Written by Joel T. Lewis 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. 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. 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!
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