later? They are STILL dealing with Mephisto and his tricks. Starbrand is now a teenager because of comics, Echo is now the Phoenix (yes, Marc’s dead ex-girlfriend), and Namor is good again. She-Hulk left the team and is now back to her bouncy sexy self, and was replaced by Jane Foster the new Valkyrie because she has Movie Recognition now. But they are STILL not beating Mephisto, who is STILL using mind tricks against them so really, nothing that Marc and Khonshu did had ANY effect on anyone. In fact, I seriously doubt that they remember that happened back in Avengers. However, it had HUGE repercussions on how Marc is going to be written in the next Moon Knight arc, the Mackay Arc. Which will be our subject Next part… which will also cover Moon Knight Devil’s Reign and Moon Knight White, Black and Blood, as we FINALLY reach the end of the Moon Knight Comics Primer.
Ok, so we arrived to the controversial part of the Bemis run, aka: the current official reason of the guys’ split, issue 194, titled: Moon Knight Origin.
I say current because as you may have noticed in the past 193 issues (Well, bit more than that, counting West Coast Avengers, Secret Avengers and Heroes for Hire), is that there’s never been a moment in which any writer has said “HERE, this is why Marc, and Steven and Jake exist”. We’ve had the vague “Oh, Marc created identities for his job and they became real” from Moench, except Moench never once treated Steven and Jake as less real than Marc so there was no… show to that tell. We’ve had the “Co-existing with an alien entity caused brain damage” from Ellis, but that also didn’t explain WHY Steven, Marc and Jake, nor which roles each played in the system. And Lemire, in his almost perfect run, only told us that they had been there for a lot longer than Khonshu, but never told us why -and, to be honest, I think that is part of what it makes Moon Knight very good general Plural Representation, besides the fact that there’s no “Evil” alter (at least not when Bemis is not writing, and even his Jake is not evil in the ways of, say, Typhoid Mary who is possibly the worst example of Plural Representation that the MU has) because it never said “THIS is how you become Plural and it’s the ONLY right way”.
Of course, Bemis had to be Bemis.
And here I have to make another pause to explain some things because given the subject matter I can’t in good consciousness continue without giving you this info.
Maxim “Max” Adam Bemis is the lead singer of the bands Say Anything and Two Tongues, besides writing for Marvel. He is also jewish, and his maternal grandparents are holocaust survivors, he has called himself a Jew who is also a Christian, but the end of the day is that he is Jewish.
Which means that, no matter what I, a gentile, think about how he went about writing the System’s origin, I can’t say that he is “wrong” because he choose to do it this particular way, when he tied it completely to the Spector’s jewish roots. Because at the end of the day? It’s HIS experience, HIS culture and HIS roots too. Just as I can’t speak over the Plural community and have been careful to ask about the things I don’t quite get before launching into an analysis of the comic? I can’t speak over the Jewish community.
Who also happens NOT to be a hive mind.
I have jewish friends who really loved this origin and were angry that the tv show didn’t go this way (Even if they agreed it would’ve been also bad if they had used it since time-wise in the episode, it would’ve been a side note easily ignored. And, well, we don’t know if the writers included jewish people and including gentiles writing hate crimes against jewish people is always tricky); I have jewish friends who hated the origin and loved that the tv show went a completely different route as they also felt that this origin retreaded some nasty stereotypes. And I have jewish friends who couldn’t care less either way. Funny thing that happens when you have a community with more than one person in it, people will disagree.
So I will not make a moral judgment on this origin, because I can’t. I can assume certain things are highly auto-biographical -especially the way Marc learned about the Holocaust from his elders, how he at first didn’t quite understood how horrible it was- and a way for Bemis to explain his own feelings about his own faith (It all begins with Marc telling Jean Paul that if he could live without living in fear? He wouldn’t be jewish. Which… yeah, quite telling). I can, and will, criticize the way he choose to narrate it, but not the content on itself because, again, not my place to do so.
And, for a change, I will start with the good things:
Jean Paul Duchamp and Marc’s friendship is back. And in a loving, sweet way in which we again see how close these two are, as Marc tells Jean Paul something he NEVER discussed with anyone: Not his parents, not his rabbi, not his (granted, terrible) doctors, not even MARLENE. That show of trust is part of what made Jean Paul’s Marc’s confident and I missed it so much.
