Our very own MarkAndrew is amazed at how poorly written this comic book is, and I’d like him to explain himself!

Fair enough. Put a hold on volumes 1 - 3 at the library. As soon as I get 'em, I'll do a bitch about Brian K. Vaughn post.

Ex Machina went from being one of my favorite reads to losing me completely during the "Smoke, Smoke" story arc, and I haven't missed it since I dropped it. Something about Vaughan's style just doesn't work for me over the long-term, and Ex Machina was the longest I stuck with him on any title.

In my mind, MOON KNIGHT isn't trying to be a masterpiece, it's a Mavelized version of the lurid, trashy, pulp fiction paperbacks that were so popular in years past.

Like those pulp fiction paperbacks, MOON KNIGHT is full of sensationalized violence, heightened to a nonsensical degree. Like those pulp fiction paperbacks, MOON KNIGHT revels in this gruesomeness, and like those pulp fiction paperbacks, MOON KNIGHT is criticized for being absolute garbage. Huston has succeeded in every regard when you consider his original goal (yes, he's a huge fan of trash noir).

As far as I can tell, criticizing MOON KNIGHT for being a shit comic is like criticizing GRINDHOUSE for not being an Oscar contender.

As for the "violence porn" comment, MK is plenty ugly, but, as Greg mentioned, not without consequence. Again, it's comparable to trashy pulp novels in that the main character has to suffer immensely because of the violence he's surrounded with. It's not as if they just show you something horrible and then, in the next panel, it's not a problem anymore.

There's a lot about the book I don't like, (it's gross, it has a sadistic streak, etc.) but then again, there's a lot about about pulp fiction, either.

Re: Ex Machina - I gotta disagree, Funky. I think he usually deals with the political issues very well; Mitch married the gay couple, didn’t he? And it’s true-to-life in that a lot of times, these issues get raised and debated, but they rarely get dealt with concisely. Real life doesn’t have a lot of plot closure.

I thought about debating each of your points, but I don’t think that’s really necessary. I love the comic, and you don’t. I don’t think I’ll convince you otherwise.

Was there any ramifications on the gay couple being married? Can all New Yorkers now do it?
It was more a symbolic ending than any kind of actual ending to the issue, and in a book that's meant to be at least half about politics, that's just weak.
Makes it more Commander In Chief than The West Wing.

I've also got issues with the Mayor and the Commissioner jumping in a car to track down a crook illegally, and spending way too much time on certain events (three pages for a snow plough operator to be killed?) but I think they both fit into previous complaints.

It's alright for a quick fix, but the book isn't great. It's almost a Don Mcgregor book - and that means it's almost a book that almost makes the cut.
I can read it and enjoy it, but if I think about it, it's ruined for me.

I'm not sure if I would continue to read this if Darwyn Cooke was not on the title though, and i'm not particularly tempted to buy the original series as yet.

But right now, it's a good book as far as i'm concerned.
Sort of like Batman Adventures, but with way better production values.

Stressfactor - Issue #7 has been solicited as a fill-in, but is #6 as well? I do like the idea in order to keep it monthly.

I get Hawkgirl's reaction, acespot, I just think it's stupid.

And I understand your point, John, and I accept it. I'm not necessarily trying to convince people to like the book, I'm just pointing out why I like it and that liking it doesn't make me an idiot. Unless, you know, it does!

And again, there's no exposition--I've got a bit more of a handle on who's who because I went and read the Essential Moon Knight, but you know what? Anytime someone has to do over 400 pages of pre-reading for your 22-page monthly comic, it means you're doing a shit job with your exposition. This issue was an improvement, in that they _had_ exposition, but it was exposition so badly written that I couldn't tell whether they were talking about the character in front of us or his father...or possibly Moon Knight, I'm not going to rule even that out. This is a writer who clearly does not want to have to explain things, and as such he limits his audience to people who have already read every Moon Knight comic ever written.

So perhaps you like it because you're its target audience, and most of us aren't.

I thought about debating each of your points, but I don't think that's really necessary. I love the comic, and you don't. I don't think I'll convince you otherwise.

As for Greg's comment about the language, as far as I remember, it's stayed at the same level throughout the series. In fact, I didn't really notice the swearing in this issue, but maybe I'm desensitized to it. I do remember an issue a while back in which the mayor's aide reprimanded him for swearing so much because it looks bad to "family values" people.

Re: The Spirit - I'm not sure what you mean by Cooke showing off and demonstrating that he can write Spirit stories; it's supposed to be a comic about the Spirit, isn't it? He's just writing fun stories, which is the same thing Eisner did with the character. I don't know if you're expecting it to be a masterpiece of modern comics or something; it seems like he's just having fun with the character, and that's fine by me, because I'm having fun too.

