Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
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Marvel Fanfare #30
Issue(s): Marvel Fanfare #30
Cover Date: Jan 87
Title: "Real to reel"
Credits:
Ann Nocenti - Writer
Brent Anderson - Penciler
Al Williamson - Inker
Joanne Spaldo - Assistant Editor
Al Milgrom - Editor
Review/plot:
Oh god. Don't make me do this. Not just an Ann Nocenti story, but one about Moon Knight. That's like... to get this much symbolic imagery into one story, you have to saturate it with imagery, boil your story until it is in vapor form, then load more imagery, and then let the story condense.
Imagery like Moon Knight going crazy because of a syzygy quadrature that is super-powering the moon.
Imagery like a movie director herding a bunch of deer into a dead end then having them shot so he gets the realism...
...and then complaining that the shots didn't look real enough.
Like the director using the homophone pun "Real to reel", which he has to spell out, because it's a homophone pun, and then making it the title of your story.
Like raining blood.
Like this crazy story about Moon Knight's rotten childhood friend that would "walk" flies and spiders, and who mysteriously drowned.
Like we're in an Edgar Allan Poe tale, because why not just come right out and say what we're going for.
Like an Earth elemental forming to punish the director for killing the deer.
Like Moon Knight stopping the elemental by dancing with her.
Moon Knight for some reason inspires this kind of a story, and Ann Nocenti doesn't need much encouragement. I'll take my Moon Knight in Marvel Team-Up, where he just punches bad guys because he's a super-hero, and no one shouts about how they hate the moon.
Brent Anderson is a good artist, but i've seen better from him on regular issues of Ka-Zar the Savage. The best thing about this Fanfare issue, as is often the case, is the Editori-Al cartoon. Actually, we start with an Editori-Anderson that has some things to say about Marvel's new office.
And then at the end, Al Milgrom's rebuttal.
Quality Rating: C
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP place this between issue #2-3 of Moon Knight's Fist of Konshu series. I don't have those issues, so i'm trusting their judgement.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
"How does one hide from the moon?"
Stay indoors at night and draw the curtains, Marc. It's hardly rocket science.
To be fair, I think what Marc meant was, "How can I protect myself from that moon's effects? I have super-strength on the night of a full moon even when I'm indoors and inside a room with no windows."
Sounds like I'm in the minority here but I like this story and would give it a B if not just for the fact that it manages to have topics like the duality of man and nature and not solving the plot with fisticuffs.
And I definitely prefer any story with heavy symbolism and some drama over Huston's portrayal of MK as a sadistic maniac.
