Moon Knight 1: From the Dead

Comic Info

Moon Knight #1 (Variant Cover)

Reprints Moon Knight (6) #1-6 (May 2014-October 2014).  Moon Knight is back and doing what he does best.  Battling his insanity, Marc Specter sets out to solve the crimes that other superheroes ignore.  This time Moon Knight is working alone and the crimes have never been tougher…and Moon Knight finds he’s making himself a target once again.

Written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Declan Shalvey, Moon Knight 1:  From the Dead is Marvel’s latest attempt to relaunch the superhero who first appeared in Werewolf by Night #32 (August 1975).  The series was released to critical praise, and the first six issues of the book are collected for a creative team shake-up.

Moon Knight was one of the characters that first got me into comics and one of the first comics I bought when I went to a “real” comic bookstore.  The original series was a direct series and I had seen Moon Knight in a Marvel puzzle that I obsessed over as a kid.  I got the original Moon Knight #1 (November 1980) and was sorely disappointed as a kid since Moon Knight was simply Batman without cool villains…something that this book both suffers from and uses to its advantage.

Moon Knight #5

Moon Knight just has never stuck with an audience, but this is the best outing of recent attempts to popularize the very niche based character.  The book feels a lot like Moon Knight’s original title with very little attention paid to character development, stand-alone issues, and villains that were all second rate.  The difference is that the story and art take precedence in this series and for what Ellis and Shalvey are going for, it does sort of work.

It is very unusual today to see a book not divided into story arcs and it takes a bit of getting use to here.  Each issue is a simple story and that is my biggest complaint about the series.  If you are focusing on a single story, I hope the story is good.  Here, the stories are so-so, but this is overwritten by the fantastic art.

More than anything, Declan Shalvey saves this book.  His style and look for Moon Knight is pitch perfect and ironically he does it by virtually eliminating one of the coolest things about Moon Knight.  Moon Knight always had one of my favorite costumes and it always lends itself to really cool renditions.  Shalvey takes Moon Knight out of his “cool” costume but still manages to make him even cooler.

Moon Knight 1:  From the Dead is a good (and definitely quick) read.  It isn’t very heavy on words, but it is loaded with fantastic art that really keeps the story moving.  I’m really scared for this book in the future since both Declan and Shalvey are leaving the book in the hands of Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood…both of which don’t even compare to this combo.  Regardless if Moon Knight is destine to fall again, Moon Knight 1:  From the Dead is worth the read.