Phases of the Moon Knight

Moon Knight by Jed MacKay

by Jed MacKay

Dive into lost lunar lore from Moon Knight’s past, present and future, in this thrilling anthology series!

Though he is among the most recent, Marc Spector is far from the first Fist of Khonshu! The true depth of the legacy of the Moon Knight has been shrouded in the mystery of antiquity — until now! Featuring an all-new sensation from the Marvel Universe’s ancient past: the Moon Knight of the Old Crusades! Another Fist of Khonshu clenches amid a crime-ridden vision of tomorrow — older, grittier and worse for wear than any you’ve seen before! Plus: new stories from Marc Spector’s always-volatile past as Moon Knight — and yet more tales from across the eras!

COLLECTING: Phases of Moon Knight (2024) 1-4

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Graphic Novels Comics, Mythology, Fantasy, Comic Book

136 pages, Paperback

Published May 6, 2025

Reviews

[Khurram]

I loved this book. Usually, it is difficult to rate books that have multiple short stories by multiple teams. That is not the case this time. I lived every single story. I would rated everyone four to five stars.

If you are a Moon Knight fan like me, (every book I say Moon Knight is the best Marvel/Disney book/character right now), this is a mystery have. There are links to the main stories as well as crossover like Bloodhunt or just stand-alone stories of Moon Knights past, or future. The book contains a number of variants covers galleries.

[Tyler Jenkins]

I would have liked this a lot more if they didn’t waste some of the stories on false futures and funny stories. I was hoping it would be fully lore expanding showing us awesome Moon Knights through history. The few we did see were cool as hell and they even brought it back around to Blood Hunt briefly. What works here works really well and the rest is just meh.

[Robert]

I almost wish it were worse so I could dismiss it as the lunar phase known as "Plumber's Moon"

[Paul]

3.5 stars

[Mattthew]

Didn't realize going in that this was short stories by various authors. Enjoyed most of this save for the manga style story that was just a waste of pages. Overall it was good but definitely not the same quality as the regular MacKay run.

[Alex Sarll]

For almost half a century, Moon Knight has been one (or three?) of Marvel's best characters. But if the 2020s haven't been good for much else, which they haven't, it has at least been glorious to see Marc et al finally achieving wider recognition – a hit solo series! Screen stardom! Supplementary anthology titles of dubious necessity! Main MK writer Jed MacKay is here, of course, ducking back into Marc's past and reviving another unexpected old favourite with a complementary knack for fucking malefactors right up. But other stories feature other creators and other Fists of Khonshu, ranging everywhere from ancient Mesopotamia through the Crusades to apocalyptic futures. They're not all winners – there might have been a time when Fabian Nicieza could have carried off a story which mixes 19th century colonialism with a poor man's Scorpion King, but not anymore. But mostly it's at least passably entertaining, and at its boldest you get Yuji Kaku's ingenious, delirious Moon Knight-Chan, founded in the realisation of how much the character's backstory has in common with the classic tropes of magical girl anime.

[Keef Davidson]

Ok little stories. I just don't enjoy these one off issues that don't lead anywhere and are only there for short pieces of entertainment. It also set up some backstory and lore that I really doubt will ever be added to anything outside of these short stories. I would probably rate it lower if it wasn't moon knight.

[Sesana]

A short anthology series. I at least liked every story, except for Moon Knight-Chan, but some were definitely better than others.

[Jaye Berry]

Hands down the best story in here was "The Past is Present" and everything else was just random garbage. The ghost of Moon Knight chilling with a teenage girl taking up the mantle for revenge was some good ass shit and I wish there was more of just her.😭

The rest though? Ehhhh

[London Heady]

While Black White and Blood did absolutely nothing for me, I really enjoyed Phases. Feels like most of the writers have something interesting to do with Moon Knight, and each story (besides the first) feels like a welcome addition. Final story is probably my favorite, but I wouldn't mind rereading almost any of these. Succeeds in every area that BWB failed for me.

[Sam Whale]

Issue 1

It's pretty cool to show Vengeance of the Moon Knight from the perspective of Max impersonating Moon Knight as it adds a new perspective and it's nice to have another story set during this rather brief period in Moon Knight history. I'm honestly a little surprised this wasn't included in the second trade for vengeance tbh.