The initial introduction of Rabbi Yitz Perlman -the funniest guy Marc ever met in his life- and the subsequent explanation of what it was like to grow up jewish, why jewish people love to make jewish jokes where they are the butt of the joke, how people had differing ideas and points. The page where Rabbi Elias finally tells Marc what the Shoah was, and how his father, Marc’s grand father died… well, that is powerful, even as we see that Marc is NOT getting it at first… especially because we see Marc is not getting it.
The subtle implication that Rabbi Elias himself disassociated at some points, made even more clear with Marc narrating that he wishes he could go back in time, to tell him that he understood? Wonderful and adding a little bit more depth to the System’s family ties. That Rabbi Spector is not just Marc’s father, but their Father. Unfortunately, that page also suggests that his father knew how bad Rabbi Yitz really was, which… is not supported by the rest of the story. Again, Bemis.
The juxtaposition of Marc FINALLY understanding what the holocaust really was, as a nazi serial killer tells him about how much he enjoyed working at the camps, with images of Marc imagining a happy and peaceful life with Marlene and Diatrice? One of the most powerful pages in the whole Bemis run.
And while Diatrice looks like a teen in the page where Marc explains to her the System’s condition and not like a 5 year old? That page is adorable, bit of ableist language not-withstanding, even with the callback to Marc not understanding the holocaust when his father explained it to him.
All that? Wonderful and some of the BEST in the whole Bemis run, right there with the System actually interacting in a healthy way.
The bad? Well, I will leave someone else, preferably someone who is actually jewish, to decide if “Nazi criminal pretending to be a Rabbi to escape to the USA, becoming a respected member of the community, while at least ONE person suspects or knows about his crimes -specifically our hero’s father- , tortures and kills children in his basement and witnessing this is what caused the Moon System to split” is a good narrative choice or a bad one. And the same goes to the fact that despite being a Nazi, some artists decided to draw Ernst as the worst antisemitic caricature possible.
HOWEVER, there is one very important thing that, added to what we already have read of Bemis? Makes this not only baffling, but also contradicts what Bemis himself wrote, not 4 issues ago.
See, as Marc narrates to Jean Paul what happened, right after the Nazi who pretended to be Rabbi Yitz tells him that people like him, like Mengele, like Hitler, will always be there, waiting to get them, we see Marc go wild, bite and hit the man, hard enough to be able to run away and save his life. And the narration of the next page says “I wasn’t strong enough to take him, I knew it, but in that moment I became… something else. I became strong enough to fight.”
So of course, the implication was that right then, we saw the first split: Not, as we always have been told, of Marc and Steven… but of Marc and Jake. There was no amnesia, no black out, no typical narration cue of disassociation… but the implication is clear: Jake came out, for the first time, to SAVE Marc’s life from something horrible.
And yet, Bemis will continue to tell us that Jake is the worst of the worst. A little boy, no older than 10, who only wanted to help his other self to Survive, to escape so he wouldn’t be tortured and killed? Is maligned and demonized through the whole run.
So yeah. That is why the Bemis’s origin leaves a bad taste in my mouth, regardless on how offensive or not the rest of it may be.
Well, that and the return to the song of “Marc is sick, that’s what makes the system be the system, and it’s so tragic he can’t be cured” that is implied all over the run despite Bemis also writing the system interacting beautifuly.
In any case, issues #195 to #196 are a quite disgusting affair, not because of the story, but because of the art and the villain. A collective consciousness called, well, the Collective, that is a mass of moving flesh that absorbs everyone it touches into themselves.
Once again, the good of these issues? The Inter-system interactions. From Marc completely zooning out in a movie to go fishing with his boys (And Khonshu fishing out Marlene’s disembodied head) to later on as they are separated within the Collective, how they work together to figure out the problem even if it meant staying in that unified mindscape with at least other 50 people besides them 4? Gorgeous -Steven giving Jake permission to knock out the real bad guy? Perfect given that it was not a “violence is the solution” but a “let’s be pragmatic about this, instead of just talking about it”.
