Moon Knight: Countdown to Dark

by Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz (Illustrator)

Agent Cobra, the Hatchet-Man, Lupinar: only a few of Moon Knight's early enemies, yet some of his deadliest! In these rarely seen sagas, Marc Spector faces down a former fellow spy turned strength-heightened hitman, a serial killer Spector believes to be his brother, and a terrorist claiming to be...Moon Knight! Featuring Frenchie, Marlene and revelations from Moon Knight's murderous memories! Guest-starring the Incredible Hulk!

COLLECTING:

Material from Hulk Magazine #13-15, #17-18, #20-21, Marvel Preview #21

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

151 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Nicolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am of two minds about this collected edition of early Moon Knight adventures. First, this is a collection of stories that originally appeared in a magazine format; larger pages than the regular American comic book. This hardcover is optimized for the latter format; so there's a lot of space in the top and bottom margins of each page. This is not a good way to collect those stories.

Second, the stories here are real good and I realized quickly that the late 70's/early 80's Marvel was a fertile period for character creation. The publisher was living up to "House of Ideas" moniker.

These are the best Moon Knight stories I've read. These tales defined the character as it established its mythos from its humble beginning as a Werewolf by Night villain. These stories were targeted for a more mature audience than the usual Marvel reader of the age and I liked it. Doug Moench wrote the hell out of these back-up stories, setting them in grim and gritty pre-Giuliani New York, when muggings in broad daylight were a regular occurrence and seedy moviehouses showed porn.

Moon Knight or Marc Spector or Jake Lockley or Steven Grant, take your pick, was the main character, but Moench also gave us a strong female supporting cast in Marlene. True, she was eye candy and was drawn with her top off as much as possible, but she could really kick ass with her karate moves. The artist collaborator of Moench was a young Bill Sienkiewicz who drew in a traditional style before he went avant-garde in his later work. Really strong draftsmanship with a strong Neal Adams influence.

The best way to collect these stories would be in a European style album with its larger magazine style format but I was entertained by this book as is just the same.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this collection of MK stories that backed up the Hulk features from the Hulk! magazine. There was some humor ("An Eclipse Waning" & "An Eclipse Waxing"), some gritty crime stuff ("Nights Born Ten Years Gone" & "Shadows in the Heart of the City"), some high-flying espionage adventure ("Mind Thieves"). I think my favorite story was "A Long Way to Dawn" where MK is waiting to see if Marlene will live through the night after being seriously injured and suffering from massive blood loss. He goes on patrol and it's bitter-sweet in its humor and observations about the city and the people he protects. I laughed out loud when a pimp was berating one of his girls and MK shouts at him to leave her alone. The prostitute lays into MK to mind his own business. Really good stuff.

[Rodney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Countdown to Dark consists of four storylines, but only one of these is actually interesting, with the others either being weak or mildly entertaining.

Spector's character isn't developed yet and it shows: he does not seem to have mental issues, but instead uses multiple personas to get what he needs. He is rich (of course he is), he is handsome and fit (of course he is) and he has a pilot who is at his beck and call and a wonderful girlfriend who can fight as well (of course). He does not seem to have any problems, making him one-dimensional.

The art is like a fever dream at times, in a positive sense. On the other hand, there are only so many ways to portray Moon Knight's cape as half a moon, but all of them have been shown in this work.

In addition, the storylines all conclude with the most obvious means of convenience, giving away that the character here was mostly used in shorter tales instead of larger, over-arching and influential arcs. This isn't troubling, as these are the first appearances of Moon Knight and he wasn't fleshed out yet.

Fun to have in the collection, but not of note in any way.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably as close to a Moon Knight Masterworks as we're going to get. The Marvel Premiere Classic line gets it right, though. Nice paper and sewn binding in a hardcover format at a lower price point than the Masterworks line, albeit with a lower page count. Moon Knight is, at best, a strictly third tier character in terms of popularity. I have always had a soft spot for him, what with his schizophrenia/ multiple personality disorder and 'more Batman than Batman' attitude during this era. Moon Knight was a regular back-up feature in the full color Hulk Magazine, and the artwork for those issues was originally airbrushed. I have no idea if these are all scans or insanely complicated color reconstruction jobs. Most of the pages look excellent, although there a few "fuzzy" looking, probably scanned pages scattered throughout the book. Most people probably wouldn't notice, but my uber-anal-retentive, OCD-laden eyes can pick them out.

Writer Doug Moench does some really neat scene changes that were pretty groundbreaking at the time but have since become commonplace. He didn't do as many caption/ third party narratives as most writers did back then. He used dialogue shifts to change scenes, i.e. someone would be talking and the scene would shift with someone finishing the line, but moving the other scene forward. Bill Sienkiewicz is a fan favorite artist, but not one of my mine. His work devolved into a scratchy mess as he went along, but here he does his best Neal Adams riffs to much success. It's a shame that he had to drastically alter his style a few years later. This is a great read for those unfamiliar with the character.

[Lucas Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love Moon Knight, so it was time to try some of his old stories, and with one of his original creators.

This book collects some stories of the Moench/Sienkiewicz run on the 80's. The first and the second one are ok, the last one was a dumb one for me (just another man being controlled by a big bad group to be a weapon) and the third story is great. It just got the fourth star on it. The Hatchet Man was a nice villain, with a nice back up story and a nice ending. Really got the dark, violent vibe that Moench was trying to give to Moon Knight's stories. It was worth it.

[Kurt Milby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of stories we're shorts I guess you'd say, each one has stayed with me. And my own opinion I could see these as episodes of a show. It was a short read that I managed to stretch out a bit and still left me wanting a bit more. The story "Ten Years Gone" was fast and frantic in part 1 but in part 2 was meandering and slower, I won't spoil anymore details. "Moon Knight: Countdown to Dark" is good time killer but could be longer so I give it a 3 in a half out of five.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, I'll admit it, the pulpy writing has grown on me.

3.5 rounded down for some writing that hasn't aged well (esp. a near sexual assault in the last story), but on the other hand, Gena Landers my beloved.

[Ben Milton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, But Not Great

Very early Moon Knight stories. If it was a regular monthly, you could do some world building but that's hard to do when the title comes out infrequently

[Andi Chorley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Moon Knight is in a current Marvel TV series I revised some of his early adventures from the pages of The Hulk! magazine in the late 70s.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Marvel is generally pretty good with reproduction quality, so it's surprising at how bad the color and printing is here. It's so distracting it's unreadable.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

First part must of been early work due to the poor attempt at making jokes. However, once the author took a more serious take, the story took off and was a much more enjoyable read.