sfletcher26's review against another edition
4.0
Reading this series a bit out of order but this is good. Moon Knight is a great dark character that could be thought to be Marvel's Dark Knight. in the Hands of Ellis though it is so much more and because of who the character is Ellis is able to do so much more with him.
Would love to see Marvel bring this to the screens.
Would love to see Marvel bring this to the screens.
jekutree's review against another edition
5.0
With the Disney+ show just being announced I thought it was time to revisit one of my favorite comics of all time, Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire’s short stint on Moon Knight. This is my third or fourth time reading through these 6 perfect issues and I wanted to highlight what all three of these creators managed to accomplish in this masterclass of comics.
Warren Ellis simplifies Moon Knight in order to create short, impactful stories. He takes a character that could be seen as a bit complicated and simplifies him to fit him into any story he wanted to tell. A story about mercenaries that switched to corporate Wall Street type guys getting whacked one by one by a former associate? Check. A story about punk rock ghosts assaulting people in Manhattan? Check. A story about a bunch of patients at a sleep research facility having the same dreams and going crazy for it? Check. Warren Ellis makes Moon Knight his malleable play-thing to insert him into any story of his choosing. Ellis’s voice for Moon Knight might be my favorite any writer had had for Moon Knight. Sure, I love Lemire’s vulnerable Marc Spector but Ellis’s Moon Knight is cold, brutal and to the point. Also, the plots I mentioned before are all great. Each issue is a self contained story that feels satisfying and fun to read. There isn’t a bad issue in the lot.
Declan Shalvey absolutely murders the art on this book. This book is sequential art at its finest, there aren’t many other books that radiate as much energy from every panel. Issue 5 might be the best use of the medium for action that has ever been done. Shalvey’s art is kinetic and paints a very very vivid picture in your brain of all the action on the page. Issue 2 also has a really clever use of a 6 panel grid in where someone is killing a bunch 6 different people and each panel tells the story of a different person up until they got shot. You’d turn the page and one panel would be taken away (after they got killed) until there was one panel left. I don’t know if this was Ellis’s idea, Shalvey’s idea or both, but it’s brilliant and one of my favorite uses of comic book paneling ever.
Jordie Bellaire is the perfect colorist for Shalvey. I’m like 99% sure they’re married (and that’s awesome, I’m so happy for them) and they definitely have the synergy of a married couple. Issue 4 in particular has some fantastic colors when Moon Knight enters the dream world. But I’d like to highlight the use of white in this run. Again, I’m not sure if this was Shalvey or Bellaire, but MK’s cape is often blended with negative space, bleeding outside of the panel borders. It makes him appear all encompassing which is perfect for the character.
Overall, this Moon Knight Run is a landmark achievement in sequential art, visual story telling and the entire comic book medium.
10/10, what an excellent book definitely in my top 5 marvel books.
Warren Ellis simplifies Moon Knight in order to create short, impactful stories. He takes a character that could be seen as a bit complicated and simplifies him to fit him into any story he wanted to tell. A story about mercenaries that switched to corporate Wall Street type guys getting whacked one by one by a former associate? Check. A story about punk rock ghosts assaulting people in Manhattan? Check. A story about a bunch of patients at a sleep research facility having the same dreams and going crazy for it? Check. Warren Ellis makes Moon Knight his malleable play-thing to insert him into any story of his choosing. Ellis’s voice for Moon Knight might be my favorite any writer had had for Moon Knight. Sure, I love Lemire’s vulnerable Marc Spector but Ellis’s Moon Knight is cold, brutal and to the point. Also, the plots I mentioned before are all great. Each issue is a self contained story that feels satisfying and fun to read. There isn’t a bad issue in the lot.
Declan Shalvey absolutely murders the art on this book. This book is sequential art at its finest, there aren’t many other books that radiate as much energy from every panel. Issue 5 might be the best use of the medium for action that has ever been done. Shalvey’s art is kinetic and paints a very very vivid picture in your brain of all the action on the page. Issue 2 also has a really clever use of a 6 panel grid in where someone is killing a bunch 6 different people and each panel tells the story of a different person up until they got shot. You’d turn the page and one panel would be taken away (after they got killed) until there was one panel left. I don’t know if this was Ellis’s idea, Shalvey’s idea or both, but it’s brilliant and one of my favorite uses of comic book paneling ever.
Jordie Bellaire is the perfect colorist for Shalvey. I’m like 99% sure they’re married (and that’s awesome, I’m so happy for them) and they definitely have the synergy of a married couple. Issue 4 in particular has some fantastic colors when Moon Knight enters the dream world. But I’d like to highlight the use of white in this run. Again, I’m not sure if this was Shalvey or Bellaire, but MK’s cape is often blended with negative space, bleeding outside of the panel borders. It makes him appear all encompassing which is perfect for the character.
Overall, this Moon Knight Run is a landmark achievement in sequential art, visual story telling and the entire comic book medium.
10/10, what an excellent book definitely in my top 5 marvel books.
jcschildbach's review against another edition
4.0
This is my favorite iteration of Moon Knight since Huston and Finch were charged with re-booting the character back in 2006. One big bonus is that they move away from the mental health diagnoses that have been tossed around in the last few works, when he was labeled as having schizophrenia or Dissociative Idenity Disorder (DID). The DID is brought up in the beginning of this book, but later refuted in favor of a "spiritual" explanation of Moon Knight's multiple personalities as different aspects of the god Khonshu, who resurrected Moon Knight. Anyway, the writing and artwork is pretty stripped down here. Despite bringing up characters from Moon Knight's past, the storylines are (mostly) confined to single issues (or were confined to single issues when they were published as single issues). The action sequences are easy to follow--which is pretty important given how crucial they are to most of the storytelling here. And, while I enjoyed Huston and Finch's broken and disturbed Spector, with all the lush artwork, Ellis and Shalvey's simpler take on the character--as a vigilante devoted to protecting those innocents who travel at night--works better than any of the other versions of Moon Knight that took place after Huston and Finch left.
joshgauthier's review against another edition
3.0
A notably different tone than we got from Bendis, but with a character as strange as Moon Knight, I suppose that's hardly a surprise. This volume delivers a more brutal vigilante dealing with a variety of strange cases. The strong art and stark white of the title character stand out, but the disconnected stories mostly lack depth and are difficult to connect with beyond a series of events. Even Marc Spector's personalities take a back seat to each scenario, introduced and then resolved over the course of a separate issue.
ostrava's review against another edition
2.0
Cool art work, but this is mid-tier Ellis. The whole volume could be summed up in:
"A (superhero backstory) and he beats down a couple of baddies while being a bit more eccentric than the usual."
Sorry but I don't get the hype.
"A (superhero backstory) and he beats down a couple of baddies while being a bit more eccentric than the usual."
Sorry but I don't get the hype.
friendlyozi's review against another edition
3.0
This was... okay. The story isn't much more than something to justify the aesthetics and cool scenes and those are nice, but I kind of expected a little more from the character and plot. I'll be skipping ahead to the 2016 MK.