Marc, Marlene and Diatrice going to the movies? Beautiful even if it should’ve been Jake and I will forever hate that Jake can’t be the father to his little girl.
But then… the bad.
The hard on hate on Jake keeps going on, like when Marc and Jake argue about Marc not killing Sun King and Bushman (this time). Because once again, every single time Moon Knight has killed Bushman in the past? Marc was fronting. And the fact that a writer of the series can’t even get that little fact straight really angers me. Especially when it’s one of the few writers who gets that Moon Knight is a system and not a singlet who occasionally changes names.
The continuous casual ableism of other characters referring to Moon Knight as “The crazy one” and, of course, bringing up that one time he ripped Bushman’s face off is still present, despite that one being MARC, not Jake. Oh, and Moon Knight’s identities as Marc, Steven and Jake? Are either only known by the police and the villains… or by everyone depending on the PAGE. Bemis is… not good at keeping track of that.
Oh, and the utterly bizarre.
Within the mind-scape of the Collective as I pointed out, the four guys (That is to say, Marc, Steven, Jake and Khonshu) are separated and Marc is, AGAIN, identified as the one who fronts as Moon Knight. But then the Collective allows him to “Create” new and different Moon Knights, all the “versions of themselves” that they have imagined and… some are downright confusing. As there are multiple female knights, a lot of non-humanoids, and at some point, they beat “Toxic Masculinity” by confronting the sufferer with multiple copies of Steven in a speedo.
I honestly don’t have the mental strength to try and unpack all what that says of BEMIS as a writer, because for Moon knight It is really treated as a one off joke that makes absolutely NO sense.
With that, we enter the last arc of the Bemis run, 197 – 200 which brings back Sun King, the Truth and that Nazi Rabbi who, I forgot to mention, keeps himself immortal by killing Jews. Not as a sacrifice to evil gods or anything, no. It’s that he found a way to turn serotonine into immortality and what he enjoys the most is killing jews.
Seriously, if Bemis was a gentile, he’d be run out of town with pitchforks and torches.
So, “Uncle Ernst” who for SOME ungodly reason knows that Moon Knight IS Marc Spector, the child that he traumatized so badly way back then? Is now the leader of a sadist underground cult and invites Moon Knight to a ceremony of sorts. Moon Knight goes, of course, to try and detain all the inductees (That includes a tattooist serial killer, a snuff photographer, a mafia princess serial killer, and a “common” man who happens to be a serial killer and a mass murderer) and then forces Moon Knight to undergo a ritual to become the Society’s pet killer.
Yes, this is Bemis trying to be edgy for the sake to be edgy as he begins the ritual with Moon Knight (We never know who the hell is fronting, but given how Bemis writes? He probably wanted us to believe it was Jake) fighting and KILLING a “rabies infected” DOLPHIN, and then “Not killing” a man who was “the worst case of animal cruelty in the history of California”.
Oh, he also gets diagnosed by YET ANOTHER super villain psychiatrist, in this case, Foolkiller, with Bipolarity and addiction to sadism, because why not just throw words at Moon Knight to see what sticks?
Morpheus returns and if this starts sounding like me summarizing an outline? Is because at this point I got out-edged. Something that not even the 2006 run managed to do because THIS has Moon Knight crowned “A prince of Death” and decked with a purple version of his outfit.
I will come back to that in a second, when we continue my rant on how Bemis tried his best to ruin Jake completely, but I just want to point out that I can’t summarize issue 199 because I have no frigging idea of what was going on there besides a sort of metaphysical hallucination that Marc was having while fighting Ernst the Nazi that May or may not have happened in the real world because there were flying Cthulhus around, and Bemis was trying to be Lemire and failing HARD. (The only GOOD panel of that mess? Khonshu hugging and protecting Jake and Steven from the outside. It makes NO sense given that they should’ve helping Marc, AND that Bemis TOLD US that Khonshu doesn’t like Steven or Jake but… I take the panel as something nice out of context)
The last issue, 200 is special only in the fact that they asked the previous Moon Knight artists to draw some pages each (not Greg Smallwood, thank goodness, because his art is way too good for this crappy script) including one last pinup by Bill Sienkiewicz of Marc in the rain.
