Moon Knight: Legacy, Vol. 2: Phases

Moon Knight: Legacy

by Max Bemis (Writer), Jacen Burrows (Illustrator), Paul Davidson (Illustrator)

The true origin of Marc Spector - revealed at last! Spector's multiple personalities stem from a traumatic event in his childhood...an event that will soon shape Moon Knight's future in ways nobody could imagine! And even as Spector faces this internal crisis, he must take on one of his most disturbing foes yet - a multi-limbed amalgamation of bodies known as the Collective! What monstrous science could have led to this unholy creature's creation? Prepare to dive deeper than ever before into the rabbit hole of Moon Knight's fractured mind!

COLLECTING: MOON KNIGHT 194-200

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Fantasy

168 pages, Paperback

First published December 19, 2018

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible.
Just a sappy bunch of nonsense that tries to turn Moon Knight into a dude with feelings, and not in a clever way.
Ugh. Piss off with that shiny, happy shit.



As with the first volume, I was somewhat lulled into thinking the first issue might not be so bad. But by the end of issue one, I was literally forcing myself through page after page of psychobabble nonsense. The bad guy is some psychologist running a test with these volunteers who keep trying weirder and weirder experiments to merge their consciousness until they finally combine into the world's shittiest Voltron knock-off. A sentient blob that rampages across the city whilst they all have some sort of psychedelic party together inside their minds.
Marc merges with them and uses his Mental Moon Powers to take down yet another man-baby with an inferiority complex.
Gag.



In every issue, the villains get dumber and dumber until it culminates in a final fight with the dumb fuck Nazi. You know, the one who supposedly scarred Marc and caused his DID because he did his serial killer stuff in front of him and then let him go.
And that actually sounds cooler than it was while I was reading it because the dialogue was complete crap.
Garbage. Hands-down the worst run of Moon Knight I've read.
Let me sum it up for you: as part of a trial, Moon Knight fights a rabid dolphin. If you think that's not a fucktard idea, then absolutely you should read this as quickly as possible.



Moon Knight now has a daughter. That's all you need to know.
Save yourself and skip this horseshit.

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh, there are so many things I hate about this comic, let me count the ways.

1. So. Many. Words. If Max Bemis wrote songs for his band, Say Anything, like he writes comics, every song would be an hour long.

2. Moon Knight should not have a family. Warren Ellis finally got rid of all Moon Knight's excess baggage weighing him down and Bemis decides to just dump yet more baggage on him giving him a kid and instant wife without any of the drama that should be there considering he didn't come into their lives until his daughter was five.

3. Bemis treats Marc Spector's Dissociative Identity Disorder as a bunch of buddies sitting in Spector's head deciding on what to do while they go fishing.

4. He also treats Khonshu as another personality that hangs out with Jake and Steven instead of keeping it open to interpretation if Khonshu is real or a figment of Marc's imagination.

5. This book gets downright wacky. Moon Knight is supposed to be a protector of night travelers, not fighting goofy butterfly winged man in the head of a collective being.

6. I did not like this introduction of a character who caused Marc's DID disorder as a child. This immortal Nazi hiding out as a rabbi. It's just dumb.

7. Every character in this comic comes off as a pretentious douche bag, nonstop talking out of their own ass.

This is easily the worst Moon Knight comic I've ever read.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This final Moon Knight collection had fantastic artwork throughout and a story that never failed to be, at least, interesting and, at times, extraordinary. I'm giving this four stars rather than five because I felt it didn't quite manage to be absolutely mind-blowing, which is what I'm pretty sure they were aiming for.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always been more a fan of old Moon Knight version as Marvel's Caped Crusader than the current mental issues/multiple personalities fluff, but I just loved previous volume of this run by Max Bemis.



This one started good and had a few interesting and sometimes disturbing moments, but storyline and artworks just went quickly downfall and #200 was a great disappointing mess of an adniversary issue but for Sienkiewicz's final sad artwork that made me want to read again Moench's classic run as as soon as possible.



Such a shame and not surprising at all Marvel cancelled this series at last.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moon Knight faces the Collective and the Société des Sadiques on this volume and they bring Marc Spector to his knees, forcing him to face his own lunacy and sadistic personality to a new level. Max Bemis keeps building a world of pain around Moon Knight and I'm curious to see how it all plays out in the end, this series is dealing with some really fucked up subjects and thats what makes this vigilante story so fun for me, because you really want to see the Knight beating the crap out of these bad guys.

