Moon Knight Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Shadows of the Moon

Moon Knight Epic Collection

by Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz (Illustrator)

Ghosts, werewolves and things that go crazy in the night! Marvel’s multiple-personality midnight marauder takes the fight to the strangest rogues’ gallery in all of comics — from Arsenal, the one-man army, to the nun with a crossbow known as Stained Glass Scarlet. The Jester is no joke, for either Moon Knight or Daredevil. Then there’s Morpheus, who’s guaranteed to give you sleepless nights. But the old foes are the worst: enemies like Midnight Man and Bushman, who have returned to plague Marc Spector. Or is he Steven Grant? Jake Lockley? As always with Moon Knight, the voices inside his head can be as destructive as the lunatics trying to kill him! Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz hit full stride in a super-hero comic like no other!

COLLECTING: Moon Knight (1980) 5-23

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Collections, Superheroes, Action

512 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2015

About the author

Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok. Moench has worked for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and many other smaller companies; he has written hundreds of issues of many different comics, and created dozens of characters, such as Moon Knight. In 1973, Moench became the de facto lead writer for the Marvel black-and-white magazine imprint Curtis Magazines. He contributed to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk (continuing on the title when it changed its name to The Hulk!) and Doc Savage, while also serving as a regular scribe for virtually every other Curtis title during the course of the imprint's existence. Moench is perhaps best known for his work on Batman, whose title he wrote from 1983–1986 and then again from 1992–1998. (He also wrote the companion title Detective Comics from 1983–1986.)

Moench is a frequent and longtime collaborator with comics artist Paul Gulacy. The pair are probably best known for their work on Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, which they worked on together from 1974–1977. They also co-created Six from Sirius, Slash Maraud, and S.C.I. Spy, and have worked together on comics projects featuring Batman, Conan the Barbarian and James Bond.

Moench has frequently been paired with the artist and inker team of Kelley Jones and John Beatty on several Elseworlds Graphic Novels and a long run of the monthly Batman comic.

Reviews

[James DeSantis]

A collection of mostly one shot issues, some two part stories, but still really engaging.

A lot of the first half is simple stopping crime and beating up bad guys. The second half gets a little bit more mystical. A little darker again. And also, Moon Knight is funnier? It's a bit jarring but kind of goofy in the best way. I don't know if anything lives up to the stuff in the Hulk Back Magazines in volume 1 but I'm still enjoying my time with this series.

A 3.5 out of 5, I'll raise it to a 4.

[Patrick.G.P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moon Knight feels like a 70s tv series, featuring a masked vigilante with gadgets who moonlights as a cabbie and millionaire, fighting crime and supernatural foes at night. Some nice stories in this collection, I particularly liked the supernatural-themed ones, as some of the spy/terrorist plotlines fell flat for me and ended up being a bit boring. Marc Spector’s looming schizophrenia should have been more explored here, as he struggles to keep 4 different personalities in check. Overall a decent collection.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of these early Moon Knight stories. Tis is when he is still a street level hero and Marvel didn't try to blend him into the superhero family of the Avengers. Great read. Very recommended

[Katherine (Kat) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8/5 Stars
Epic Collection Vol 2. includes issues #5-23. Individual issues rated below -

#5: 2/5 Stars
#6: 4/5 Stars
#7: 5/5 Stars
#8: 3.5/5 Stars
#9: 3.5/5 Stars
#10: 3/5 Stars
#11: 2/5 Stars
#12: 3.5/5 Stars
#13: 3.5/5 Stars
#14: 2.5/5 Stars
#15: 2.5/5 Stars
#16: 2/5 Stars
#17: 2/5 Stars
#18: 2/5 Stars
#19: 2/5 Stars
#20: 1/5 Stars
#21: 3/5 Stars
#22: 3.5/5 Stars
#23: 4/5 Stars

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 4 out of 5]

This held up so much better than Iron Fist Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.

This is the second of the Moench Epic Collections and picks up where the last one left off. We continue the fun adventures of Moon Knight and have a few arcs with Morpheus that I badly wish the D+ show had used for inspiration as opposed to... whatever it was that it did. The writing, for the most part, is fresh even now. There are some surprisingly insightful bits of social commentary to be found here, and fun twists and turns abound.

The character grows, the art matures, and I'm left wanting more by the end of it. It's not a bad starting point.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some pretty good Moon Knight tales in this one. Much more of the mercenary detective side of the character instead of the mystical stuff. However the real highlight is Bill Sienkiewicz art throughout the book. Some of the best art I’ve ever seen in this one, especially the issues of the dream villain Morpheus. Can’t imagine what it must have been like reading it when it was coming out. Truly ahead of its time. A must read for not only Moon Knight fans but comic book art fans as well.

