Reading issue 199 of Moon Knight was a harrowing experience. It is a tough and tedious read which sees an exhausted Marc Spector and a dapper Uncle Ernst shoved into panels overcrowded with Lovecraftian monsters and endless speech bubbles as Ernst attempts to break Marc’s mind...again. Aided by the psychedelic influence of the numerous drugs pumped into Marc’s body, Ernst seems to be trying to show Moon Knight that it’s okay to be a monster because everyone else is? I framed that sentence as a question because it's unclear what Ernst’s point or goal is in berating Marc with his stream of consciousness soliloquy, but by the end Marc breaks free from the drugs’ influence and Khonshu sets Ernst’s heart on fire. Oh and on the final page Sun King returns.

 I can’t sugarcoat it dear readers, issue 199 is the worst kind of faux-topical social commentary whose hackneyed use of buzzwords and phrases like ‘gentrification’ and ‘Me Too; alienate the very readers those topics are meant to galvanize. Ernst’s eye-wateringly long monologuing is blaringly unpolished, confusing, and self-indulgent and instead of leading the audience to a deeper understanding and consequent hatred for Ernst, Bemis’ writing becomes this issue’s worst villain. What I don’t understand is why the previous two issues made every effort to rush through plot points and character development just to lead up to an issue so self-indulgent and meandering.

All I can say is thank Khonshu for Paul Davidson’s artwork. As difficult as this issue was to read, I honestly loved looking at the art. From the open-palmed slap Marc receives from a hipster dad walking by on the street, to the puffy ‘Dazzler’ winter coat he dons at the end of the issue, and all the hairy, slimy, winged, horned, and tentacled creatures in between Davidson delivers. In an issue where we do not see Moon Knight out in full regalia, for an artist to make every inch of every panel interesting and expressive almost eclipses the poor quality of the writing. It doesn’t make up for it, but at the very least it gives you images worth throwing down $3.99 for.

I don’t know what happened with this issue readers. The stream of consciousness feel of Ernst’s speeches try to establish that the sadist society he founded has been as far reaching and influential as the Hand or Hydra but the delivery doesn’t inspire dread or awe in Marc or the reader. There was a vicious simplicity to Ernst when he was introduced as the author of all Marc’s pain, he was an elder terror who vanished mysteriously never to be seen again. But what Bemis turned him into, the leader of shadow society who caused gentrification in Brooklyn, is pretty uninspiring and dull.

​I am aware that Mr. Bemis experienced some pretty significant mental health issues while writing the final issues of this run of Moon Knight, and while I empathize and understand those factors, the work must stand on its own, and in this case, it sadly does not. Moon Knight 200 is a pretty significant milestone, and it marks the return of creators David Finch (on a variant cover), Jeff Lemire (on an interior page), and Moon Knight legend Bill Sienkiewicz (on an interior page). At 32 pages long the final issue of Max Bemis’ run on Moon Knight is quite literally a big one and I really hope that it concludes with the fun, wackiness, and character that I know Bemis is capable of. Until Next Time, Geek On!

After the disappointment of the previous issue, Moon Knight 198 is not exactly a return to form but certainly a step in the right direction. In this issue I am most grateful for the newfound coordination between artist Jacen Burrows and colorist Matt Milla making this issue’s purple tinged backdrop a huge improvement over last month’s disjointed mayhem. Thankfully, issue 198 also marks the return of Bemis’ peculiar whacky tone for the jet and silver avenger as he pits Moon Knight against the Societe des Sadique’s six trials for induction.
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Trial one sees Moon Knight killing and eating a rabid dolphin, in the second he mutilates an unethical torture farmer, and in the third he is diagnosed as suffering from multiple incurable neuroses by Greg Salinger, also known as the Foolkiller (another character which Max Bemis wrote for Marvel in 2017). Trial number four sees the return of one of Moon Knight’s most iconic and terrifying villains, Morpheus the Dream Eater, depicted briefly in this issue casually sipping a soda as he subjects Moon Knight to five hours of unseen nightmare torture. In trial five Marc easily defeats the other four inductee hopefuls in a bloody battle royale and in the final trial Marc Spector and Jake Lockley fight over whether they should murder an innocent little girl in order to save their own child. Thankfully, Moon Knight’s decision is the one that doesn’t turn him into a child killing monster and the issue ends with a defiant lunar legionnaire ready to face down the collective might of the Society of Sadists.

Unfortunately, this issue suffers as much from a sense of running out of time as the previous issue. Six trials, a very brief throwback cameo, and a clash of personality dynamics between Marc Spector and Jake Lockley are simply too many things to jam-pack into one issue. To lament the missed opportunity of having Morpheus’ lackluster return on the basis of nostalgia alone is to descend into fanboy nonsense, however the cavalier and offhanded treatment of this cameo by Bemis himself gets at something more frustrating and problematic. 

