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Moon Knight Epic Collection
Moon Knight Epic Collection, Vol. 5: The Trial of Marc Spector
Crimes from his mercenary past return to haunt Moon Knight in this thrilling Epic Collection that concludes one of Moon Knight's most popular eras!
As Acts of Vengeance from a dark alliance of villains wreak havoc on the Marvel Universe, Moon Knight deals with chaos on the streets — and faces unfamiliar foes including Flag-Smasher, Killer Shrike and the Ringer! Marc Spector joins deadly mercenaries to free Burunda from its ruthless dictator: his old nemesis, Bushman! But the lethal Arsenal is out to kill them both! Then, Marc’s history catches up with him as he’s put on trial, accused of murder! No matter what the jury decides, the shadowy Secret Empire will declare a death sentence! To take down this sinister organization, Moon Knight will need some help from Spider-Man and the Punisher — but soon it will be time for payback on whoever tried to ruin Marc’s life!
COLLECTING: Marc Spector: Moon Knight (1989) 8-25, material from Punisher Annual (1988) 2
As Acts of Vengeance from a dark alliance of villains wreak havoc on the Marvel Universe, Moon Knight deals with chaos on the streets — and faces unfamiliar foes including Flag-Smasher, Killer Shrike and the Ringer! Marc Spector joins deadly mercenaries to free Burunda from its ruthless dictator: his old nemesis, Bushman! But the lethal Arsenal is out to kill them both! Then, Marc’s history catches up with him as he’s put on trial, accused of murder! No matter what the jury decides, the shadowy Secret Empire will declare a death sentence! To take down this sinister organization, Moon Knight will need some help from Spider-Man and the Punisher — but soon it will be time for payback on whoever tried to ruin Marc’s life!
COLLECTING: Marc Spector: Moon Knight (1989) 8-25, material from Punisher Annual (1988) 2
472 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 2024
About the author
Chuck Dixon
3,504 books1,136 followersCharles "Chuck" Dixon is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on Batman titles in the 1990s.
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 17, 2026
This is a much better Moon Knight book from the previous volume. Think it helps to have the same writer for most of it. Lots to enjoy in this book. The Acts of Vengeance stuff is fun, the reckoning of Spector’s mercenary past is interesting, but the biggest highlight was the Punisher and Spider-man team up. Great seeing the street level heroes team up like that. Really enjoyed Velluto’s art. The fight scenes looked fantastic and the Moon Knight costume really shined. Overall very solid Moon Knight book.
August 22, 2026
MK finally starts to get some consistency
Rating is much closer to a 3.5 Stars.
Overall, it’s a book that you can tell Dixon wanted to do more but for one reason or another he couldn’t do as much or didn’t care. In fact, one of the biggest sour points for me is Jeff's character. Since I only really know him from the Round Robin arc over in Spider-Man and the Midnight Sun arc in Charlie Huston's run, I figured that the build up to his betrayal and eventual turn into the cyborg from those stories was gonna be a big and satisfying one. Boy, was I disappointed with how it actually went down.
It’s not terrible by any means, if anything it’s a lot more consistent and has more of an actual through line than the previous volume and does have some interesting concepts of nothing else. Otherwise it’s mostly fine, I’ve read worse.
Punisher (1987) Annual #2: Part of the Atlantis Attacks crossover that was happening at the time, even though it BARELY has anything to do with it; that being said it’s a decent enough little team-up with MK and Punisher that does setup a pretty interesting theme between the two of them that will actually come ahead a bit further into the book, which is that they at first respect each other because of their more brutal methods of crime fighting but they will eventually fall out because of Marc's character development. It’s a neat little setup, even if it wasn’t intentional.
Issues #8-10: Tie-ins to the Acts of Vengeance event that was going on at the time over in Avengers and Avengers West Coast, they’re fine as far as tie-ins go but you can tell that Dixon didn’t really wanna play much ball with it, as the story is only tangentially related to the event it’s supposed to be tying into. Issue #10 is the only one with any real consequences as it does take Frenchie out of commission for a little bit, but outside of that it’s mostly fluff.
Issues #11-14: A big story arc that positions itself as the final confrontation between Marc and Bushman and it is pretty good and enjoyable for the most part; it also sees the introduction of a new Arsenal (who is unfortunately wasted). It also starts setting up this idea that Marc's past keeps haunting him and that his attempts at atonement are kind of hypocritical in a sense, it follows on from Marc teaming up with Punisher both in the Annual and the Acts of Vengeance tie-ins and starts to show Marc hesitating about a lot of the things he’s doing now. Pretty good character stuff that will come to ahead in the next arc.