Basically, Marc -because now we know it’s Marc- managed to kill Erntz in his hallucination in issue 199, then had to face Sun King again as he was freed by the Society of Sadists as an “ace in the hole” against Moon Knight, but for some reason, Sun King decided that nope, he’d rather team up with Marc against the Sadists, and they round out the crazy cult from the island who is now on Moon Knight side -Dr. Emmet included- and leave THEM to protect Diatrice while Marc, Sun Knight and Marlene for some reason, go and fight the Sadists and free the Truth, who was becoming a villain convinced that he had been created by Erntz, but they fixed that like, in one panel.
It is THAT bad.
And well, as I said? Bemis REALLY tries to demonize Jake Lockley every step of the way. During the “Prince of Death” trials? We’re SHOWN that Marc is fronting, as we see Khonshu -now for some reason identified as the spirit of the system-, Steven -identified as the mind- and Jake -The “roboust undercarriage” because he doesn’t get a fancy title- as witnesses for all of it as Marc “wanted to handle this himself”. Which means Marc Killed a Dolphin, tortured a man so badly that he made Foolkiller puke after he described his actions, and almost killed ALL of the Society’s new inductees and was ready to become Erntz slave… UNTIL the last trial, where Erntz tells Marc that unless he kills the little girl they kidnapped as part of the last trial? They will kill Diatrice. And he is still “Better” than Jake.
Oh, Erntz also says that he “Seeded” the violence in Marc through “the undesirable” sources of Jake Lockley (You know, Gena and Crawley. Because Bemis is not classist at all)
ANYWAY, Marc obviously doesn’t want to kill the little girl -whom we don’t see at the moment because Bemis thinks he’s clever- and in the Inner world? Jake Lockley, whom until Bemis got his grimy hands on him had ALWAYS been Moon Knight’s moral compass? ARGUES in FAVOR of killing an innocent, and YELLS at Marc for “taking” Diatrice for himself because he’s the hero of the story, but still won’t do the “hard” thing to save her. Because Marc is a coward, and is going to leave the choice to Jake.
And while JAKE also decides NOT to kill the little girl? The narration immediately switches it to MARC in control again as the defender of said girl.
Because Bemis can’t let Jake be good.
So… here are the only TWO good pages of #200 in my opinion. Diatrice’s fan art of her family, and Sienkiewicz’s final pinup.
And so, Moon Knight #200 ends up a mess, where while the System is still a System? There’s nothing of real substance from the last 12 issues. Yes, we now have the “almost victim of a hate crime” origin for the boys, but that was one issue. Oh, and the meme panels of the guys inner world. But as far as story goes? This is the worst let down after the high soar that was Lemire’s run because we have nothing that will last.
Sun King and his connection with Ra? Will never get mentioned again. The Moon Knight cult will have a role in the next Arc, which will take us to the Avengers’ book rather than Moon Knight’s next title (The far better Mackay run in 2021, which, while no Lemire and with its own problems, is HEAPS better than Bemis). The Truth? Gone. And, even worse, Marlene and Diatrice? Will pack up their bags and leave Moon Knight due to the events of our next arc. So really, all that we have from Bemis is what I mentioned which will not get repeated later as yeah, say bye to the System for a while too.
But once again, I am getting ahead of myself. See you next time as we enter the Age of Khonshu, in Avengers #33 to 38, and then back to Moon Knight for the Mackay run… Oh, and probably Devil’s Reign. Sorry about THAT in advance)
OH GOD!!! JAKE DIDHAVE A WHOLE ASS KID AND DIDN’T TELL MARC!!!
What the Fuck? Oh shit, now I need to see him in the show, or alternative read the comics where it happened, because what the hell? Having a child is the kind of thing you tell the people who share your body
tbf this was the Bemis run which is kinda infamous for turning Jake into a horrible person for literally 0 reason he is a certified Sweetheart in actual canon Bemis just wanted to be edgy. The Actual Comics Jake Lockley Would Never.