The art continues to be really good as well, this time with Ty Templeton and Paul Davidson teaming up with Jacen Burrows, all of them with similar styles, with Becky Cloonan on the badass covers.

Edit: Boom!! Marvel cancelled the series, what the actual fuck??
Edit2: WHERE THE FUCK IS MOON KNIGHT MARVEL? I WANT MY MOON KNIGHT SERIES

[Malum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked how the last volume mixed a bit of darkness with levity, but this volume was basically just a comedy. Also, there are way too many throwaway characters giving huge monologues.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moon Knight Vol. 2 Phases collects issues 194-200 of the Marvel Comics series written by Max Bemis and art by Jacen Burrows.

Moon Knights battles The Collective, a being that amalgamates it's victims.

This book was very, very strange but does pick up in the end. This wraps my current reading of Moon Knight. He is a very unique character but unfortunately his modern era is extremely inconsistent. I am looking forward to the upcoming MCU Disney+ series.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
A dark trip into Moon Knight’s past reveals a villain that Marc battled in childhood, who has now returned to induct Marc into a society of hedonistic serial killers, with Marc’s daughter Diatrice’s life hanging in the balance should he refuse. Plus, a collective personality experiment goes awry, and only Marc and his shattered mind can stop it, before one final climactic battle with the Sun King brings this series to an explosive close.

Marvel like cancelling good books. I think I’ve mentioned that before. Probably more than once. But Moon Knight is yet another casualty, which manages to get to its 200th issue before getting the chop. What a coincidence. This second half of Max Bemis’ run with Marc is a little more disjointed than the previous volume, but that just means it has different ways to impress than before.

The opening flashback issue is dodgy. It’s a good story, and it makes Marc’s mental illness a lot more poignant in the modern day, but bringing back Nazis, even as villains, is always risky business. It also seems like a throwaway story until later when the character returns with a vengeance, but taken on its own, it’s a strange detour to take. It does have some nice art by Ty Templeton though, who I don’t think does a lot of mainstream Marvel work anymore.

The next few issues deal with a thought experiment group that end up melded together into a monstrous form of the Collective from Brian Bendis’s Avengers run, only a lot more gooey and a lot more fucked up in the head. Most of the Moon Knight stuff that Bemis has thrown at us so far has been grounded in reality, so this weird sci-fi story is a departure from that. It definitely succeeds, because who better to send against crazy than crazy itself, and the art from Paul Davison (who is no stranger to crazy thanks to some earlier work on X-Factor and X-Men Legacy when Legion was around) really helps sell the insanity of it all.

Then comes the coup de grace, as Marc is forcibly recruited by Le Societé Des Sadistiques, which is exactly what it says on the tin – a society of sadists who enjoy murder and basically dragging humans to their breaking point and then throwing them over it. This brings back the character from the flashback issue as I mentioned, as well as artist Jacen Burrows for all but the last issue, but more on that in a minute. This story is the furthest Bemis has stretched Marc, and there are times when other superheroes would have snapped, I’m sure. But with Diatrice and Marlene’s lives on the line, his newfound direction and drive really shine through.

Issue 200, which is veiled as the final battle between Marc and the Sun King, is actually a bit of a bait-and-switch in that it’s actually the resolution to the previous arc, and the run as a whole. The extended page count allows Bemis to wax philosophical about the power of the mind and how being a little crazy is actually more than just a superpower, and gives Marc (and the Sun King) an edge not just against Ernst and Le Societé, but life in general. Davison and Burrows are joined by Jeff Lemire and Bill Siencewicz for this extra-sized finale, so it’s a previous Moon Knight artist extravaganza.

Cut short in its prime is the expression that applies best to this series. Max Bemis took Moon Knight to new highs and new lows, all while telling some introspective stories about mental health and multiple personality disorder, which is exactly the balance that stories surrounding a character like Marc should have. The choice of villain is shaky ground, but Bemis manages to make it work, and round off his too-short run in style thanks to some artistic collaborators who have Moon Knight in their blood, either from recent years or previous experience.