[Dubzor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mostly skimmed this, stopping to read a handful of issues that looked particularly interesting. Moon Knight, particularly this run, Iis an interesting blend of Batman and the Shadow. While the writing is still very wooden and displays a lot of tropes of early comics, the artwork is absolutely stunning.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories by Doug Moench that still stand up for me.

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

vol 2 of Doug Moench's moon knight is still rather uneven, but the highs are much higher. the final morpheus arc was the best piece of comic writing and artwork in this entire run so far. bar none. sienkiewicz keeps getting better and better, and the creative team has now fully developed an identity for moon knight.

this volume is brought down by the nimrod strange/arsenal arc. it wasn't horribly bad but it was, in my opinion, a noticeable step down. doug seemed very invested in it though, as it is to my memory the only storyline to be dragged out for four entire issues. this arc aside, there are more hits in here than misses.

I've been continually blown away by how upfront this book is about its ideas. it feels very cutting edge in a lot of ways, very sharp and political for its time. i like when moon knight deals with the city; the people in it and how they are treated by the systems which govern them and by the people which act as enforcements of that system. i love gena and crawley, even if we don't see them nearly enough. this to me is a core tenant of what makes moon knight work, which is all absent from that one arc I've been harping on about.

even if it isn't great every single issue, the highs here are monumental, and the lows are still readable. my number one hope going forward is that they permanently drop the bonus stories tacked on to the end. they aren't interesting, they're usually done by a different creative team, and they only act to pad out some extra pages. we can lose them.

read moon knight, it's a cool book

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of stories. This Epic Collection collects the bulk of the Moench run, the previous having collected only the first 4 issues, and the third and final Epic Collection collecting the final batch. The stories in this collection are very strong for the most part, having only a few arcs I didn't care much for. Here we get the first appearances of Stained Glass Scarlet and Morpheus, as well as the return of many other Moon Knight villains that would become iconic in time. I must admit that I struggle to get through a lot of 80s comics, but this still reads very well and holds up strongly. Luckily, Moench doesn't rely on repetitive exposition or narrating what we can see is happening in the panel like a lot of books of the time. And Sienkiewicz's art is beautiful, moody, and kinetic. Really such a good run, and I can't wait to read the rest.

[Edward Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this as it's new territory for me (for a change). The stories were weird, but also fun.

[Petergiaquinta · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fascinating to study the progression of Moon Knight's character over the course of these early comics (this volume collects issues 5-23, 1981-82) and trace how Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz have slowly hashed out aspects of this dark superhero that today's readers take for granted. (Well, I guess it's fascinating for me and other assorted nerds, geeks, and True Believers. It's probably something entirely different for most normal people who won't be reading this collection in the first place anyway.)

Despite Marlene's insistence on calling him "schizo," Moon Knight's three alter-egos began as really nothing more than three separate aliases adopted to help mask his identity, in stark contrast to today's deeply disturbed figure whose struggle with dissociative identity disorder leads to institutionalization and some really grim mental trauma. But here in these early comics, the reader can begin to see the inner conflicts arising in Mark/Steven/Jake's identity. He has yet to slip over into something readily identifiable as mental illness in these pages, but what merely started as a joke on Marlene's part and a series of aliases is starting to transform into something much darker in these stories.

Similarly, over the course of these issues, the reader can see how the role of Khonshu begins to develop more. The early version of Moon Knight was not conceived as an avatar of the god himself, and Marc Spector still does not communicate with Khonshu at this point, but his statue is featured more prominently in these stories as it is first stolen and then destroyed by the Midnight Man (before Marlene reveals that she had actually replaced it with a facsimile), and there are a couple of short "Tales of Khonshu" included at the end of some of these comics in which the figure of Khonshu plays a role. Significantly, these tales do not involve Spector at all, although amusingly he does show up in some of his own short comics featuring life before he becomes Moon Knight when he was a sort of low-budget Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider kind of figure.

