Ravingnerd Reviews: Moon Knight #1

As promised, I have decided to do an old fashioned review of Moon Knight. To be fair, I wasn’t super excited about this book. I have always enjoyed Moon Knight, but was taken aback by his new look. Given how abruptly his most recent series ended and how much I found myself drawn in by it, I wasn’t sure I would be able to get behind another concept. Yet with Warren Ellis at the helm, the book was bound to have some potential. Here is what I liked about it.

1. Declan Shalvey’s art is fantastic. The book is well drawn from front to back, often having Shalvey’s rendering of the character snatch the scene. The colorist also is to be credited here, as his dynamic contrast of the dark and gritty with the white is to be applauded.
2. The opening of the book, where Moon Knight is seen in the street arguing with Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America is a brilliant reference to the previous series.
3. He’s brilliant. In just a few pages, Ellis makes sure the readers know that Moon Knight is far more than a psychotic. He’s also a brilliant detective.
4. The final scene, where he is looking at all of his other personalities. Pure brilliance.

Rating before reading: 6
Rating after reading: 8

This book was one of the most solid reads I’ve seen in a while. Stemming off of the Hawkeye effect, if you remove the character from the rest of the heroes, you are left with a fascinating character. One who is even more dynamic solo. Moon Knight #1 proved to us that he is in fact not insane, but damaged. This way of telling the story of an insane hero is different than it has ever been done before. With such a complicated and awkward history, it would be easy for a lesser creator to get the character wrong, yet Ellis does it masterfully. Though I still think I prefer the original, the solid white formal suit flows so well with the art of the book that I can’t really complain about it. Ultimately this book succeeds in a similar manner to Hawkeye. A talented team removing the hero from the heroic universe. With narrative’s focused on just a few heroes. It’s an odd pick, but with Ellis on board I think Moon Knight could grow to rival Hawkeye as Marvel’s premiere title. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Until the next time,

Rn

Wednesday Round Up

Hello all! I have been rather silent lately, and for that I will apologize.

I was originally going to wait to post again until next week, but something remarkable happened. Moon Knight. So I decided that I would take the time before work to address the high’s and lows of last weeks comics, before I dive into my stack for this week (Batgirl, Royals, and Hawkeye!)

Moon Knight #1: This book makes me want to do a proper review, so I will be posting one about that shortly. I will attach the link here once it is completed.

Magneto #1: This book was different than I expected, as the internal dialogue of the character emphasized what I like about villains. Instead of getting a long monologue with stereotypical villainous schemes, we find Magneto contemplating himself and his past actions as he hunts down a killer who target mutants. This reflection on who he is and admission that he is a bad guy, was well worth the read.

Green Arrow #29: Much like Batman and Two-Face #28 went under the radar, I think this book will too. The ending of Batman and went largely unnoticed, even though it saw the demise of Two-Face. This book too has a shocking ending, as an arrow glides smoothly through Ollie’s face, leaving him dead on the ground. Granted this is a comic, and dead isn’t dead, the last scene is rather startling. This book did have one major flaw, in my mind. Diggle. This book forces the character down our throat in an attempt to have some semblance of continuity with the Arrow television show. I for one prefer my two separate. TV and film are where comic characters go to die, and having a stellar book like Green Arrow feel like it needs to stoop down and attract the audience of a shitty television show is disgusting.

Arkham War #6: Much like Green Arrow, I was disappointed by the conclusion to what was one of the best Forever Evil tie ins. Instead of having the final scene with Bane taking control of the city, I found myself distracted by this.

Really? It’s been almost two years since the film debuted, yet someone at DC decided now was a time to incorporate Bane’s Dark Knight Rises jacket? I’m not even sure what he said for the last two pages as I was appalled that Bane was doing his best Tom Hardy impression. What could have been a dramatic and important conclusion just turned into a distracting reminder of what I dislike.

Earth Two #29: While I have sung the praises of Tom Taylor early in his run, I am beginning to grow weary of this book every month. For three issues now, nothing has happened. More people die, while the plot isn’t significantly advanced. Early on we saw the death of Green Lantern, Doctor Fate is not legitimately crazy, the Atom is either armless or dead, and the list of casualties continues to grow. It’s not as if I dislike bad things happening in my comics, but the overwhelming amount of bad has gotten difficult to read.

That concludes my thoughts for some of the talking points from last week. I will post my review of Moon Knight #1 shortly for your reading pleasure.

Until the next time,

Rn