review: Moon Knight #1-3 (2006)

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
Writer: Charlie Huston
Artists: David Finch, Danny Miki, Frank D'Armata

Rating: 7/10

I don't know if I've ever read anything by Charlie Huston before, but I'm quite impressed with this first (for me) showing. He's done an excellent job crafting an interesting, and intense, rebirth of this character. The story is well-written and nicely structured, starting with a lot of intrigue, and then revealing more and more information about where Moon Knight has been and what he's up to now. At the same time, each issue, even the first, where we know almost nothing about the "big picture", stands on its own as a satisfying read.

If I had a story gripe, it might be the "gay thing" in issue #3. Maybe there's some forthcoming storyline where Huston needed to establish that character's sexuality, but I suspect it was just meant to be something shocking or controversial. But really, it's 2006. Are gay characters shocking anymore? And even if they are (e.g. all the Batgirl coverage), it's certainly less so for supporting characters. It feels forced and contrived here. Maybe he just needed something for these characters to talk about for a few pages. But worse than that, it's basically saying Moon Knight is an idiot for not realizing it, even after all these decades, and despite it apparently being obvious to everybody else.

I doubt that was Huston's intent, but that's the trouble with things thrown in just to shock -- they rarely make sense when you look passed their shock-value. I hope Huston isn't one of those writers who thinks these kinds of gimmicks are necessary to tell a "cool" or "realistic" story. The story is plenty interesting already. There's no need to "punch it up" with artificial controversy.

I've seen David Finch on a few other books, and I think his art here is about the best I've seen it. I've heard other people complain about various aspects of his work, but I don't have any serious gripes. It's classic Image-style, highly-rendered, muscle-bulging, butt-kicking, superhero fare, by one of the current best practitioners of that style. If you like that, you'll definitely like this book.

One other point worth mentioning. There is some really gruesome stuff in here. As in, those with weak constitutions might want to keep a barf bag handy when reading. I'm not objecting to it, just warning about it, although personally I think the story would be just as good without being quite so graphic (ugh, I feel so old saying that).

Overall, a very promising start to a hard-edged superhero adventure.