Written by Jed MacKay
Art by Alessandro Cappuccio
Published by Marvel Comics
Boy howdy, this issue.
We had the setup for Dr. Badr, a disciple still loyal to the moon god Khonshu, to go toe-to-toe with Moon Knight. The guy did betray and imprison their god, after all. And so this purist, this pedant named Hunter’s Moon, is ready to re-educate Moon Knight into being a proper Fist of Khonshu.
In other words, he’s gonna beat the crap out of Moon Knight to persuade him back to the glowing light in the night.
Hunter’s Moon refers to himself as Fist of Khonshu, and when Moon Knight replies that he’s the Fist, Hunter’s Moon corrects him. “Even a man has two fists, Marc Spector. How arrogant you must be to assume a god, our god, would have only one.”
And so they fight. The whole issue, they fight.
Hunter’s Moon derides Moon Knight’s fighting style as clumsy and brutal, lacking the efficient beauty from gaining the skill of every Fist that came before him in some kind of magical mental download.
“Guess it was already too crowded in there,” Moon Knight replies about his own mind, referencing his dissociative identity disorder.
Moon Knight already has beef with Hunter’s Moon for attacking his vampire assistant Reese. Hunter’s Moon, ever the purist, says vampires are their mortal enemies because they prey on people who travel at night.
But earlier in the issue, Moon Knight explained to Reese that he would not harm vampires because they’re vampires, only if they are committing evil. Moon Knight explains that the vampires who turned Reese and her friends were kidnappers and murderers.
In that earlier scene, Moon Knight sets up that he acts with violence and brutality toward his enemies. And it’s startling to hear Reese voice her fears about Moon Knight and his capacity for violence.
“I did all those things,” Moon Knight says. “And more.”
Moon Knight doesn’t start the fight with Hunter’s Moon, but a the fight progresses, it takes a turn where you see the kind of brutal violence that he promised in the beginning of the story. And even though Moon Knight saves the day (well, night) by bashing in somebody’s super-powered skull with a baseball bat, did that moment only confirm those stories that Reese had heard.
It’s another good read with killer art by Alessandro Cappuccio and heroic color work by Rachelle Rosenberg that leaves me godsmacked over lal the ways Moon Knight glows.
