Moon Knight #1

Warren Ellis brings back the intelligent, perceived as insane, and mysterious Marc Spector in the highly anticipated Moon Knight #1.

In the latest Moon Knight #1, Spector returns to New York with unknown intentions. The boys in blue don’t seem to mind Moon Knights arrival, at least the salty dogs don’t anyway, while a violent killer is loose in the darkest alleys of NY.

Marc Spector takes more of a detective role than a super hero one in Moon Knight #1, something I was less than excited about. Less than excited is really how I feel about Moon Knight #1. While the book is very well written by Warren Ellis, the white knight never dons his iconic hood, has bounding confidence, and is well aware of his “illness”. Something that makes Moon Knight such an appealing character is his constant struggle with sanity, his insecurities,  that and his ties to the West Coast, now Ellis has taken both of those things away.

Something noticeably different about Moon Knight #1 however, was Declan Shalvey‘s art, one that puts Moon Knight in the forefront of every scene. His whitest of whites emmits power from every page, the dark and gritty world is just a fog behind Moon Knight. It’s really all quite brilliant and really makes the book stand apart from others on the shelves.

While Moon Knight #1 didn’t meet my expectations, which bar was set pretty high after much selfish anticipation, and following Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev‘s book of the same name, it’s still an undeniably good book, just one I wasn’t expecting. Moon Knight is different, he’s not the same Marc Spector. Maybe he is, maybe this is the character he was always meant to be, but I’m just not ready for that type of Moon Knight I guess.