Fans of the Disney Plus/MCU series may find this volume instructive. Or they may find it aggravating to discover they don't really know Moon Knight at all. Me, I am enjoying the evolution of his character and am looking forward to getting back to the third volume.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume collects the bulk of writer Doug Moench and artist Bill Sienkiewicz acclaimed run on the MOON KNIGHT series from Marvel in the 80s. Sienkiewicz's art is truly a marvel, no pun intended. He starts off looking a lot like his mentor Neal Adams, but by the end of the book, you see the innovative, dynamic and exquisitely chaotic art style that will define his work on NEW MUTANTS and more. Moench does a nice job of giving MK a unique and layered story, pushing back against the preconception that Moon Knight is just Marvel's version of Batman. Though some of the broad strokes are similar - butler, wealthy man masquerading by night as a vigilante to avenge a past trauma - the two characters are very different. Moench creates a diverse and memorable supporting cast and does a nice job trying to build a menacing Rogues Gallery for the hero. Though his main love interest, Marlene, seems a bit one-note and too damsel-in-distressy, she has moments of strength and comes into her own toward the end. If you're a fan of Batman, particularly the work of Dennis O'Neil or Frank Miller's iconic take on Daredevil, this run is a contemporary book that ranks along with them. Great stuff.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume contain stories that begin to transform Moon Knight from a traditional vigilante style superhero into an stylized cutting edge artistic phenomenon. The combination of Bill Sienkiewicz’s growing artistic confidence and narratives of dysfunctional dissociative identity disorder from Doug Moench that challenged the traditional conventions of the superhero comic norms are taking seed. The early stories in the volume are still fairly traditional, but the reader approaches the final issues, a clear shift can be witnessed. There is a greater depth of thought in the stories and greater sense of urgency and a kinetic frenzy to the art that is simultaneously exciting, terrifying and unsettling. With this volume, we begin to see and understand exactly why Moon Knight by Moench and Sienkiewicz was considered groundbreaking and a contemporary classic.

[Jamie Manley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as vol 1 but I do love the issues with Morpheus and stained glass scarlet. Those are my favorite in vol 2.

[Kyler Polson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this volume. definitely overall better than volume 1, although I think some issues in volume one such as the Hulk comic appearances surpass stories in this one.

That being said, most of these issues really hit. The Stained Glass Scarlet, Morpheus, Nimrod Strange (which at one point they accidentally call Hugo Strange?), crossovers with Daredevil and Brother Voodoo.

A the volume goes along, the comic start to get darker, and I learned that's because they started selling directly to comic stores and got around the comics code. That being said, the stories leading up to that change were sometimes equally as bleak.

My guy Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz really are a brilliant team.

Also a p.s., the filler stories are also quite good. I like them as a reason to use Marc Specter more. The stories of Konshu are also quite interesting, although I thought Marc discovered the statue of Konshu hidden in Egyptian tomb... but I'll stop asking questions.

P.s.s. I like that Moon Knight had his own little Daredevil Born Again moment with the Statue of Konshu being destroyed, but it felt like it was a crisis conceived of nothing, and it being solved changed nothing. I would rather have had the event change the status quo in a way.

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collecting issues 5 to 23 of the early 1980s Moon Knight run, this is a fascinating collection. After getting the new, official backstory out of the way (and neatly dismissing the original, 1970s' origin) in the first four issues, this collection sees the clear progression of the character, and of writer Moench and artist Sienkiewicz, with all three settling into this run and producing some great work. There's not much in the way of multi-issue story arcs and Moon Knight's enemies are (as usual) a bit on the goofy side at times but these are the issues where Marc Spector's mental state starts becoming a real storyline issue and not just some handy narrative device. It also has the introduction of Morpheus, a genuinely top tier MK villain. Yes, some of looks dated, cheesy and a little simplistic now but these stories were written and drawn four decades ago. The artform has moved on. And Moench and Sienkiewicz are two of the people who made that happen.

[Frédéric · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

If you're not a fan of Bill Sienkiewicz – I've been one for decades – this volume may be a bit painful to read.

It's long, verbose in the style of the time, often clumsy or far-fetched, if not completely out of place – some episodes take place in broad daylight and/or are very James Bond-esque – compared to the MK we know today. I found it laborious to read.

Sienkiewicz illustrates most of the episodes and his style evolves to become similar to that of the New Mutants a little later on. Inking is important for artists of this style: ultimately, the best results are achieved when he inks his own work. Janson does a very good job, as always. The others – McDonnell, Giacoia, etc. – do not do the artist justice.

In short, this is a book for true fans of either MK or Sienkiewicz. Or both.