Issues #15-18: The titular Trial of Marc Spector arc, and I really enjoyed it, it barely features Marc in the Moon Knight outfit until the very end; but that’s kind of the point of it. It pays off the idea that Dixon has been setting up that being Moon Knight isn’t necessarily Marc atoning for his past and it’s more just a literal mask that he uses to hide from it. It has some pretty cool moments, especially when it comes to Marc's character development. I will say the scans of specifically Issue #16 and parts of #17 aren’t the greatest and the colors seem to be very yellowed out but not in an intentional way.
Issues #19-21: The payoff to Jeff/Midnight's small side plot that had been happening across Issues #17 and #18 and it’s a really, REALLY stupid story. You can tell Dixon didn’t really want to play with this character because he was sidelined pretty much all across all Issues before this and he unceremoniously kills him off at the end of Issue #19, but there’s no emotional attachment; hell, even MK himself doesn’t have much of a reason to go after him other than very basic guilt but that’s it, it’s emotionally hollow and just done for the sake of getting rid of a character Dixon clearly didn’t care about at all. I will say, it is nice to see the development of Marc and Punisher’s falling out.
Issues #22-23: A two-parter that starts to setup the payoff to the ending of Trial of Marc Spector and it’s… fine. Basically it’s Marc following a lead from the Secret Empire through a white supremacist group bank rolled by them, my biggest Issue here is that it wastes the new villain, Chainsaw, that it introduces, covers to both Issues hype up MK's confrontation with this guy but it happens very briefly and the guy goes down like a chump. I will say, it’s nice to see more Frenchie and Marlene going off on their own without relying much on Marc and the whole reveal at the end does a good job of keeping up with the theme of Moon Knight being essentially a way for Marc to avoid facing his past.
Issue #24: The finale to Dixon's run and the final payoff/epilogue to Trial of Marc Spector and it’s alright. Little anticlimactic and even cliche but I didn’t hate it.
Issue #25: A fill-in Issue written by Howard Mackie and drawn by Mark Bagley of all people. It’s a fill-in issue so not much really happens and it’s very contrived and even feeling kind of short despite being a double-sized Issue, it does try to still dip into that well of Marc's methods maybe not being the best and his search for Vengeance mirroring that of Ghost Rider but it doesn’t do much with it that amounts to anything, but at least it looks very cool cause of Bagley. Still, I could take it or leave it.
Overall a much needed improvement over the last Volume and has some good stuff even if I wouldn’t call them thw perfect Moon Knight stories.
Rating is much closer to a 3.5 Stars.
Overall, it’s a book that you can tell Dixon wanted to do more but for one reason or another he couldn’t do as much or didn’t care. In fact, one of the biggest sour points for me is Jeff's character. Since I only really know him from the Round Robin arc over in Spider-Man and the Midnight Sun arc in Charlie Huston's run, I figured that the build up to his betrayal and eventual turn into the cyborg from those stories was gonna be a big and satisfying one. Boy, was I disappointed with how it actually went down.
It’s not terrible by any means, if anything it’s a lot more consistent and has more of an actual through line than the previous volume and does have some interesting concepts of nothing else. Otherwise it’s mostly fine, I’ve read worse.
Punisher (1987) Annual #2: Part of the Atlantis Attacks crossover that was happening at the time, even though it BARELY has anything to do with it; that being said it’s a decent enough little team-up with MK and Punisher that does setup a pretty interesting theme between the two of them that will actually come ahead a bit further into the book, which is that they at first respect each other because of their more brutal methods of crime fighting but they will eventually fall out because of Marc's character development. It’s a neat little setup, even if it wasn’t intentional.
Issues #8-10: Tie-ins to the Acts of Vengeance event that was going on at the time over in Avengers and Avengers West Coast, they’re fine as far as tie-ins go but you can tell that Dixon didn’t really wanna play much ball with it, as the story is only tangentially related to the event it’s supposed to be tying into. Issue #10 is the only one with any real consequences as it does take Frenchie out of commission for a little bit, but outside of that it’s mostly fluff.
Issues #11-14: A big story arc that positions itself as the final confrontation between Marc and Bushman and it is pretty good and enjoyable for the most part; it also sees the introduction of a new Arsenal (who is unfortunately wasted). It also starts setting up this idea that Marc's past keeps haunting him and that his attempts at atonement are kind of hypocritical in a sense, it follows on from Marc teaming up with Punisher both in the Annual and the Acts of Vengeance tie-ins and starts to show Marc hesitating about a lot of the things he’s doing now. Pretty good character stuff that will come to ahead in the next arc.