The very, VERY interesting thing is that the timeline in the comics does not work! I mean, even ignoring the fact that the immediate previous run was Lemire’s where Jake at some point THOUGHT that Marc was going to make all the Alters disappear and thus one would THINK he’d spare a thought for his daughter (that, fine, ok, didn’t exist then but still) before biting it, no?
But even then, if Diatrice is 5? That means that Marlene had her either at the beginning of the Bendis run when JAke wasn’t even ACTIVE as an Alter because MArc was running around with Captain America, Spiderman and Wolverine in his head, and in LA, not in NY, or right after Shadowlands when, uhm, Jake was fronting and Marlene ASKED JAKE to marry him. Because she was pregnant and she told them all (Marc was not in a good mental place, hence why Jake and Steven fronted most of the time, but he was included in the announcement) and Marlene losing THAT baby was what caused Marc to slide into the Bendis run. And they certainly couldn’t have a second time to try after the Bendis run -where, again, Jake wasn’t even present in the cranium- because the next one is the Ellis run where again, we have no Jake.
And if Bemis hadn’t been so focused on demonizing Jake? He had the perfect exit possible: Yes, Diatrice is Jake’s baby, and she was conceived at some nebulous point between the Shadowlands ending before Jake clocked out and the Bendis run’s start, and MARLENE didn’t tell him, not until after the Lemire run, right before Sun King’s appeareance, because of how unstable Marc was in the last few years, and Jake still was wondering how the hell to break the news to the others when Sun King came and rushed things.
There, Fixed it. With just 15 minutes of making mental math with the comic timeline.
Thank you both for the helpful information. I wanna try the Moon Knight comics because of the show and it’s interesting to know this stuff. Is there a good place to start? I once started with the mental hospital run (what was that even?) but I stopped because I’m not good at following on-going comics, and I’ve considered going back to the original 70s run (because I’m familiar with Bill Sienkiewicz’s art)
It REALLY depends on what you liked about the series, and what you expect from Moon Knight.
The absolute BEST run is the Lemire one, the one you call the Mental Hospital Run, which is… a very trippy story that happens completely in Marc’s mind as he comes to accept themselves as a System. It’s considered by many fans as THE Golden Run and it was the inspiration for about 90% of the series, only that the series doesn’t spend that long in the Mind world.
Second to that is the original Moench run, which is the 70’s, although you won’t se much of Marc there or the guys co-conscious. First because at the time, Moench wasn’t THAT informed on DiD, and second because it was a time where Steven and Jake? Did their BEST to forget that Marc existed. Unfortunately, it also has a LOT of Marlene Aralune, known among some comic fans like myself as the worst Girlfriend EVER.
I personally enjoy the second Moench run (A mini called Moon Knight from 1998) but it can be a bit trippy too if you haven’t read the original run.
If you want a lot of info on the ones that I have skipped, I am writing a primer on every single appearance of our boy that was not just one issue cameo, that you can find here: luxshine . tumblr . com / moonknightprimer (I write it with spaces because if I don’t? Tumblr turns it in just my tumblr’s first page). There I summarize EVERYTHING. The Good, the Bad, the Abysmal, and also have art samples in case you want to avoid the EDGE of the 2006 Liefield’s clones.
Can you imagine a Moon Knight run without ANY mention to the Alters, the System, Khonshu, or any of the supporting cast with the exception of Frenchie and Marlene? Because that’s what we got here.
The first problem is the writer. While Chuck Dixon has a long, long list of previous works that prove that the man knows how to write a comic, he is also self-described as “Slightly Right from Ghengis Khan” so in his 24 issue run? He pretty much disregards EVERYTHING about Moon Knight as a social warrior who fights for those who are left behind by society and instead puts him fighting against black terrorists, Muslims, and Latin American cartels. Also, we never find out if he even cared to read the old issues of Moon Knight as there’s literally not a single mention of the System in any of the 24 issues. Not even a “well, I created these identities to help me and I went a bit insane”.
So I am going to do a fast run on what was good and bad of the series, especially once Dixon left and we had some more capable (And less fascist) writers on deck. Although there was not much good here.