[Katrina Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading Moon Knight because of the infamous Moon Knight-core meme page. A page who seems to be really big about letting people know not to read the Bendis run--and talking about "A Feast Unknown" (kind of defeating the point by making it very well known)

Moon Knight is a great "hero" in that he is just a really weird guy. Just... the weirdest little guy out there. Just doing things--that are things he is doing

Some parts of this comic have aged less terribly than others. Keep in mind the time this stuff was written in when reading it... but it is a pretty decent time

Moon Knight is... a hot mess--and entertaining to watch on that basis

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the rogues gallery.

I think Xenos is my favourite. There are elements of 'anti-Moon Knight' about him which juxtaposes nicely with our hero's alternate identities. Also a fan of Jester, Stained Glass Scarlett, Morpheus, Nimrod Strange and of course Bushman. I like Blacksmith and Master Sniper as well despite their incredibly boring names.

Sienkiewicz's art gets better and better as the series goes on. The last story with Morpheus as the villain is his finest work. Moench writes most of the stories, the ones he doesn't are the weakest.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading older material like this has to be a longer task than most things I read, and I have to get in the headspace. It does amuse me to see what insane plot lines writers had to come up with every single issue back in the day, stuff like being doused with drugs, almost being drowned in the sewers, fighting international warlords, and chaising down murderers. I only wish I could get more invested, it's just the style of stories at the time. Fun seeing the coloring and Sienkiewicz's artwork, but beyond that, I doubt I return to this material.

[ISMOTU · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the height of Moon Knight, where Moench and Sienkiewicz really hit their stride on the character and bring depth and complexity to what could easily have been just a basic Batman/Daredevil pastiche. It's been years since I read these stories but they really reminded me why I love Moon Knight and this run in particular. This is also when Sienkiewicz really starts pushing his art out of a Neal Adams style and into something truly different and amazing.

[Marcelo Gonzalez · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are all non-connecting issues from the early 80s in the Doug Moench run of Moon Knight. They are extremely hit-or-miss and the highs are not worth the time it takes to read all of them.

Issues with Midnight Man, Stained-Glass Scarlet, Bushman, and Morpheus are all worth reading, but skipping everything else is in your best interest. Also, the lack of Crawley makes me sad because he's the greatest part of Moon Knight.

[Remxo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moon Knight has multiple personalities, a history as a mercenary that brought him tremendous wealth, Jewish roots, and a superhero origin story that is rooted in ancient Egyptian mysticism. And that costume! I love his look and I like his character traits. But it took until the mid 00's when authors like Warren Ellis and Jeff Lemire were able to (and allowed to) explore MK's full creative potential. Nevertheless, the Moench/Sienkiewicz run is a character-defining classic, but it took some effort on my part to get through this volume. The stories are pretty good overall, some are great. They're just a bit dated. Bill Sienkiewicz' art, who pencils and inks the majority of the issues, is definitely a standout feature of this collection. I am looking forward to reading the third volume in MK's Epic collection series.

[Joey Amorim · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the art takes a noticeable dip whenver a fill-in artist comes in for an issue, the team of Moench and Sienkiewicz really keeps you going. While I haven't hated this classic version of Moon Knight, I will say that I'll be happy to finish this era so I can get to the modern stuff that the character is more well-known for.

[Jim Stout]

Keeps getting better!

The stories are solid. The Earth 616 is consistent. Marlene comes across more as a tough, straight-shooting, but less-intelligent character than she was at first. Strong homages to Will Eisner, "Maxwell Grant," "Kenneth Robeson," and the Batman writing line-up!

[London Heady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the high point of this original run. Goes back and forth from being great to bad. The Morpheus stuff is awesome, I like Xenos as a villain for him quite a bit, Midnight Man is fun. It's just still inconsistent and it has a big problem of giving Moon Knight lasting obstacles to overcome. But if you are gonna read the original run, this is probably it's peak.

[Andrew Cadet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yep, this was definitely written in the 80s

So I enjoyed learning about the character, but the writing style is so dated lol. They wrote out every idea the had, and every action he made lol. I noticed the evolution of the publication though, and can't wait to read the next volume.

[Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall this was an average book. There were some decent villains, but it was very wordy. The artwork was alright and I like other stuff that Bill Sienkiewicz has done, but it didn't stand out except for the last two issues (#22 & #23). There were some really cool covers in here.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gems include Moon Knight v. a ghost story, White Angel of Death, a moon hallucination, Midnight & Bushman stealing his Khonshu statue, cocaine trafficker Cajun Creed, Morpheus, Daredevil to save Jester, Stained Glass Scarlet, Xenos, Blacksmith, Master Sniper, Slayers' Elite, Arsenal, & Grand Bois w/ Brother Voodoo