"Moon Knight" #5 Review

I’ve been eagerly reading comics by Warren Ellis for the last fifteen years and with his latest title for Marvel Comics, “Moon Knight”, he seems to be taking a dramatic stand for the power of a great standalone issue. I love a great 12-issue story arc as much as the next reader, but these self-contained issues by Ellis have been a breath of fresh air. Working with artist Declan Shalvey, Ellis has quickly made “Moon Knight” one of the books I look forward to the most each month, making the fact there is only issue to go a source of deep unhappiness for me. What I love about the book is its accessibility. Whether a reader knows every appearance of Moon Knight by heart or is discovering the character for the first time, all the information the reader needs to know is contained within each story. Marc Spector is completely insane. Marc Spector takes his fashion tips from an Egyptian moon god. And Marc Spector absolutely kicks ass as the vigilante Moon Knight.

When I read this tweet by Warren Ellis yesterday, “Oh, MOON KNIGHT 5 is out today, which is our Continuous Savage Beatings In A Tony Jaa / RAID Boombastic Thai Style issue,” I knew I was in for a treat. What this issue reminded me of most was the classic 1984 standup arcade game, “Kung Fu Master”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezpzZUDn8QA In this issue, Moon Knight is looking for a kidnapped girl and he must fight his way up through six levels of a dilapidated building with every kind of thug and sociopath blocking his way as he makes his ascent. The action is every bit worthy of Ellis’s comparison to the movie “The Raid” with some of the most ruthless violence Ellis and Shalvey have concocted so far in their run on the title. Perfectly balanced with the action is Ellis’s signature gallows humor with Spector at one point complaining about the cost of his toys due to being unemployed. 

The flip side of this light tone are those panels where Ellis reminds us what a cold blooded mercenary Marc Spector once was with some one-liners delivered by Moon Knight that would give even the Punisher or Batman goose bumps. If you haven’t picked up this series yet, I urge you to do. All five issues have been a blast to read and I hope that Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood manage to capture some of the magic of this terrific run when they take over in issue #7.