I can never be sure what's more disheartening: when Marvel cancels Moon Knight, or when they bring it back with a mediocre creative team. We've gotten lucky these last few years, graced by incredible creative teams including Warren Ellis, Jeff Lemire, Declan Shalvey, Greg Smallwood, and Jordie Bellaire. They introduced the concept of Mr. Knight and brought the character to brand new places. More than anything, it took advantage of the old to make something new. But, "Legacy" seems to be flying in the face of that, and is instead treating Moon Knight like just another Marvel book.
This comic got off to an odd foot from the get-go, muffing up the continuity of events from the last issue that painted a clear picture of Marc Spector being a man cleared of the voices in his head. The spectacular final page of the comic, where he's just able to breathe freely, is ruined almost immediately as we see Marc is as beset by the multiple personalities as ever.
This would be perfectly fine if this "Legacy" book wasn't dealing with Moon Knight and Khonshu's relationship as if the last run of the comic never happened, where the two went to war with one another.
One need look no further than Khonshu's casual talk in the latest issue of Moon Knight about the Sun King and Ra's deal. He's treating the situation with Marc like would any other, as if there were no tension between the two. He's still treating Marc as his true avatar, as the one that he can stick by and use to bring vengeance into the world. It completely undoes the events of any previous comic and just puts things back into some sort of status quo that makes it appear there was no shake in the status quo these last three years.
But, let's just pretend to forget about continuity for a moment. Let's look at this comic from a standalone perspective, as if you were someone that was looking to pick this up as a part of the "Legacy" initiative. One thing it does so is introduce Marc's multiple personalities and Khonshu as if they were picking up right from the end of the Shadowland: Moon Knight miniseries where all of the personalities were back in line and were back to normal.
However, it's handled in a curious way. It treats Marc's personalities not as living entities within his soul that he is capable of talking to. We see in Issue 190 that the three are capable of talking to one another within Marc's brain, which is a ridiculous concept. Having it so the different personalities are incapable of knowing what the others are up to is one thing, but this comic is treating the different personalities as separate entities within one body; like, there are three different people physically trapped in one body.
This was done in the previous run of Moon Knight as Marc confronted Steven Grant, but it could be assumed in that scenario that, since they were still trapped in the ruins of New York created by Khonshu, that they were somehow trapped in Marc's mind. Plus, it could be inferred he was hallucinating an image of Steve Grant in front of him. In either scenario, it's more complicated than the three confronting and yelling at a single personality.
Not only that, but it also forgoes any semblance of character development these guys have undergone. Jake Lockley is back to being a psychopath villain and Steve Grant is once again just boring. Marc Spector also has no visible personality outside of being just some hotshot superhero.
In fact, nobody in this comic has personality. The major quirk about the Sun King is a gimmick we saw already with Alec Spector in Shadowland: Moon Knight, and in that series, it was much more emotionally since Alec was Marc's brother and Moon Knight was under the impression that Khonshu had ultimately betrayed him. This is just a spat between gods in human bodies, but, somehow the Sun King can manifest flames from his body and Marc can't?
Moon Knight has fought supernatural enemies before, but he works best fighting supernatural threats that involve some level of investigation. His first ever encounter with the Werewolf by Night was enticing because he was fighting supernatural entities with silver, and even then, he fought him to a standstill. Marc Spector isn't a super-human; when he takes on supernatural threats, he's at a significant disadvantage. Making the Sun King more than Moon Knight should paint him as an evolution of Moon Knight's character, but instead makes him a boring supervillain. If he were a normal human vying for the power of Ra but unable to attain it? Then we're talking.
Also Bushman is such a waste in this comic. He's Moon Knight's ultimate nemesis and he's a crony? That'd be akin to Godspeed, the new Flash villain, recruiting Captain Cold to be his crony and Captain Cold going with it just out of hatred of Flash, purposefully agreeing to be this guy's underling. The character operates at too high a level for him to be pushed to the side.
Not to mention that Bushman is meant to be the ultimate symbol of Marc's failure in his previous life as a mercenary. That was the thing Marc was so close to becoming if he didn't have a shred of humanity within him. When Bushman and Moon Knight come into conflict, it shouldn't be as remedial as being in Marlene's living room with a few other no-name grunts.
I can certainly see how this comic is attempting to play to the "Legacy" aspect of the relaunch, but it would be much stronger for building atop the legacy of Moon Knight rather than going back and retreading through characters and events that we already know about. Not to mention how they're flubbing up a key moment of Moon Knight's history with Marlene so far. While that was an interesting twist, it's so far amounted to bad comedy and awkward moments.
It's overlooking that the strengths of Moon Knight's legacy come off the back of his accomplishments as a person. Each time Marc Spector makes progress--maybe the Marc Spector personality dies, or he dons the Mr. Knight identity--the story gets a bit more interesting. Things need to be done directly to Moon Knight for the story to work.
Not to mention that this story is just standard superhero fare. It isn't him diving into the dreams of another person, it isn't him confronting some pseudo-reality where Khonshu has taken over the world, and it certainly isn't a story that pits Marc Spector against the very law itself, against even Iron Man. It's just him against a threat. There's very little stakes involved. What happens if Sun King wins? Marlene...dies? I know, as a fan, I should care more, but, she's little more than a plot device in this iteration. She isn't a pressing issue, she isn't placed directly at the forefront.
I have a feeling that this opening arc, "Crazy Runs in the Family" is just the creative team working out their kinks, getting a feel for the character and putting out as many familiar elements to Moon Knight as they need to in order to stay afloat before they really get into it. I want to see this story get weird, and delve into the psychological, since Moon Knight is the perfect character to do this with. He's more than just a regular super-hero story, he's one of the freakiest characters Marvel has in its roster. Subjugating him to standard fares isn't a way to start off a new initiative, and certainly isn't what Moon Knight is about.
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