Oh, we started with the Punisher Annual as part of a crossover named Atlantis Attack? But it was nothing to write home about as since it was a Punisher book, we don’t even get to see who fronted at the time. I assumed Marc because, well, Marc pretty much fronted the whole time because the writers even forgot that at times Moon Knight was a separate alter.
It is THAT bad.
I mean, just for starters? Frenchie wants to kill people and think Marc not wanting to kill people is Marc going soft. Because there are people who deserve getting killed. Marlene is back, as Marc’s girlfriend, and her ex-husband is never ever mentioned again because Dixon didn’t read Fist of Khonshu. And we get the origin again because of course, Bushman has to be the first villain. And it took literally 19 pages of the first issue for Marlene to get back on the “BUT WHY do you have to be Moon Knight and help people?!” train. 19 pages. And here she is a gold digger who only gets placated when Marc gives her his gold card so she can buy herself whaever she wants.
Chuck Dixon, writer of great women… NOT.
We also begin the… I want to say “heroification”, of Marc Spector begins. I mean, previously, no writer shied away from the fact that yes, Marc had been a mercenary, and he had killed innocents only for money and thus, a lot of his work as Moon Knight was a sort of atonement. But here, Marlene, of ALL PEOPLE, tell Marc that sure, he was a merc, but neither he nor Frenchie were “doing it for the money” but usually worked “for the losing side” because it was a ”more noble battle” than what Marc is doing as Moon Knight.
YES, that is how far right Chuck Dixon is: Killing innocents for money is more noble than helping people escape gang life. (Oh, and Black African countries were sub-civilized and black rulers decided just to kill AIDS patients because they’re evil and that was the cure )
Now, I am not going to spend more on this than what I need to for the basics so, quick points: In 60 issues? We get TWO, yes, TWO mentions of the Alters. BOTH during nightmareish moments were Moon Knight is losing his humanity and becoming a demon, both around the end of the run. Other than that? Not a single peep. And they only speak in ONE of the nightmare moments. So in the sense of representation? This is probably the worst Moon Knight run. (I mean, it IS the worst Moon Knight run in general, but at least it doesn’t go the “evil” alter controls Moon Knight route?)
At some point, because Dixon forgot he was writing Moon Knight and not Batman, he introduces Anton Mogart (Midnight)’s son, Jeff Wilde, who is obsessed with being Moon Knight’s Sidekick and Tim Drake was popular. Unfortunately, Jeff is no Tim Drake, and after being annoying for 10 issues, he gets kidnapped, experimented on and turned into a cyborg by the evil Secret Empire and…. That particular Arc gets resolved in Spectacular Spider-man 353-358 because absolutely no one who followed Dixon’s run cared any about Midnight II. Although it’s funny to see Marc claiming that Moon Knight works solo… In front of Frenchie. And ignores Crawley, Gena, Gena’s kids and Marlene. Oh, and the fact that in a few issues after Dixon is gone? We’ll get introduced to the Shadow Cabinet, a group of about 10 people who now do Jake Lockley’s job of getting information for Moon Knight (which costs Marc a pretty penny when it’d be a lot cheaper to pay Crawley and get into a cab)
Dixon ignores Marc’s strength growing with the moon, and thus no writer that followed him remembered so we have NO idea how he lost that power since that came BEFORE Khonshu possessed him in West Coast Avengers.
Khonshu finally gets a mention in issue eleven, as “the Moldy Egypcian God” who resurrected Marc, and a little later Moon Knight is called Khonshu by African natives because “their priestess saw a vision” and it is very telling how Dixon only allows black people to believe in pagan gods. It isn’t until AFTER Dixon leaves when Marc starts praying to Khonshu again, and we get something interesting done with the God, even if he is still not back on Earth. Around issue 23, Marc seemed to remember his faith on Khonshu and started saying that the god found his enemies lacking but… it feels a lot like lip service after so many bad issues.
But when Dixon leaves, Howard Mackie comes in for a bit and introduces the very interesting concept of the Knights of Khonshu, a modern sect that follows the god and hates Moon Knight as they see him as a fake, an impostor and some, one who must die in the name of the True Avatar of the God. This is at first a one issue, interrupted by the very good but incredibly weird J.M. De Matteis run that deals with the now telepathic and pyrokinetic Stained Glass Scarlet, but it makes Marc start doubting if Khonshu is really a good God, given that the cult are quite extremists and tend to work with terrorists.