When I read that sequence in Birds with Deadshot driving that dumb dick joke into the ground, I thought, "Gosh, isn't this what an editor's for? To reel a writer in when she (or he) tries too hard?" Too bad. Beyond that, it's pretty formulaic Birds stuff: A mission goes awry, and then from bad to worse. Only this time Oracle's not in control. I'm confident she'll help save the day somehow though. And I will admit, I'm looking forward to the Birds versus Six knock-down next month.

All this talk has made me want to give Love and Rockets an honest try. I love stories that are so complicated that you really need to start from the beginning to understand the world.

Actually, I have noticed a few things creeping in that I don’t like about the book, but it’s not enough to make me turn on it - it’s still a very good comic.

No it's not a VERY good comic.

It's a comic that though enjoyable, never quite lives up to the promise of it's concept*, routinely gives it's stories ending's but not resolutions**, raises issues but is too scared to have characters come down on one side or another*** and is more concerned with slot machine storytelling**** (to steal a phrase from Pol Rua) and showing off the authors love of dialogue than actually telling an entertaining story.*****

That said, Vaughn is good at making that work - he's very good at slot machine comics, but that doesn't make for a very good comic.
It may be ahead of the pack, but that says more about the pack than this comic.

I'm constantly teased by flatmate whenever I pick up one of the trades (usally if there's nothing else going and I've got cash and just want a read), because as he says 'I can see why you buy it, but you're buying it for what it could/should be, not for what it is'.
I probably enjoyed the last trade more than the others, but I realised later this was because I'd learnt not to expect great things from it.

It's also committed two great sins in my mind - in the issue with his mother, it gave up internal consistency for a good last line (the gun lied to him), and in another, he stole a last line to an entire story from an issue of Planetary (set in a comic shop, but before planetary came out, but don't worry, in the first part of the story there are Ellis comics everywhere, so it's alright, he's acknowledged who he's riffing).

Also, is anyone else sick of Tony Harris getting a nipple in at any chance possible, and giving every female character a nose ring? And I wish he'd get some new models, some of the people look very similar to Starman people.

So yeah, I read it, and I whine about it - the book that shouldn't be for fanboys has turned me into one.
I wouldn't mind you saying you enjoy it, but saying it's VERY GOOD, seems well off the mark..
(I view it as I do a Corman film, disposable entertainment that you shouldn't think about too much).

* It fails as a political story because well, it raises issues without dealing with them - even the West Wing had them come down and pass policies, and the superhero stuff... the police normally take the person down or something - the wrap up never seems that important. Maybe it's fine if you like one or the other, but as someone who likes both politics and superheroes I never feel I get enough of either.

** The story about Marijuna just ended with the main character a hypocrite, but no actual pay off to the storyline.

*** Instead of having Hundred debate the issue when he was on Jury duty, they all got attacked by a crazy man (and even the issues he raised were a lie).

**** The over reliance on cliffhangers, and the promises made in early issues of the bad times to come, is he gay or not (will he ever come out on that issue - I really don't care, does anyone except the other characters?), he will use his costume again.

***** Subway workers talking about porn for a page, or was that two?
Vaughn often mentions how he tries to pace his comics like a film - no film would use that much off it's running time on such an incidental conversation that has no point other than itself.

Also, when I wrote that Moon Knight is violence porn, I was well-aware that Greg would turn that phrase against me and say that all superhero comics are basically violence porn, but I disagree. The difference with Moon Knight is that the comic lingers over the gruesome violence for no real purpose. The story barely moves forward each issue, there's no dramatic tension--the book is like living in a slaughterhouse--it's just gruesome wallpaper. That's bad dramatic structure. Pick a movie that's considered "good," like The Godfather or something--now imagine that movie (which is considered quite violent, right?) lingering on all the violent scenes for an unbearably long time--showing Apollonia's body torn apart and burning slowly in the aftermath of the explosion--showing Moe Green's brains dripping out of his head for minutes. Such scenes would reduce the effectiveness of the violence because it would be just too much. And then imagine that those minutes of extra gruesomeness replaced things like chracter development and plot. That's what Moon Knight is like.

It's not the level of violence that even bothers me, it's the ratio of gore to story progression. The series so far is a sequence of faces being ripped off and that's about it.

And I guess what's most oppressive about Moon Knight is that, unlike the work of Garth Ennis, there's no sense of irony at all. It's just a slaughterhouse.

But I guess that's the point. It's an attempt to do contemporary horror in the vein of a Rob Zombie movie. All torture, no substance.

It's just not for me.