I was really really digging the Crusade story and loved the idea of fighting for justice becoming his motivation over serving yet another corrupt lord; however the story (almost) completely lost me by throwing Apocalypse into the mix. If this were a mini or even an oversized one-shot I think it's be fine but in a 15 page story it almost felt a little jump the shark to throw in a big iconic bad who just so happens to be in the same country and have our new OC Moon Knight (who I did really like) kill him off page in his first fight against him.

Issue 2

The first story was a lovely little Marc tale set in the olden day. MacKay is always abundantly clear on just how much love he has for this character but that love for his creators is what's on show here. A great little morality tale with some sick looking art. The second story was just as strong, but for entirely different reasons. I loved this far flung future presented to us, everything in it felt so new and the idea of a full army of Khonshu worshipers who do not have the capacity to commune with him becoming enemies of his fist is such a cool idea, on I would love to see expanded upon, either in this world or with a future story with Marc in similar circumstances.

Issue 3

I really wasn't a fan of the first story. The art was pretty but I found the violence to be rather unnecessary and crude and the plot felt really non-scensical. I like the idea of Khonsu saving three siblings at once by placing two of their spirits inside the other's body thus sort of replicating Marc's whole deal, but in terms of plot and character there was very little here. The second story fared a little better though it suffers from equally weak worldbuilding in my opinion. The virus and what caused it felt about as logical as the old resident evil movies (the movies specifically, that games make way more sense than this does which is not saying much!). I did however like the initial seeing of a roadside style attraction with Moon Knights costume in and I liked how this new Hunters Moon could commune with Marc much like how Badr can commune with previous Moon Knights.

The Mini Marvels was fantastic; however, Mini Marvels always are. The 'other iron FIST' joke made me actually laugh out loud, fantastic stuff there.

Issue 4

Two equally solid stories round out Phases of the Moon Knight. I liked that both of these new additions are both actual former Moon Knights, much like the Templar from the first issue; I am suppressed how many of these ultimately leaned on being Ultimate universes ala Spider-Verse rather than lean in more on Moon Knights reincarnation schtick.

The second story here was certainly the stronger of the two telling a tight emotional tale in just 15 pages. I like the connection with true history and the idea of a real historical figure, I also like the use of Varnae and hot the book tied back into Blood Hunt (it's a shame it doesn't appear to have been reprinted in any Blood Hunt trade for people wanting to read that event in whole). But most of all I really liked the use of the repeating motif of a father and two sons, very clever writing.

The first story was decent too, with a cool time period as its setting. I just think it lacked some meat on its bones, especially in comparison to the later tale.

[Dean liapis]

Ehhhh. 3.5

Moon Knight has been my favorite hero for years, but this is about what you would expect. Some total bangers along with some pretty bad clunkers. The anime story, I don't know what the hell that was. Pretty much nonsense, with a little girl who cuts off people's heads who try to buy prostitutes while she talks to her imaginary best friend no one can see... I mean, what are we even doing?

The stories range from the far flung future to ancient Egypt, with an interesting story about a knight who refuses to serve any god until he runs into a malevolent god who is attacking the innocent. The story by Mackay is unsurprisingly the best tale, with MK going up against a "hero" from the 20s. There are a few other really good ones, and a few that are filler. Some really great art, some mediocre art, you get it.

Much like Moon Knight: Black White and Blood, some stories are great, some are ok, a few are terrible. I'd get it at the library.

[Big Skeeter]

Some of these short stories are good, some are bad. The idea that there are many fists of Khonshu over the ages is an interesting one, and I thought this would be that, but it isnt. I think what brings these down is that they are often too short, and non-canonical. Some are pretty generic too. So it ends up being a collection of a few stories that are inspired by the idea of moon knight, and that's it. Very underwhelming. I think the best is easily the last story that takes place during the events of blood hunt (like I said, I like the blood hunt tie-ins). The crusader story with Apocalypse was cool until it ends in a way that very much takes it out of continuity, and at that point why do we care? Its not a good enough story to stand on its own, and if its not informing a historical event in the marvel universe, then its a pointless story. That's how a lot of these shake out. When reading MacKay's Moon Knight, skip this one.

