Reddit reviews Essential Moon Knight, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials)
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There are a lot of answers to this. Moon Knight has had many series since his creation in the late 70's. There are fans who prefer the Classic Moon Knight, fans who prefer the Modern Moon Knight stories, and then people like me who love it all (except the early 90's trash). If you want the classic Moon Knight, which was written by Moon Knights original author, and his defining artist, I recommend the Countdown to Dark TPB. If you like the tone of those, your next step is to go for the Essential Moon Knight's 1, 2, & 3. These will cover the Origin stories, the major villains, the most important story arcs, and has some of the best comic art of the time. Keep in mind, all of these stories were written in the early 80's, and they are a product of their time.
For a more modern Moon Knight story, you really have two good options. You can either try the Huston/Finch Run by getting Moon Knight: The Bottom (and continue to volumes 2-5). They are a decent enough place to start on Moon Knight if you have no background on him. These stories tend to be very dark and very edgy compared to previous Moon Knight stuff.
What most people seem to be doing, however, is starting with the most recent run by Bendis/Maleev. It is titled quite simply Moon Knight This series is pretty self reliant, and seems to be very popular.
If you're interested in collecting trades rather than floppies, here are some links that will help. Books are in rough chronological order:
There's no trade that contains the remainder of the Marc Spector: Moon Knight book, sadly. At this time, he was semi-languishing in obscurity, and barring the occasional pop-up in a team-up book or a major crossover event, he wasn't appearing much. Then he got resurrected (pun intended) in '06:
Then he got a new book that sort of picked up where the last one left off.
He was on the Secret Avengers for a while, then sort of fell out of the team without any real explanation. Then he got another solo book, this time by Bendis & Alex Maleev
As you can tell by this & my flair, I'm quite the MK fan. Hopefully this wasn't too overwhelming, but I wanted to give you my fair & honest appraisal as someone who's read everything he's been in and knows what's good and what's not.
I am always excited when people ask me about what trades to get. However, it is a very difficult thing to do because the answer isn't a simple one. One of the major problems with collecting Moon Knight Trades is that almost half of his solo stories have not been reprinted in trade format. In fact, until very recently, there wasn't a single Moon Knight Trade reprinting any of his comics prior to 2006. What that means is that most people who have only recently discovered Moon Knight have not had a chance to read any of his classic stories. Why this matters, is that when I mention what I think you should read, it is dependent upon what I love about Moon Knight. I started reading Moon Knight in the early 90's after finding many of his original series in the 25 cent boxes. Over the years my collection expanded, and turned into a legitimate obsession. I have now read every Moon Knight comic, and am attempting to collect every comic in which he has appeared. With that said, I still to this day swear that the original Moon Knight series is the best and most essential to understanding why people initially loved the character. A biased opinion, to be sure, but it is how I feel. After that, I would say that the last two volumes come in second, with the other series being distributed behind that.
Classic Moon Knight Stories
There are two ways you can go about reading the classic material. Recently Marvel released two Epic Collections of Moon Knight featuring full color reprints of a lot of the original stuff. They can still be purchased easily on Amazon or ebay for a good price.
1.) Moon Knight Epic Collection: Bad Moon Rising Start here. This reprints his first appearance, first solo stories, and the first 4 issues of his first Volume.
2.) Moon Knight Epic Collection: Shadows of the Moon This reprints 5-23 of his first Volume and picks up right after the previous Epic Collection.
Alternatively, Marvel published 3 volumes of their Essentials line, which are black and white reprints of material at a very affordable price. The lack of full color is a downer, but it also means they reprinted far more material than the recent Epic collections have, and for far cheaper. They are harder to find now, but still can be done for a great price.
1.) Essential Moon Knight - Volume 1 This reprints his first appearance, first solo stories, various guest appearances, and the first 10 issues of the first volume.
2.) Essential Moon Knight - Volume 2 This reprints #11-30 of his first volume.
3.) Essential Moon Knight - Volume 3 This reprints the last issues of his first volume, the entirety of volume 2, Various solo stories from other comics, and the first 2 issues of the Marc Spector series.
Modern Moon Knight Stories:
4.) Moon Knight Vol. 1: The Bottom This is the first volume of the 2006 series. This is Moon Knight's start in the current Marvel Era. Unfortunately there is no reprints for some of the important stuff from the 90's to fill in the gaps, but Huston does a good job of bringing readers into the story.
5.) Moon Knight Vol. 2: Midnight Sun Volume 2 of 2006 series.
6.) Moon Knight Vol. 3: God & Country Volume 3 of 2006 series.
7.) Moon Knight Vol. 4: The Death of Marc Spector Volume 4 of 2006 series.
8.) Moon Knight Vol. 5: Down South Volume 5 of 2006 series.
Next we skip the Vengeance of the Moon Knight series, as well as Bendis' 2010 Moon Knight series. They just aren't very important, and don't really match the tone and character of the majority of all Moon Knight comics.
9.) Shadowland: Moon Knight Not the greatest story, but has some important relevance to Moon Knight lore.
10.) Moon Knight Vol. 1: From The Dead This is the start of Ennis run, which essentially changed everything.
11.) Moon Knight Vol. 2: Dead Will Rise
12.) Moon Knight Vol. 3: In The Night
13.) Moon Knight Vol. 1: Lunatic
14.) Moon Knight Vol. 2: Reincarnations
15.) Moon Knight Vol. 3: Birth and Death