Now the rather blasé demeanor of Morpheus within this cameo as he casually sips soda and torments Marc’s psyche is tonally consistent with Bemis’ sense of humor throughout this series (I mean Marc fights and eats a rabid dolphin in the first few pages of the issue). But the Dream Eater’s halfhearted remembrance, ‘That’s for the time with thing’ demonstrates a willful omission, almost a deliberate laziness in Bemis who seems to acknowledge Moon Knight’s history with this character but not really. This cameo also suffers from its proximity to the previous arc which primarily took place within a dreamlike psyche-scape. Bemis’ decision to tell and not show us Morpheus’ subconscious torment of Marc seems to cheat us out of the visual spectacle we know this series to be capable of but this omission also seems to be the product of having only 3 issues left in the run. Had there been more time between the conclusion of the previous arc and the appearance of Morpheus, and were Bemis not exiting after issue 200, Morpheus’ return and the nightmares that he subjects Moon Knight to could have been expanded upon in all their visual splendor. But as Bemis’ is running out of time and issues before his departure, Morpheus’ inclusion in this issue seems merely tacked on and ultimately unsatisfying.
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Perhaps more problematic though is the unearned final confrontation between Marc and Jake over whether they are capable of murdering a little girl in order to save their daughter Diatrice. Now the legitimacy of this final exchange banks on the audience’s willingness to believe the extremes to which Jake Lockley is willing to go to protect his daughter and the bubbling over tension between his and Marc Spector’s conflicting philosophies. The problem with that is that the last true discussion of Jake’s wanton violence and Marc’s problems with his methods was 8 issues ago. The conflict between these two identities has not been gradually unfolding over that period of time which would indicate to us that Jake is capable of such cruelty or that his frustration with taking over the jobs too depraved and violent for Marc or Steven has reached the tipping point. So when Jake lashes out at Marc for his timidity and decides to murder an innocent child it seems to come out of nowhere. You don’t believe Jake capable of such horror and so his last minute ‘change of heart’ carries no weight whatsoever.

Issue 198’s artwork is very much a return to form as Jacen Burrows’ Moon Knight is dynamic, brutal, and stylish as we’ve come to expect from the ‘Crazy Runs in the Family’ arc. With only two issues left before the end of his tenure on Moon Knight I’m not sure what Bemis has in store for the jet and silver avenger, but I am eager to find out. Until Next Time, Geek On!

A disappointing follow-up to a particularly refreshing 2 issue arc, Moon Knight #197 feels rushed, unbalanced, and unfocused. Introducing yet another team of all new villains brought together by a common uniting philosophy, (this time they are all twisted hopefuls jockeying for induction into the macabre ‘Societe des Sadiques’) Bemis spends most of this issue rehashing and extending the formula of issue 195’s prologue.
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We are introduced to four Society of Sadists applicants with specialized methods of doling out pain and suffering at a candlelit dinner who lay their case for induction at the feet of a mysterious robed figure at the head of the table. In turn the snuff photographer, the mob boss assassin, the casual mass murderer serial killer, and the punk rock body piercer describe their sadistic tastes and origins. They are then joined by a fifth uninvited dinner guest. Revealing himself to be Moon Knight, Marc takes his seat at the table and makes a case of his own for induction into the society by reassuring all those in attendance that he’s going to beat the hell out of all of them and enjoy doing so immensely. Before all hell breaks loose the hooded figure and founder of the Society reveals himself to be Uncle Ernst, (the super powered Nazi whose wanton cruelty and violence caused Marc’s very first psychological break) and as the issue ends, he embraces Moon Knight, welcoming him to participate in the ritual for admission into the Society of Sadists.

Unfortunately, this issue manages to feel both rushed and like filler as Ernst’s return (an event that seemed to be setup for a much later issue/arc) comes only 3 issues after his introduction in this series and the 14-page exploration of this newest motley crew drags on and on rather instead of furthering the plot. Ernst’s return and introducing another ragtag bunch of villains so soon after the Collective makes it feel as if there were supposed to be issues in between 196 and the events of this one, as if Bemis had to rush to reintroduce Ernst in time for his final issue, number 200. We don’t have time to forget Ernest and be surprised by his return which seems like a wasted opportunity. If Bemis had sent Marc on a mission to infiltrate the society of sadists and spent an issue or two with our hero following rumors and leads gleaned from broken and bloody middlemen and perhaps working his way through these new bad guys on his way to a mysterious central figure, the surprise of that last panel embrace would feel earned rather than cheap and rushed. Dropping us in at the banquet for new inductees with no build up makes us ask why do we care about this group, and why was it so easy for Moon Knight to find if Ernst has been alive, at large, and in the shadows for all of Marc’s career as Moon Knight.  

Not even the art could save this one for me as one of the most jarring miscalculations of this issue was the pairing of returning artist Jacen Burrows with newcomer colorist Matt Mila. After the refreshing indie-pastel combination of Paul Davidson and series regular Matt Lopes on colors in the previous 2 issues this book feels out of sync. As we explore each of the prospective society inductees’ history of cruelty the warmth of the colors used and their similarity to those used in the narrative frame of the banquet muddle the attempt at setting those flashbacks apart. And even when the color shift is dramatic, as it is in the flashbacks of the body piercer, the jolt away from the expected color scheme is more jarring than refreshing. The panels all seem to have this firelight glow that is more distracting than contributing to an underlying tone or perspective.

Frankly, this issue is a mess and tonally it doesn’t even have Bemis’ unique wackiness to fall back on as a positive. It’s unclear what we can expect from the rest of this arc but I hope that my disappointment with this issue means that it can only get better. Until Next Time, Geek On!