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Down But Not Out

by Drew Clements westofmiskatonic@gmail.com

Two weekends ago at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con, Marvel announced the return of one of my all-time favorite Marvel characters. By now you know that I'm a little obsessed with Marvel's second and third-tier characters, so naturally you kind of have to figure that who I'm talking about falls into one of those categories. Since Sleepwalker and Darkhawk have showed up recently (and have also already been covered in this column), who does that leave? Why none other than Marc Spector: Moon Knight! For a character that's received the short end of the stick pretty much since the end of his first series, he sure is popular. According to a recent issue of Wizard, he's the character that's most often pitched for a new series by writers. It looks like someone finally struck a nerve with Marvel because the Fist of Khonshu is coming back! I have quite a few of MK's books and consider the original series to be the best, as do other people, but I'd like to throw the spotlight on one of his lesser known, but equally good books. Moon Knight: The Fist of Khonshu #1 -"Night of the Jackal" Original Release Date: June 1985 Writer: Alan Zelenetz Penciler: Chris Warner Inker: E.R. Cruz Letterer: Joe Rosen Colorist: C. Scheele Editing: Denny O'Neil Supervision: Jim Shooter Marc Spector is crawling for his life. That's what you do when you find yourself deserted in the desert with no food or water. He was dumped there by his Commander for disobeying orders to kill civilians. He was left for dead. As he reaches the point of pure exhaustion and can go no further, he manages to stand one last time. With the large moon as his backdrop, four soldiers spot him just as a sandstorm begins. Within seconds they have him and are carrying him to an Egyptian tomb, an archaeological site. Inside the tomb, his body is placed on the floor by a soldier. A woman enters the room and asks about the man, who has died from his exposure to the harsh elements of the Egyptian desert. Upon seeing him up close, she recognizes him as one of the mercenary commandoes that killed her father! Worried that the man's fellow mercenaries, who had been planning to raid the tomb her father unearthed, aren't far behind, she orders the soldiers to finish packing things up. As she stands alone over the man's body, she wonders why he was alone in the desert. She also recognizes him as the lone man that tried to warn her and her father of the mercenaries and their leader Bushman's intent to raid the site. Naturally she assumes that Bushman left him to die for the simple fact that he had tried to help her. Bending down, she nearly loses her composure as she thinks back over the death that had taken place that day; the death of her father; the death of this stranger. In the background of the room, a lone statue watches. It is a stone replica of the Egyptian Moon God, Khonshu. Suddenly, the dead man returns to life and the first thing he sees is that strange statue. Immediately he recognizes it as Khonshu, one of the Gods of the moon, also known as the "Taker of Vengeance"... but he doesn't understand how he knows all of that, after all, he is but a mercenary. He removes the white cloak from the stone statue and wraps himself in it, thinking that perhaps he has become Khonshu's knight of vengeance. As he approaches the woman, whose name is Missy; he announces that there are people that need protection that night, protection against Bushman! In the background of the tomb, past the statue of Khonshu and through a small door, a figure watches. Who is this person garbed in traditional ancient Egyptian clothing? The mercenary, Marc Spector dies that night, but is reborn Steven Grant, a man that uses Spector's "horded gains" from his days as a mercenary to gain a fortune and a new life of dignity. He also gains another part to this new life: the identity of Moon Knight, a masked figure with the powers of the Egyptian God Khonshu! In his new life as Steven Grant, he finds love and sanity in Marlene, a woman that eventually gets him to leave behind all those identities and regain his original as Marc Spector. This narrative gets you through MK's origin and the original Moon Knight series, as well as bringing us to where he's at now (in 1985 that is). So, now that that's over with (no pain, huh? okay, maybe a little), we can really get to the meat of this series. So, we jump to Paris, present day (once again, 1985), and to a large art gallery. Inside, the crowd is fascinated by the centerpiece of this gallery, which is an Egyptian statue of the Moon God Khonshu. It's up for auction by Marc Spector, where he is truly trying to rid himself of all pieces of his past life. Mr. Gowdy, a confident bidder, greets