If you haven't guessed yet, I'm a Moon Knight fan. One goal I have is to have the ultimate Moon Knight collection and collect every comic he has appeared in. I don't know if it is possible, but I would love to do that.
Anyways, I have loved Moon Knight for a few years now and he is easily my favorite male character in comics. I am not one of those people that started all the way back with the Doug Moench days and I didn't start with Jeff Lemire's run either. My first Moon Knight book that I bought and read was Moon Knight 194 by Max Bemis.
As a history buff, a friend of mine on Twitter told me I should pick this book up. It told Marc Spector's true origin story of where his dissociative identity disorder really started...when Marc was a kid. I won't give too much away if you want to read it but I really love this individual comic.
Anyways, I say that to say this...there are some really good Moon Knight runs to get a primer on before you start watching the Disney+ show in March. If you are a completist, you should follow me on Twitter (@comicaudill) and I am going to be reading through Moon Knight from the beginning again with Werewolf by Night #32. I will tweet out which ones that I am on and if you want to follow along, please do. If you don't want to read that many comics, here are 3 runs that I would highly recommend that you check out. And guess what, we aren't going back to the 1980s.
Quick Dive
If you want to do just a quick dive to get the basics, I would go with the current Moon Knight run by Jed Mackay and Alessandro Cappuccio. Mackay does a great job in the first couple of issues diving into Marc Spector's background and how he came to be Moon Knight. The art is just absolutely phenomenal. Now, when I think Moon Knight, I am forever going to think about Alessandro Cappuccio's art. Oh my goodness it is just incredible.
Let's talk about this art here for a moment. I'm going to show you this one page from issue 6 (the 7th issue just came out today and I will post a review of it soon). This will be the cover for the second printing. It pretty much speaks for itself.
If you just want a primer, I would start here with the current run. It is really good and I believe that you would enjoy it.
Deeper Dive
Do you want to see why Marc Spector is crazy like he is in the trailer? Look no further than Jeff Lemire's run on Moon Knight.
Sure, other writers had flirted with the idea of Marc Spector being crazy and having some kind of mental health issue. Brian Michael Bendis came the closest at one point. He flirted with the idea and was thinking about getting married to the idea but then decided to bolt. But, Jeff Lemire took that idea, bought a ring, and married that idea. Jeff Lemire really takes that idea of the dissociative identity disorder and dives right in. This is one of my personal favorite runs. Then, shortly after this, Max Bemis started his run and built on that. But, if you want to know how Marc Spector became "crazy" then you want to read Lemire's run.
Really Deep Dive
If you want to do a really deep dive, go back to Werewolf by Night 32 and work your way forward. If you want someone to read that with, as I said above, follow me on Twitter @comicaudill and next week, we will start doing this really long read of Moon Knight. It's a lot of fun and there is some amazing art in those books.
Okay, so if you read all this and haven't seen the Moon Knight Trailer...you should watch it. But, if you have seen it, have you seen the trailer reaction from Oscar Issac and Ethan Hawke? Go watch it. So much fun and really made me enjoy the trailer even more.
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