[Jesse A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of this Moon Knight run. Always interesting art and good bloody fun.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Deadpool was a Verigo book you'd get something like this. I miss Moon Knight as Marvel's Batman rather than all this weird psychedelic stuff we've been getting lately. I did like the weird story of Spector's childhood showing how he got so mixed up, but other than that this was just too strange for me. The art fit the book, but that just means it was weird as well. Not horrible, but not my cup of tea.

[Jaye Berry · Rating 1 out of 5]

YIKES. I wasn't a fan of the last volume but it wasn't completely awful. This one on the other hand decided to be.

It focuses a lot on Marc's DID, how he got it (fake rabbi that was actually a nazi), and him dealing with his kid which was all honestly shit.

The entire story was just a mess. The villains were some bad people called the collective (or something??). They were a giant weird blob and it was so gross to look at. It was weird and I hated it. Half of the pages near the end were so incomprehensible. Then it was some weird shit where Moon Knight was a sadist and I honestly still have no idea wtf was even going on in this. It was goofy as hell.

The art was goofy as hell too ??? The art wasn't consistent at all and a couple of issues were so ugly (and goofy).

Rip. I don't know why people suck with this character.

[Niko · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 5 issues were great. The last 2... not so great. A lots of great ideas throughout, many themes, lots of great humor, everything culminates in a way too fast, way too self-indulgent mess. Is there anything wrong with writers self-inserts through dialogue? Not necessarily. As long as it's coherent and well-paced.

Bemis tries to tackle mental illness, socialism, judaism, holocaust, the alt-right, fake-woke teenagers, sadism, psychoanalysis, Cronenbergian body horror mixed with social critique, fatherhood, pretentiousness, creative process of trying to tell a stroy through writing... and it works for the most lf it. The Collective storyline is reminiscent of Morrison's Doom Patrol at its best. The start of the Société des Sadiques arc is great as well. As is the first flashback to Marc's childhood issue. But the final two issues just happen way too fast, all at once, and read like a blog post or a twitter rant. It is interesting and enjoyable, but I'm not sure if I even liked the ending. All plotlines just disappeared and re-appeared as they wanted to, there were multiple resolutions, but none felt like a resolution, characters had nothing to do for the most part... it was very chaotic and rushed.

Also, most of the art was slightly worse than Burrows', who only did two issues and a few extra pages in this volume. At least we got guest pages by Lemire and Sienkiewicz.

[Silas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moon Knight is a favorite of mine, and the previous volume did some interesting things establishing an antagonist that this volume completely destroyed for a far less interesting story. The first issue in the trade was fairly interesting as a way to flesh out Marc's backstory, but it didn't wait long enough for the seeds to sprout. The next two issues opened in more or less the exact same way, and it wasn't a particularly strong opening. I found the art incredibly unappealing and cartoonish for most of the book, and much of the writing was equally ridiculous, particularly that separate story in the second issue. The author was clearly trying to lean into the weirdness, but it felt a bit contrived to me. It also seemed like he wanted this story to be longer, and the artist might have already done some huge splash pages, so the story had to be forced in order to get where the author needed to go in the remaining pages. These pacing issues negatively impacted the story, making most of the last couple of issues pretty silly. I guess the series was canceled, and everything was forced in, and it really shows. Since I didn't really enjoy the story, I hope the threads of this won't be picked up when Moon Knight returns in another series.

[Christopher (Donut) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 1 was great. I think I liked it more than most people who checked it out.

This - mess- was quite the falling off. For one thing, the art style switches often, sometimes from page to page (and yes, I realize this is sometimes for an effect), and while all of the artists have talent, getting used to something like half a dozen quirky styles was off-putting.

Much harder to deal with was Bemis's apparent boredom with the whole idea of the mentally ill superhero, to the point where the final, landmark issue is just filled with monotonous jawing. Slight spoiler - the villain of the first collection has come back as an anti-hero whose new super power is the ability to spout psycho-babble for fifty damn pages. Harsh but true. Pro tip: deconstructing a "bronze age" comics story is easier than it looks. Crafting a superhero story which is both fun and not an insult is harder than it looks, but worth doing.

It deserves less than a three, but I have lingering good will from the first collection.

[Thelaurakremer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was so long winded and meh. I felt like I skimmed it as it didn’t feel fresh or interesting. Mostly, dudes other than Moon Knight giving endless monologues. No dynamic action. So far the best of the current day runs have been The Ellis/Shalvey and the Lemire run. This run has been tired and old hat.