And here is where the ONLY interesting thing that the Marc Spector: Moon Knight series did with the character happens: On one hand we have the retcon that Marc wasn’t always at odds with Rabbi Spector. In fact, we’re now told that he WANTED to be a Rabbi like his dad when he was younger (This is on the De Matteis run, that has a LOT, and I mean a LOT of images where Khonshu turns into Rabbi Spector and vice versa). On the other… Randall Spector is back, as part of the Knights of Khonshu.
Because see, the crazy Hatchet was NOT Randall, but a vagrant brainwashed and made to look like Randall, in order to test Marc since Randall HAD been at the Seti tomb at the same time as Marc because he had been at the camp where Bushman and Marc had their first fight, and was convinced that Marc wanted to kill him, as, again, they were both mercenaries because, get this, Marc was following on Randall’s footsteps! Yep, good ol’ Randall was the one who convinced Marc to become a mercenary. Once in the tomb, he saw Marc’s resurrection, and went to the statue to beg for a chance to redeem himself, but was ignored by Khonshu. Thus, he stole a papyri and hooked up with the head priestess of the cult of Khonshu who told him that, if he killed Marc, then he’d be the real Moon Knight as long as the killing was done under a full moon and a very specific star configuration. Oh, and he gets made immune to pain, and calls himself Shadow Knight. During the fight, Randall hits Marc on the chest, and thus, gives him a moon crescent scar.
Also, it is weird to see them fighting “for the power of Khonshu” as at that moment? Marc has absolutely no superpowers. Like, none at all.
Of course, Marc wins, and Randall dies, AGAIN. But here’s the really interesting part: Once he beats Randall, Marc suddenly gains the (never used again) ability to read hyerogliphics as if they were English. And so, grabbing the papyr that Randall stole, he realizes that all this time, he’s been wrong: Khonshu is not the god of Vengance. He is the god of Justice. And thus, he decides to continue fighting for his god, under a new mission.
And then everything else in the series gets into a very bad case of the nineties so it’s a pain to read. I mean, Frenchie happens to be the last descendant of a Templar family who can bring on his ancestors into his body to fight for him. Marc first gets infected by the Demogoblin (the hobgoblin most demonic face created during Inferno) and turned into a demon, then cured with mystic surgery courtesy of Reed Richards and Dr. Strange, then discovers he IS half demon, descendant from a man who happens to look just like him, but calls himself Seth the Immortal. And TEN issues after that reveal? Marc dies killing Seth, and I am convinced he committed suicide just to get out of this horrible mess of a series (I mean, the art alone? Would make even Rob Liefeld weep)
Seriously, the only worthwhile thing in 60 issues is “Khonshu is not the god of Vengance, he is the god of Justice”.
And thankfully, in 1998, a new mini would come to erase all that was said here.
But that will be Part 6 because right now, I need a drink and I don’t drink!
(These are all from the original 1980 run, except the chicken wings panel- from an Ultimate spiderman comic- and the burning pants one- #191 from the 2016 run)
(Moon Knight comics spoilers… but like this is the only good thing in this particular comic book run in my opinion)
That’s a reference to one of the comic books! Marc pushes away his love interest from the comics -similarly to how he did with Layla in the series- but Jake isn’t exactly on board with the plan so him and the love interest (her name is Marlene) keep meeting behind the other alters’ back.
Marc only finds out about this years later and… surprise! Marlene has a daughter that looks to be about 8-ish y/o. Her name is Diatrice, because her mom lets her change her name every time she wants! And lets her have pink hair! (cute)
Also Jake knows that Marlene doesn’t actually love him but Marc (although it’s unclear, especially in other comic books), so he spent these years visiting the two of them while telling Diatrice that he’s “her uncle” so that Marc can be the dad when he finds out. Eventually though Marc explains to her that he has DID, so Marc and Jake are both dads :)
Which is good because Jake looked fucking sad about not getting to be Diatrice’s dad too. Also he keeps reminding Marc to keep her safe every five seconds, it’s adorable.
