Today's comic for review is the famous Werewolf By Night#32. This is the one with the 1st appearance of Moon Knight, everyone's favorite vigilante with severe MPD. In case you didn't know, MPD stands for Multiple Personality Disorder, and damn does Moonie have a bad case of it! Moon Knight recently enjoyed a nice revival by famed author Charles Huston, and another new series by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev of Daredevil fame, comes out this summer. But this issue is the 1st time we get to see our mentally-unbalanced hero show up. He's after the lead, werewolf Jack Russell, and this story explains just why. So without further ado.....
Werewolf By Night#32(Aug 1975)......."The stalker called Moon Knight."
We start off with the MK and Werewolf Jack fight already in progress. MK is doing a number on poor Jack, beating him up with spiked silver gloves, with the silver causing what Jack calls "Hell on a werewolf." Moon Knight continues to pound on Jack, then turns him into a pincushion by throwing several silver and razor-sharp moon crescents. Jack goes into flashback land trying to remember how he wound up like this. We find from the previous issue that he was going to kill a 7-year-old girl if not for the timely intervention of his friend Buck Cowan. Cowan takes the girl's place and gets mauled instead and left for dead. Jack takes off and hides until the next morning. While Jack waits for Buck to pick him up, Buck fights for very life as he slips into a deadly coma. Jack doesn't know what he did and hitches a ride back home. There, his step-dad fills him in on the attack, and Jack takes off towards the hospital. At the hospital, his friends Topaz and Lissa tell him that Buck's in a coma and that all they can do is wait and pray. Jack breaks his hand in frustration over what he did and heads back home where an unexpected guest waits for him.
Moon Knight shows some uncharacteristic courtesy and explain how and why he's there after Jack. It seems that a powerful group of men calling themselves The Committee paid MK 10 G's to capture Jack, and he fully intends to collect. Obviously Jack's run into these guys before as he comments "The Committee again. I'd thought their tents folded up a long time ago." Before the fighting can commence, Jack's step-dad jumps MK and holds him down so Jack can take off. The stress of the whole situation proves too much for Jack, as he understandably freaks out and transforms into a werewolf. MK chases after him by helicopter and corners him into the same alley we saw at the beginning of the story. The scene jumps to from the cops reacting to what's going on to a guy named Mr.Northrup chasing down a former werewolf named Raymond Coker. Coker was cured of his Lycanthropy in issue 21, but now we see him ask a voodoo priestess named Jeesala for help. Back to the main event, as both participants continue to duke it out, Jack's friends Topaz and Lissa get kidnapped by MK's trusty pilot, Frenchie. MK continues to beat on Jack some more with his silver weapons before finally dropping his ass with a hit to the back of Jack's head. Frenchie just happens to show up at the right moment, revealing the tied up friends in the 'copter as MK goes to load up his prize of the night.
To Be Continued.......
Now I myself don't have the conclusion to the story, but I think it's safe to say Jack escapes, frees his friends, and later we see more of Moonie. The writer of this series, Doug Moench would go on to write more stories about MK, several, several more actually. It helps that he created him in the first place. Sure, some people claim MK's a Batman knock-off, and maybe there's a similarity or two to the caped crusader, but MK's just too unique to be dismissed as a Batman copy in my opinion. He has several successful personalities that he jumps around as, not to mention doens't have too much problems killing when it comes down to it. After all he was a mercenary and a former special forces soldier back in the day. Yes he has been portrayed as a rich playboy, but really there aren't that many rich superheroes running around in the Marvel Universe these days; not like in the DC Universe anyways.
See you later folks......
2 comments:
Excellent piece, I've not read that story since the Seventies - black and white reprint in a British Marvel title, probably Planet of the Apes weekly. Anyway, I'd forgotten that 'clad in silver' bit. How very specific. I doubt Marvel have mentioned that since those days!
Glad you enjoyed it. I got the issue from my father-in-law's collection as well as a whole host of forgotten Bronze-Age classics like Our Army At War, Swamp-Thing Original series, and Marvel Premiere. Maybe I'll post those in the future if there's any interest shown.
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