[Adam Spanos · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some awesome pages here, but the in-between feels like mess a lot of time. The art is good though, able to really show off a lot of the stuff that goes on here.
If you are a moon Knight fan, and you did like vol. 1 I say get it cause it's literally just MORE of that. If not then, give this run a hard pass for now.

[Kiran Bola · Rating 2 out of 5]

ooof i did not enjoy this volume at all, the previous run had its moments, this one did not. i didn’t like. the uncle ernst backstory was the only thing i really liked. the art was not good, the story did not work for me i’m not sure how to put it either the story just felt boring and didn’t do much.

[Bill Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fan of the character.

Not a fan of the project.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeez, what a mess. Most of this volume was spent on pretentious monologues by characters we'll likely never see again. I did actually really like The Collective arc. Those two issues were some wacky fun that ACTUALLY WORKED for once in this entire run. The rest just felt wacky for the sake of being wacky, and the last arc with Hernst was an awful mess full of inconsistencies, sloppy retcons, and personality changes and decisions that were just hard to swallow. Worst of all, the anniversary issue finalizing this run was the worst of the bunch (but hey at least it had great art). Bemis is also way too heavy-handed with some themes, even going as far as to spell it out for us in case we missed him hitting us with a hammer throughout the whole book. Overall I did enjoy this run; the art was great most of the way through, the expansion of Egyptian mythology was interesting, Sun King and The Truth were really cool for a brief time. Unfortunately there's no denying that Bemis is a very sloppy writer; overly verbose, awful dialogue, spends too much time on unnecessary plot points, doesn't seem to understand subtlety, and is potentially tone-deaf (seriously, so many parts of this book would be better if he just stopped cracking jokes and trying to make things campy and wacky). Overall, I still enjoyed this run, but I am a huge MK fan, so any serviceable content is appreciated. Unfortunately this was just that - serviceable.

Personal enjoyment rating: 7/10
Critical rating: 6/10

[Ronan The Librarian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow…yeah this was a dumpster fire. I’m not sure of the disconnect, as obviously some people enjoyed this book, but I’m striking it from my memory and the ol’ MU mental cannon. All the potential I saw in the first volume was flushed down the drain, in favor of a nonsensical “plot” about…sadism I guess? The Sun King as a villain was basically unceremoniously dismantled, and he was one of the pros of the previous book. Bemis’ psychobabble feels…maybe not pretentious, but like hollow musings without a point. And after a while, I could only take so much. It read like a fever dream, or a bad trip that wasn’t even remarkable, but that you can barely make sense of so you don’t try and forget about.

I didn’t hate everything about the book. The art is nice, and there were some engaging ideas. But after a couple issues, I was ready for it to be over. It also felt disrespectful to most of the cast, and with no regard for character or impact or anything. Marlene is a limp female stand-in. Marc having a kid feels like a forced emotional anchor with no rewarding payoff. Bushman was made harmless, and by the end so was the Sun King. Marc and his id-ego-superego team just doesn’t feel like it was taken seriously on any level. Sad to say, and I don’t mean to be harsh, but this was a smear in my modern Moon Knight reading that I will try to forget.

[Evan Boyette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but too many words. Caveman no comphend

[Eric Butler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm done giving these idiots the benefit of the doubt. If I could give it a title I would have called it hot garbage.

So we continue down the road where another writer thinks he needs to really make his mark on the character and elevate him up with the big boys. All the while ruining what little bit of interesting bit they might have added to the character. I said it with the last collection and I'll say it again, go back to the superhero stories. We get it - Marc Spector is crazy, but honestly in the end the real crazy people are the ones who paid Marvel to read this crap.

The only saving grace in all this? You can still go back and read the original stuff, or the Charlie Huston stuff if you don't want to go back that far. I'm telling you, I plan to go back just to get this awful taste out of my mouth so I can get excited about the show again. The last few runs have ruined that...

