Moon Knight #13 kicks off a new story arc while carrying forward the great ideas Jed MacKay has sprinkled throughout his run. In this latest issue, Taskmaster is on hand, vampires need burning, and MacKay reminds us Moon Knight is the biggest badass in Marvel Comics. But you already knew that if you’ve been reading this series.
Moon Knight #13 opens with Taskmaster being asked for information about Moon Knight. MacKay uses Taskmaster as a narrator of sorts to not only hype up Moon Knight through Taskmaster, but establish a vampire leader’s role in the story. It’s a smart move, as Taskmaster ends up being like a hype man to get readers excited while adding some validity to Moon Knight’s badassery without having to show it.
New readers will appreciate some cutaways to Mr. Knight getting therapy or his Midnight Mission helpers and friends chatting. Readers have everything they need to carry forward from here and may be enticed to go back and read since there are some colorful elements.
That’s cruel. Even for vampires.
Credit: Marvel
As far as Moon Knight, he’s a total badass in this issue. He’s ruthless, and while he’s a hero, he’s willing to do damage to accomplish his goals. That includes a rather clever idea to entice vampires to give up information. There’s a good action scene as well-drawn by Federico Sabbatini showing readers he has no trouble cutting through many vampires.
It’s interesting – the idea of Moon Knight having powers is brought up, but in a way, it’s his ruthlessness that is a kind of power. He’s unpredictable and that’s apparent via Taskmaster’s thoughts on the hero and also some of the action here.
Rachelle Rosenberg continues to do an excellent job with colors giving the book a supernatural and otherworldly look and feel. The opening shot of Taskmaster, for instance, casts him in a green glow that’s sickly and unnerving. Glowing effects light sunlight or even a laptop look great.
The scenes not tied to Taskmaster’s narration via captions do drop into the narrative jarringly. Maybe a visual trick or some connective tissue via caption boxes would help, but I honestly wondered if I was missing a page or two while reading. It’s not a huge problem, but it did pull me out of the narrative a bit.
Moon Knight #13 is a great example of how you can show who a character is via a narrative trick. It’s also a great showing of how badass this hero is and there’s no one else like him. At the very least, Taskmaster is proven to be a great hype man and should be hired by anyone who needs extra rep.
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