In recent years, Moon Knight has been a recurring character at Marvel Comics, with different iterations of the character being frequent but short-lived. The most recent run of the series, by Max Bemis and Jacen Burrows, ended last October and the title has yet to be relaunched. For the next 12 weeks, in this summer plagued by a Moon Knight drought, I’ll be bringing you my thoughts on Bendis and Maleev’s run as part of our Summer Comics Binge.
“Moon Knight” #11
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Pencilled by Alex Maleev
Colored by Matt Hollingsworth
Lettered by VC’s Cory PetitMoon Knight has fallen into the Abyss of his multiple personalities! What force on Earth can bring him back from the brink? Enter: the Avengers!
It’s the penultimate issue of Bendis and Maleev’s run on “Moon Knight” and it’s explosive!
It opens with Marc and Buck using one of Captain America’s secure lines to contact S.H.I.E.L.D. to get them to pinpoint the location of the Ultron head using the tracker Buck put on it. After this, we see Masque in a secret location, in conversation to her father, Count Nefaria. She’s trying to be included in his plans for the Ultron unit and has a pretty helpful bargaining chip: the Ultron head. Bendis wastes no time with this opening though, with it only taking up four pages of the book, devoting almost the entire remainder of the book to Moon Knight facing off against Masque, with Buck assisting.
The fight sequence itself is great and showcases Moon Knight finally using all his Avenger weaponry at once. Moreover, Moon Knight gets beaten up to the point that his mask is almost non-existent, and nothing quite says the climax of a superhero story like a torn-up mask. Maleev’s panel work breaks away from his usual style, which is usually quite square and rectangular (not that it suffered from that), with more diagonal panels being implemented which gives a dizzying feel to Moon Knight and Masque’s acrobatic fight. This break away in the artwork is even built up to, with the double page for Masque’s phone call having panels that gradually grow along the top row, before tilting to one side along the bottom. By doing this, there’s a real unease in the scene as well as a sense of movement in a series of panels that could otherwise have been mundane. The only criticism that I’d have of the fight sequence is that Moon Knight appears to stab Masque with his Wolverine claws, but she carries on seemingly unaffected, with the wounds invisible.
Whilst Moon Knight and Masque are fighting, Buck sneaks in to steal the Ultron head and once again, after a close call at the end of last week’s issue, Buck is almost killed again. As he makes his getaway in his car, Masque shoots the gas tank and the car explodes. Let’s hope that he doesn’t fall on the third time (un)lucky next week. Madame Masque, on the other hand, is not so lucky and doesn’t make it out of the fight alive. There’s a moment after her death where Marc takes off her mask to show her face unscarred (unlike what was rumoured in last week’s issue) and the Wolverine personality comments that she is crazier than Moon Knight. This small moment in the comic felt like it should have been a larger and had a great emotional weight attached to it, but unfortunately it was quickly over and hadn’t been invested into in previous issues.
With the knowledge of the series coming to an end after the next issue, having Masque’s thread tied up makes sense, but it’s a shame that we didn’t get to explore more of the conflict between her and Count Nefaria. Her death leaves us wondering what it was that Nefaria told her over the phone about his plans. I’m sure we’ll find out next week.
Towards the end of the fight, Marc is knocked unconscious momentarily and a new voice starts to speak in his head. This new voice is none other than Echo’s. Her return, albeit in an imaginary form, is a welcome one and provides Marc with a rallying speech in a crucial moment. It also gives Marc a much needed second voice that will be able to compete with the ever-raging Wolverine personality. Hers is a much more level-headed voice that he is likely to need in the final clash against Count Nefaria. That final clash though, will only come about should Count Nefaria be able to evade the police forces that have turned up on his doorstep. He will, of course. There’s surely no way that this series ends with Nefaria simply being arrested. It will be interesting to see whether he somehow manages to talk his way out of the situation with the police or whether he will be forced to use his powers, even though he may not be fully recovered yet.
Overall – “Moon Knight” #11 is an action-packed penultimate issue that closes off a couple of threads and primes the series for its finale.