Marc, who wishes him luck in the auction. As Mr. Gowdy makes his way up a set of stairs to the auction floor, he is passed by a man that sticks a cane in his face. The cane, at the touch of the mysterious man's finger, releases a gas into Gowdy's face, causing a coughing fit. As Mr. Gowdy falls to his knees and stumbles down the stairs to his death, the man lights a cigarette and continues on his way. Inside the main auction room, this man hands the cane over to another man, who bids on the Khonshu statue and wins. Some time later, in a New York City health club, we find Marc Spector and Marlene enjoying time at a swimming pool; the two are celebrating the fact that Moon Knight is no more and that Marc has a normal life ahead of him. They discuss Frenchie, Marc's right-hand man, and whether or not he has found the identity of the Middle-Eastern tycoon that bought the Khonshu statue. Marlene seems to care very little, while Marc seems a bit troubled by it. We now switch scenes to Failaka Island near Kuwait, where the mysterious tycoon is identified as Sheikh Ahmad Azis. The man that murdered Mr. Gowdy, a servant to the Sheikh, informs him that the statue is on its way. Back at Spector's home, Marc awakes from nightmares of Jackal heads and various other apparitions, to see a ghostly image of the Khonshu statue hovering above his bed along while voices chant, "The moon is risen. The night bodes ill, ill, ill. Lo the image is delivered up to evil, evil, evil, evil." After shouting at the voices, his girlfriend Marlene enters the room to see what’s going on. There she finds Marc, agitated and slightly out of his mind. Before she can fully console him, he looks through a window to the terrace and sees the Khonshu statue lit up against the moon. Realizing the God has some sort of message for him, he relents and shouts to the sky, “What do you want from me now!?” The next scene opens with a helicopter rushing to Failaka Island. Its cargo, being carried below the chopper, attached via wires, is none other than the statue in question, Khonshu! Sheikh Azis meets the chopper at his massive and beautiful kingdom’s inner courtyard, where his main temple rests. Servant women adorn the Sheikh with a helmet of gold as he proclaims that Anubis the Jackal shall soon rule the world, while Khonshu, the protector of men, will fall to him on a night of the full moon that is soon to come. Back in New York we meet up with Marc and Marlene on the second floor of the JFK International Airport. Marc is explaining to his girlfriend that his trip is only going to be a few days in Egypt, so that he can locate the statue of Khonshu and get it back. Marlene had been under the belief that the days of Marc’s violent and dangerous adventuring were over and that his obsession with Khonshu no longer existed; she then threatens to no longer be around if he does go through with chasing down that stupid statue. Marc determines that he has to get that thing back in order to learn what is going on inside of his mind, so Marlene, heartbroken over his choice, leaves. Marc, not exactly in the greatest of moods, continues through the airport only to be stopped by a man holding a rather strange cane. Our hero realizes that the ornament on top of the cane is a Jackal head, the same one that he had dreamt of the night before! “The night bodes ill!” is all that runs through his mind as he realizes the immediate danger he is in just as the man holding the cane presses the button, releasing the same poisonous gas that killed the Texas businessman earlier in our story! Marc disarms the would-be assassin of his cane, but the villain proves a bit more of a match than expected when he flips Spector onto the floor of the terminal and runs off. Marc turns to watch the man flee and realizes that he’s not actually heading for an exit! But instead straight for a window! Now, if you read carefully, you’ll have noted that Marc and Marlene were on the second floor of the terminal. Yup, you see where this is going, right? So the man jumps through the window and falls to his doom, but not before releasing the final word, “Death to Khonshu!” Marc, driven by the attempt on his life, realizes there is no turning back, so he gets on that plane and heads to Egypt. On the flight, Marc thinks back to the strange dreams and the voices he has been hearing in his head since, which have told him to go to the Pyramid country. Once in Egypt, we find Marc being drawn across the desert by some singular instinct. Finally he comes to a tomb hidden in the walls of a limestone cliff. Inside, Marc finds a door, which immediately opens upon his presence. Inside, three blind Egyptian priests speak in unison, telling him of the prophecy of his arrival. To make a long story short, the priests explain to Marc that when he first put Khonshu’s cloak on he chose his