[Joey Nardinelli]

A 3.5 is certainly more fair as there are some decent stories in this collection. The downsides are the stories that are less interesting coupled with these all being relatively short to accommodate 2-3 entries per issue. The ones that really stood out to me were Justine Ireland’s entry that felt like a fun scifi spin-off with a solid time jump for both Moon Knight and the Marvel landscape as a whole. Benjamin Percy and Fabian Nicieza were my likely follow-ups, with the former being a throwback with connections to Apocalypse and the latter tying into the recent Blood Hunt crossover event. That one also had one of my favorite visuals — MK flying into a circular window, how cape billowing out to invoke the crescent moon. I like MK as a character, but I think the surrounding support characters and narratives often feel too same-y to me.

[Simone]

Non solo una raccolta antologica, ma un tuffo nella filosofia del Cavaliere Lunare. Certo, se si voleva espandere la lore, bisognava fare più di così. Ma come volume per giocare con la storia e la filosofia di Moon Knight, creando anche varie versioni dislocate del tempo, va bene così. Divertente e leggero.

PS: Mie storie preferite, quella di McKay con Jorge Fornes (omaggio a Moench e Sienkiewicz, autori della prima storica run) e quella con la MK giapponese, poiché è il concept del vigilante però prestato ai manga. Mai mi sarei aspettato che ci sarebbe stato tutto così bene.

[Kelvin Green]

There's some lovely art in this, and the anthology format means there's a nice mix of styles on display; I particularly enjoyed Jorge Fornés' noirish Night Raven (!) story and Yuji Kaku's energetic manga. Alas the writing isn't quite as strong, not least because many of the stories waste their limited time and space rehashing the Moon Knight origin; "Khonshu offers a choice between death and service" turns out to be the same whether it's ancient Mesopotamia or post-apocalyptic future America.

[José Ignacio]

A really dope concept that I wish could’ve been explored more

I just love the idea of going through the different Fists that have served Khonshu throughout history, and while some stories are definitely better than others, the whole idea is one I feel they could make another book about. Not necessarily an ongoing, but definitely another miniseries that could be even longer than just 4 issues. It was great.

[Matt Sautman]

An anthology series, Phases of Moon Knight explores Moon Knights from across the larger continuity that have served Konshu in previous eras. While the book is intriguing, someone reading this between MacKay’s other Moon Knight titles could be somewhat disappointed if they do not care about the larger backstory informing the series.

[Logan]

6/10:
As with all anthology series, I can’t get on board 100%, but most of the stories are solid. I wish there weren’t as many gag/childish stories as well as futuristic ones that don’t fit the known future of the Marvel universe, but instead those rooted in the extensive history that already exists. Those that do this, are the ones that standout and shine bright amidst the others.

[Craig]

I like the idea behind this--to show the Moon Knight in different eras, different countries, etc. But most of these stories are too brief and fragmentary to make much sense. A wide variety of creators and artists on hand here.

[Shannon]

Bunch of short stories about Moon Knights from the past, present, and future. Some are relevant, most are not. Some are interesting, most are not. Most have good art. Overall it was an ok read that did next to nothing for my reading enjoyment of the current Moon Knight.

[Dakota Morgan]

Short tales of Moon Knights past, including some that tie in to the Blood Hunt event. Most are good, if not particularly memorable. Mostly, it's fun to explore the historical settings.

The one manga-heavy entry is 100% worth skipping though. Total nonsense.

[Andres Pasten]

Innecesario

[Dan]

A pretty good collection of stories of different Moon Knights throughout time, as always, some are better than others.

[Ross]

Super short anthology series about all things Moon Knight. A little from the past, present, and some wacky future MK's.

[Greg]

3,5*

[Yasin]

Jed’s story was great and so was the Blood Hunt story, the rest were just fine.

[DyingKuromi]

It's a small Moon Knight anthology series, not much to complain about. It has a few good stories, but also a few bad or boring ones. It's cool now and then, but nothing groundbreaking.

[Ezgi Kantarcı Oğuz]

Did not work well as a collection as the stories were too disjointed and the common thread was not there. Some worked better than others. The "Mini Marvels" one was a masterpiece!

[Bobby]

In between a 3.5 and 4 for me.