They really tried to sell Moon Knight. They even did a house ad for the second-to-final issue.
Such a sad, disappointing ending and a slow, slow slide. Artist since issue #1, Bill Sienkiewicz left with issue #31, and writer (and character creator) Doug Moench left a few issues later. By #36, sales of the direct market book were falling fast and without the original creative team the book wasn’t even getting buzz any more. They threw the X-Men and the Fantastic Four in with issue #35 but nobody cared. I was still buying the book at the time, but even I, who had ever single appearance of Moon Knight and was a superfan, started to rethink the full dollar expense.For his last issues, Moon Knight goes to Chicago to take on a gang of Nazi vandals, ends up fighting his (Marc Spector’s) own father.
Turns out, Moon Knight is Jewish.
And his dad was devout. And Marc was a boxer. And people made fun of his daddy.
Seriously? He decked his dad?
That makes him sad when he punches Nazis, it turns out.
Anyway, his Jewish history makes the whole Nazi thing more personal.
It’s not a great end to this series.
Alan Zelenetz and Bo Hampton finally killed the series off with #38….
Yes, they gave him a happy ending.
Ugh!
Alan Zelenetz is best known as a film producer and as Darren “The Wrestler/Life of Pi” Aronofsky’s Judaic teacher and advisor. He is NOT best known as a comic book writer, although he did do quite a bit of Conan writing for Marvel. Bo Hampton, ironically, would follow Sienkiewicz again when he took over after Bill left New Mutants several years later.
As for Moon Knight the character, he’d appear in Marvel Team Up #144 before Alan Zelenetz once again tried to ruin bring back the character in Moon Knight: Fists of Koshnu. Also terrible.
Moon Knight is one of my favorite heroes and it’s just a shame the way Marvel treats this character.
Were you able to watch the 6 episode series on Disney+?
I TOTALLY agree. I loved the short Warren Ellis series and a few others, but overall he never gets the creative team he needs. Very complex character. I saw the show. It was meh, IMO. What did you think of it?