destiny as the Fist of Khonshu, an Earthly extension of the God. Khonshu is once again calling Marc Spector to take up that mantle to protect life. So, Spector capitulates, once again becoming Moon Knight! The three priests explain that MK must retrieve the statue of Khonshu and bring it back to their chamber, so that they can guard it. Before our hero departs, the priests warn that his life is in danger (and it’s not because the Hypno Hustler is after him!). Outside, the entrance to the cave disappears as MK exits. Once in his jeep and on his way through the desert, Marc comes across a few camel-mounted assassins! After taking them down, he attempts to question them, but that proves fruitless when the assassins pop their cyanide capsules. Spector then continues his journey across the desert to a civilized area where he can use a phone to call his pilot/right-hand-man, Frenchie. Fortunately the man has tracked the money used to win Khonshu at the auction to its source on Failaka Island! MK, after putting one foot on the shore, is immediately under attack from the Sheikh’s men. After a few knock-down-drag-out battles, Marc is eventually captured and blacks out from the tussle. He wakes up, wrapped like a mummy, with the Sheikh, calling himself Anubis the Jackal, standing before him. As the two wait for the full moon to rise (Marc especially, since now his strength increases with the moon’s presence!), Anubis tells MK his origin. The brother of a Pharaoh, Anubis, formerly known as Araamses, captured the throne after his brother’s death through illegitimate means and was then captured by the people and buried alive in a tomb. Finally, being revived accidentally by Khonshu on the same night as Marc, the Sheikh amassed a fortune from buried treasure from his past. Knowing that another like him existed, the Sheikh searched for the Khonshu statue and its defender and finally found it when Marc brought it out for auction. The crazy villain finishes his exposition, turns to the statue, and begins a ceremony to destroy it. The moon comes from behind the clouds and MK rips through his bindings. Before attacking Anubis, multiple guards come in to assist their master, but to no avail: MK puts a savage hurtin’ on ‘em. Finally, MK and Anubis fight amidst a massive sandstorm. After trading a few blows, Moonie takes his Ankh weapon and jams it into Anubis’ mask, disabling its laser eye beams. The villain removes the mask to be able to see again, only to find that the sandstorm has blown down a massive pillar… right on top of him. Goodbye Anubis! The sandstorm continues, forming a giant vortex, which sucks Anubis’ kingdom into oblivion. The violent storm dies down, leaving a glowing Khonshu statue and a very alive Marc Spector in the center of a sand dune… surrounded by nothing. MK finds himself in debt to Khonshu and yet reluctant to take on the responsibilities of being a hero again; it has caused him nothing but pain in the past and he wants no more of that, but he relents, accepting what is undoubtedly his fate. So that’s the end of this Moon Knight tale that’s largely overlooked in the greater scheme of MK stories. It’s sometimes referred to, because it fleshes out the origin, but it seems like no one is really aware of just how great the story by Alan Zelenetz actually is. The subsequent issues are good stuff as well, but I’m a little in the dark as to how the series was supposed to go; I’m relatively sure that the series was not a mini, but was intended to be an ongoing book that got cancelled instead. Only four years later would Moon Knight get the longest running book of his career in Marc Spector: Moon Knight, which I found to be largely hit and miss. The earlier books of that series were well-written with good art, but the later books had fantastic art with pretty bad writing. Speaking of art, this book really shines. It’s gritty and dark, which matches the overall feel for the story, but Chris Warner’s art goes way beyond just complimenting the story. I honestly feel that you could pretty much know exactly what’s going on without any narrative boxes or dialogue balloons. If that isn’t the sign of a fantastic artist, then I have clue what is! Chris is now a Senior Editor over at Dark Horse Comics and I’m not really sure if he’s doing any penciling at the moment. If anyone knows, drop me a line and I’ll be sure to post it up at my section of the Stumblebum message board or here in a future column! This book can EASILY be found for a buck, if not much more than that, so if you stumble (bum?) across it, grab it and any of the other issues (there were only six) you can find. Let’s see… book covered? Check. Artist and Writer covered? Check. Hypno Hustler reference? Check! Yup, that does it here for me folks. Make sure you check back next Monday for your weekly dose of old-time goodness!!