YMMV / Moon Knight (2021)

• Awesome Art: Alessandro Cappuccio's expert use of high-contrast black and white mixed with judicious coloring gives Moon Knight a downright ethereal appearance.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Dr. Badr calls himself the "left hand" of Khonshu, as opposed to Moon Knight being the right hand. The left hand is often associated with darkness and is literally called the "sinister" hand, as opposed to the right hand being the "dexter" hand. There is also the Left-hand path and right-hand path in magic, where the right-hand is associated with "white magic," while the left-hand is associated with "black magic." Accordingly, where Spector wears a white costume, Badr wears a black one.
  • Dr. Sterman asks if being a priest of Khonshu while also Jewish is a contradiction. While Mr. Knight says that "contradictions are nothing new to me," there is the fact that Judaism is an ethnoreligion, so Marc Spector can be ethnically and culturally Jewish and religiously a part of the Cult of Khonshu without there being any contradiction. This is also why there are Jewish atheists.
• Salvaged Story:
  • After Max Bemis' attempted Revisiting the Roots run garnered mixed reception, Jed MacKay's run now sees the return of Marc Spector's default alter ego to being Mr. Knight, Jake Lockley's Took a Level in Jerkass being rolled back via Character Rerailment, Steven Grant being restored to prominence after decades of being Out of Focus, and a tone not dissimilar to Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey's highly regarded 2014 run.
  • While past runs have are usually regarded as Fair for Its Day when it comes to the handling of Marc's schizophrenia/dissociative identity disorder and battles with mental illness, they have also been criticized for dipping into the Insane Equals Violent trope in some uncomfortable ways, with the deliberate Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane ambiguity of the nature of his DID being seen as unhelpful. MacKay's run has been praised for being one of the most nuanced takes on his condition, and Steven and Jake give Marc a What the Hell, Hero? and are emphatically clear that the problems in Marc's life have nothing to do with his neurodivergence and all to do with his own willful self-destructive behaviors and Wangst, and that he's actually making life harder for them rather than the other way around.
• Tear Jerker: It's hard not to feel some sympathy for 8-Ball, a Sleepwalker rogue, for having lost his legitimate job because of his gambling addiction, his criminal career making him a Super Loser and his determination not to be the guy everyone thought he was.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It's revealed several issues in that Marlene and the daughter she had with Marc both left him after the events of Jason Aaron's "Fist of Khonshu" story, which was one of the few positives in Bemis' run. While Marlene is something of a minor Base-Breaking Character in the franchise (mostly owing to her Depending on the Writer characterisation), and Bemis' writing didn't exactly paint her well, many fans liked the idea of Marc healing and the two becoming a more stable couple, and their daughter was a likeable kid character.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Zodiac was a character introduced in Dark Reign and has not been seen since the Vengeance miniseries in 2012. As you can imagine, him reappearing as an Arc Villain 9 years later was quite a surprise.
  • The House of Shadows. It was a minor Doctor Strange villain with only 3 appearances and 3 mentions in reference materials, with it last appearing in 1992. It returning 30 years later and even becoming a kinda regular character as the new home base of Moon Knight was definitely a surprise. Period.
  • Yi Yang, so far mentioned but not seen, is a villain from Marvel UK's 1980s Night Raven stories. She mostly appeared in Alan Moore and Jamie Delano's text stories and has only appeared a couple of times in Marvel's American comics. Unlike her previous comic appearances, this immediately restores her status as The Dreaded.
  • Nobody expected a Z-list loser like 8-Ball to be given a long character arc leading to his redemption.

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