Issues #15-18: The titular Trial of Marc Spector arc, and I really enjoyed it, it barely features Marc in the Moon Knight outfit until the very end; but that’s kind of the point of it. It pays off the idea that Dixon has been setting up that being Moon Knight isn’t necessarily Marc atoning for his past and it’s more just a literal mask that he uses to hide from it. It has some pretty cool moments, especially when it comes to Marc's character development. I will say the scans of specifically Issue #16 and parts of #17 aren’t the greatest and the colors seem to be very yellowed out but not in an intentional way.
Issues #19-21: The payoff to Jeff/Midnight's small side plot that had been happening across Issues #17 and #18 and it’s a really, REALLY stupid story. You can tell Dixon didn’t really want to play with this character because he was sidelined pretty much all across all Issues before this and he unceremoniously kills him off at the end of Issue #19, but there’s no emotional attachment; hell, even MK himself doesn’t have much of a reason to go after him other than very basic guilt but that’s it, it’s emotionally hollow and just done for the sake of getting rid of a character Dixon clearly didn’t care about at all. I will say, it is nice to see the development of Marc and Punisher’s falling out.
Issues #22-23: A two-parter that starts to setup the payoff to the ending of Trial of Marc Spector and it’s… fine. Basically it’s Marc following a lead from the Secret Empire through a white supremacist group bank rolled by them, my biggest Issue here is that it wastes the new villain, Chainsaw, that it introduces, covers to both Issues hype up MK's confrontation with this guy but it happens very briefly and the guy goes down like a chump. I will say, it’s nice to see more Frenchie and Marlene going off on their own without relying much on Marc and the whole reveal at the end does a good job of keeping up with the theme of Moon Knight being essentially a way for Marc to avoid facing his past.
Issue #24: The finale to Dixon's run and the final payoff/epilogue to Trial of Marc Spector and it’s alright. Little anticlimactic and even cliche but I didn’t hate it.
Issue #25: A fill-in Issue written by Howard Mackie and drawn by Mark Bagley of all people. It’s a fill-in issue so not much really happens and it’s very contrived and even feeling kind of short despite being a double-sized Issue, it does try to still dip into that well of Marc's methods maybe not being the best and his search for Vengeance mirroring that of Ghost Rider but it doesn’t do much with it that amounts to anything, but at least it looks very cool cause of Bagley. Still, I could take it or leave it.
Overall a much needed improvement over the last Volume and has some good stuff even if I wouldn’t call them thw perfect Moon Knight stories.
June 9, 2025
This was highly enjoyable. I enjoy 90s Dixon, and this was no exception. Although not as good as the Moench run, it is definitely solid footing for the character following up the preceding few years.
It is extremely 90s, and I honestly kind of love it. All the team ups were enjoyable and had me interested in reading more of Punisher and Ghost Rider.
I really enjoyed that the Dixon run felt cohesive. The Trial of Marc Spector is an outstanding arc anchoring the run. The structuring of each story being 2 to 4 issues really gave everything time to breathe and had me wanting to read more.
The characterizations were a bit bumpy at first. Marlene was still mischaracterzed as a whiny on and off girlfriend. Lucky they bring her back around towards the end. Frenchie, being a gun happy ex mercenary, seemed a little out of place but makes sense for his backstory. Jeff was initially annoying, but I came around on him. Didn't really like how they did his character at the end, though.
It is extremely 90s, and I honestly kind of love it. All the team ups were enjoyable and had me interested in reading more of Punisher and Ghost Rider.
I really enjoyed that the Dixon run felt cohesive. The Trial of Marc Spector is an outstanding arc anchoring the run. The structuring of each story being 2 to 4 issues really gave everything time to breathe and had me wanting to read more.
The characterizations were a bit bumpy at first. Marlene was still mischaracterzed as a whiny on and off girlfriend. Lucky they bring her back around towards the end. Frenchie, being a gun happy ex mercenary, seemed a little out of place but makes sense for his backstory. Jeff was initially annoying, but I came around on him. Didn't really like how they did his character at the end, though.
April 26, 2025
This is much better than the last volume, or is it the next one?
It is still not a patch on the early stories or the follow up series but it was an enjoyable read
It is still not a patch on the early stories or the follow up series but it was an enjoyable read
January 6, 2026
This is very good stuff. Plenty of good arcs that all connect in some way, great crossovers with Punisher and Ghost Rider and the way they connect to Marc’s past was very well done imo
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews