Issue(s): Moon Knight #10
Cover Date: Jan 90
Title: "Trouble times 3"
Credits:
Charles Dixon - Writer
Sal Velluto - Penciler
Keith Williams - Inker
Marc McLaurin - Assistant Editor
Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
Moon Knight didn't get directly involved in Acts of Vengeance in his previous two issues, but we saw the way that Chuck Dixon interpreted things it was like there was a literal ongoing war in the streets. And that interpretation continues in this issue, so when i say that Moon Knight is more directly involved in the crossover this time, it's still with a caveat.

The issue begins with Moon Knight doing some damage control. He actually starts by rescuing a college student, Lula, that has decided to kill herself rather than tell her parents about her bad grades...

...and then he brings her around with him so he can keep an eye on her as he deals with other problems afflicting the city. And in the process she starts seeing that her own problems are pretty small. It's done pretty well. Moon Knight also rescues a mother and child from a burning building, but he has to remove his mask in front of the kid since it was masked men that started the fire in the first place. Also a nice scene.

But if you're wondering who started the fire, that's where it gets a little weird. In a similar scene, we see that some villain is just randomly tossing around cars (note that the police were given weapons by Reed Richards to "take down these creeps".

And it turns out to be Killer Shrike, who has come to town to "join in on the super brawl".

And he's joined by a new Ringer, who is also "having trouble finding targets".

The new Ringer is made to be just as much a joke as the original.

The two of them meet up with a third villain, who is also looking for some action. This one is Coachwhip, who is supposed to be an active member of the Serpent Society at this point, but here she is looking for "some action".

Now, we can blame all this on Loki. But Chuck Dixon seems to have constructed an alternate version of Acts of Vengeance here. The idea was supposed to be that the arch-villain cabal sends a specific villain against a hero that they never fought before. But here they're just going on a general rampage hoping to stomp any super-hero they can find. I already talked about how i think Acts of Vengeance took potentially three dimensional villains and erased their motivations, but this scenario is even worse.

Anyway, these three villains run into Moon Knight.

Am i wrong in thinking that screaming lady looks cut & pasted into that final panel above?

The Ringer is easy to beat, but Killer Shrike turns out to be badass.

He even takes a shot in the back from Frenchie in the Mooncopter (or whatever it's called)...

...and just turns around and blasts Frenchie out of the sky.

Moon Knight only wins against Shrike thanks to interference from the Ringer.

At that point Shrike flies off, talking about how he doesn't want to team up with foul-ups anymore. Coach Whip doesn't like that, so she decides to stop playing around with Moon Knight. But at that point Lula turns a hose on her, shorting out her electric whips.

Moon Knight then runs to Frenchie, who was critically injured after the helicopter crash.

While the wires seems to be crossed regarding the crossover, Chuck Dixon does well with the story that he does write. There are some nice human moments with Lula and the boy that Moon Knight rescues, and he does well writing villains on a pure nasty rampage (even if that's not really what you'd expect from a Serpent). I might quibble about bringing back the Ringer after Marvel decided that he was clearly extraneous, but he does add a little humor to the mix. Tom Palmer is missing from the art team this issue, and it does make a difference but the issue isn't looking bad. Sal Velluto has come a long way from his Power Pack issues. Moon Knight was never a character i got excited about, but this creative team is doing pretty well with him.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Ringer II

Chronological Placement Considerations: Issue #11 begins with Frenchie being wheeled in to the emergency room, so it shouldn't take place too long after this. But we do have a lot of Acts of Vengeance stuff going on concurrently.

References:

• The original Ringer was killed by Scourge in Captain America #319.

Crossover: Acts of Vengeance

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Shouldn't Ringer II's first appearance warrant at least a 2 in the historical significance rating? I mean, he's a jobber yeah but he still pops up from time to time even to the present day.

Coachwhip's costume is truly weird. Looks entirely like something a stripper would wear. She even uses and then discards a trenchcoat over it.

Killer Shrike gets a typical boobs-and-butt pose in that first panel...and the odd thing is it actually looks fairly natural! Normally when you put male characters in poses that are typically given to female characters in exploitative art it looks weird.

@Robert - you know, i didn't even give the original Ringer a 2. But since you mentioned it, i've gone ahead and given both a 2. But only because i'm rounding up!

Dixon used the "cops fighting random villains with Reed Richards's technology" bit in Code of Honor 3 too.

I like Killer Shrike and was pleased he got some respect here. Still, this is an odd villain combination.

Were Coachwhip's whips ever shown to be electrified before this?

Maybe someone got confused doing a quick flip-through of Captain America #342 where Fer-De-Lance gets pushed into a computer and fried right before Coachwhip shows up. But honestly, if you're going to be a super-villain you can't just have whips. Electrifying them up is the least you can do.

Chuck Dixon seems to have constructed an alternate version of Acts of Vengeance here. The idea was supposed to be that the arch-villain cabal sends a specific villain against a hero that they never fought before. But here they're just going on a general rampage hoping to stomp any super-hero they can find.

I see no reason why one should preclude the others. Mark Millar made the astute observation during his Spidey run that it's the upper tier villains that set their agendas and that it's the lower tier guys who mindlessly follow suit as a kind of "Keeping up with the Jones." Certainly this kind of thing has real life correlation.

So it would make total sense that Loki would have the A-list guys switching up and causing trouble and the that the low tier losers would feel the need to cause chaos 'just cause' or risk feeling left out. It would also make sense that it would happen in Moon Knight a character you admit is low level and generally unrecognized by both the populace and other costumed creeps.

Through this we can feel the ripple effects of such a major event ala the Jessica Jones series on Netflix taking place in her small bubble of the MCU.