“Moon Knight” is a third rate character at best”--a guy making a Marvel movie about Moon Knight
This run by Lemire and co. focuses on the madness of Marc Spector and his multiple aliases/personalities-Mark Spector/Jake Longley/Stephen Grant/Moon Knight complete with Egyptian mythological gods and multiple artists and werewolves and Midnight Man (a ghoul) and a perfect set up for a reading of Michael Pollan’s book about the uses of acid (LSD!) in the treatment of mental health issues, since the constantly shifting ground in this run is very very trippy. And I would say so far that it is more trippy/entertaining than useful for understanding and intervening in actual, real-world mental health issues.
I know, it’s a comic book; Lemire is not a psychologist, but still. It is a fun ride of sorts, but if you are dealing with as many mental health issues as I am at the present (I am personally fine, thanks) with various individuals in my life and work, it seems a little like this comics series is full of stereotypes about mental illness, and maybe multiple personalities in particular. We got your masks/alter egos, multiple personality disorder; he’s mad! Lemire is known for creating a sense of empathy, but I think his approach here actually undermines confidence in his ability to take seriously a psychological frame for seeing the world.
Let’s try to see what advice for us he has about mental health, in Volume 2: Reincarnations. We are told to: Face your demons. Become whole by living in integrity and serving society and not with all these false identities. My body, my mind, my self. The title is Reincarnation, where Marc begins the process of destroying his false identities--without drugs, without therapists, and just becomes Himself, reincarnated. There's a lot of psychobabble about masks, alter egos, multiple personalities, but it all feels like pop psychology to me, shallow.
One central idea here that you can see from the cover is that Marc may be in a movie of his own making, with various characters involved in a paranoid conspiracy theory to keep him from Doing Good. Very jumpy, moving quickly from one self to the other.
Well, I like the art, all the jarring arts styles for the different characters--a different set of artists for each personality. Even an oldie from Bill Sienkiewicz form decades ago! They get credit for that!
I like it pretty well, I guess. It kind of reminded me of the Coen Brothers' crazy film, Barton Fink. And made me think of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, where “crazy” is actually a concept that is culturally defined within any given age. Who is really crazy here? Spector has had his mental struggles. The guy who sells his soul to get them all out of the psych hospital, Crawley, he seems at times visionary, at some times delusional. Maybe Lemire and the team are trying to make us crazy will all the chaotic narratives!