[Aaron White · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series that focuses almost exclusively on Marc Spector's Dissociative Disorder, where it came from (a fake rabbi "uncle" who was actually a murderous Nazi) and how he deals with it, now that he also has a child to care for. Spector's mental health issues are certainly part of what make Moon Knight a great character, and there are some interesting ideas in this volume. But it's a bit too gimmicky for my liking, not to mention very chaotic and confusing. And there is little in the way of Moon Knight actually getting down to business and fighting crime. I think the word I am looking for here is self-indulgent. Not my favourite series, in other words.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a mess. I appreciate what they were trying to do and how they wanted to take more of a spin around Marc's MPD and that sort of deal, but the actual execution was just messy and confusing, especially with regard to the second larger arc. Plus the art changed to something a little less clean and the style just didn't resonate with me.

[John Maddox · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 Stars. I liked the first three issues in this, but as the book kept going I just couldn't stand it. The art was incredibly inconsistent. I hate the way Bemis writes dialogue. It was definitely the worse thing I've read this year. There are some redeeming qualities, but the negatives outweigh the positives.

[Mik Cope · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last collection of Bemis's run is totally bonkers. Immortal Nazis, psychotic superheroes and -villains, the physical manifestations of Marc Spector's multiple personalities into dozens of Moon Knights ... even Cthulhu makes an appearance! The art was passable to solid and the story made a kind of insane sense up until the last chapter where all bets were off. Crazy, man.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really good story telling here, unfortunately some really weird stuff got in the way too. The art was a perfect fit for the story. Hoping we get a new series with a better focus soon.

[JCRD]

¿Lo mejor de este tomo? Las portadas de Becky Cloonan.

El número sobre la infancia de Marc y el judaísmo creo que es mi favorito de Bemis, pero todo lo que continúa a partir de ahí me parece un bajón importante respecto a lo anterior que venían haciendo los autores de Marvel Now! y, sobretodo, Lemire, Smallwood y compañía.

Entiendo el enfoque más distendido que quiere darle Bemis al personaje después de la reconciliación de todas sus identidades en el final de la etapa anterior, pero hay veces que su comedia no termina de funcionarme. Y no ayuda tampoco que como fin de su etapa quiera resolver un gran conflicto con lore que se inventó en el arco anterior y que lo venda como "lo más grande que le ha pasado al personaje". Creo que peca de ambicioso y el conjunto se estrella, no sé si porque como tal no me funciona o porque Marvel tal vez le obligó a cerrar en el #200. Que Jacen Burrows no haya podido ser el dibujante principal ha sido otra cosa por la que este tomo es lo que menos me ha gustado de todo lo que llevo leído del Caballero Luna, ya que su principal sustituto, Paul Davidson, me parece bastante inferior a Burrows.

Pero bueno, al menos Bemis ha hecho un aporte importante al personaje, y me gustaría que en la actual etapa de MacKay se tocase algo ese aspecto.

[Lobo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cały zeszyt skupiony na tożsamości Marca Spectora jako Żyda i tego, jak trauma Zagłady wpłynęła na jego dorastanie i rodzinną dynamikę? Cały numer o tym, jak jego dziecinne lęki powracają, ponieważ teraz jest ojcem i ma własną rodziną, po którą pewnego dnia mogą przyjść przesyceni nienawiścią bigoci działający w świetle prawa?

Kiedy myślisz, że Moon Knight nie ma już nic lepszego do zaoferowania, wznoszą fabułę na zupełnie nowy poziom.

Jedno jest pewne - bycie Moon Knightem to praca zespołowa.

I czy mam shippować Sun King/Marc/Marleene? Bo właśnie to teraz robię. Dziwna, dysfunkcyjna rodzina ze schizofrenią i mitologią w genach. Dokładnie mój typ.

Bardzo przegadana seria, ale bardzo dobra, o jejku, Moon Knight forever.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

- yitz's first red flag was his blonde hair
- converting to judaism just to hide ur nazism with antisemetic jokes disguised as self deprecation 😭😭
- WHY DOES MARC BITE SO MUCH ONG
- moon knights vs false masculinity
- khonshu high five 😭😭
- frustration 25% sexual frustration 40%
- "now watch us slay"
- the line is always child murder
- jeffrey dahmer quote
- anti-me too, racist, antisemetic and homophobic villain wtfff
- moon girl reference 🙏🙏
- diatrice's art is terrifying in 200
- "never again will i see my mental illness or my vulnerability as a weakness" <3
- thank god a comic book writer saved comics by rejecting the nazi ink
- why did he win bc hes jewishhh slay
- "frechies and moonies and super hero loonies"