Moon Knight #20 Review

Written by: Jed MacKay
Art by: Alessandro Cappuccio
Colors by: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letters by: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover art by: Steven Segovia, Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: February 1, 2023

Moon Knight #20 finds Moon Knight racing to stop a pair of killers hunting down former members of Moon Knight’s Shadow Cabinet network. When Moon Knight finds the culprits, he learns a more nefarious villain is pulling the strings.

Is It Good?

Moon Knight #20 is a new arc in the series that finds Mon Knight’s former network of associates hunted down by a pair of assassins. On its face, that sounds like a fine premise, and it mainly works. However, this issue doesn’t work as well as it could or should, so MacKay earns marks for a just-serviceable start.

The issue reads unevenly because you’re thrown straight into the middle of the action without a drop of setup or preamble. MacKay does a solid job of filling you in as the comic progresses. Still, the laundry list of names flies by so quickly that you don’t get a chance to absorb why these former members of the Shadow Cabinet had any personal meaning to Moon Knight beyond a working relationship.

Imagine somebody coming by to tell you your mail carrier, someone you barely knew and would struggle to point out on sight, had died. Would you have a strong emotional reaction to the news? Probably not, other than out of courtesy, so that’s how it is with Moon Knight here. Moon Knight wants to stop innocent people from dying, and rightfully so, but MacKay doesn’t build the bridge between Moon Knight and his victims that allows you to sympathize with what he’s feeling.

Eventually, Moon Knight catches up with the killers (another wayback machine cameo) and figures out the hired killers are brainwashed by somebody with an agenda.

Again, it’s a serviceable start, but the superstar of this issue is Cappuccio’s art with Rosenberg’s colors. Despite the weakness of the story, the art is phenomenal. I won’t go so far as to say it’s wasted on MacKay’s script, but the art is the selling point by a wide margin.

As a bonus (or not since you’re paying a higher cover price), you get a backup story where the previous Fist of Knoshu encounters Blade in 1970s-era NYC. The whole point of the backup seems to be a setup to explain why Blade, in the present day, would agree to become a mentor to Reese. The story is unnecessary for what it sets out to do as Moon Knight’s request and Reese’s character are strong enough to warrant the help. The backup isn’t very good, since it appears to be a thinly-veiled story about the evils of slumlords and gentrification, and it does nothing to enhance the main story. If you skip the backup, you don’t miss a thing.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts:

Moon Knight #20 starts a new arc with a trail of death and a pair of long-forgotten villain cameos to put Moon Knight on the trail of a murderous mastermind. The art is spectacular, and the mystery has a decent amount of curiosity baked in, but the execution feels rushed, and that extra dollar you’re paying is justified with a mediocre and pointless backup.