Moon Knight #1

History

The Moench–Sienkiewicz creative team had already developed their working chemistry through Moon Knight backup stories in Marvel's Hulk! magazine, where Sienkiewicz debuted on the character with issue #13 and crafted a new visual identity for Spector that was heavily informed by the art of Neal Adams. When Marvel greenlit an ongoing series, editor-in-chief Jim Shooter held the first issue to an unusually high standard: according to Sienkiewicz in a Back Issue #95 interview, Shooter rejected his initial version of the art, finding it too stylistically self-conscious and light on establishing shots, forcing Sienkiewicz to redraw the entire issue from scratch — with his then-wife Frankie assisting on inks to meet the deadline. Editor Denny O'Neil, with co-editor Mark Gruenwald, oversaw the issue, and it was O'Neil who is credited with suggesting the Khonshu resurrection sequence that deepened Spector's origin.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Title of story: 'The Macabre Moon Knight!' — written by Doug Moench, penciled and inked by Bill Sienkiewicz (with inking assists from Frankie Sienkiewicz), colored by Bob Sharen, lettered by Tom Orzechowski, edited by Denny O'Neil and Mark Gruenwald.
• First appearance of Raul Bushman, the mercenary villain directly responsible for Marc Spector's death and resurrection, who would go on to be Moon Knight's defining arch-enemy.
• First appearances in comics of Steven Grant and Jake Lockley as named, active alternate identities of Marc Spector — establishing the triple-persona structure central to every subsequent Moon Knight series.
• The issue presents Moon Knight's expanded origin story, including his 'death' at Bushman's hands in Sudan, his discovery beside the statue of Khonshu, and his return to New York with Marlene Alraune and Frenchie — though the story deliberately leaves ambiguous whether Khonshu truly resurrected him or whether the experience was a trauma-induced delusion.
• Characters Bertrand Crawley, Gena Landers, Marlene Alraune, and Samuels — though created earlier by Moench and Don Perlin for Marvel Spotlight #28 (June 1976) — all appear here in their capacity as Moon Knight's supporting cast network.
• The issue exists in two distinct original print editions: a direct-market edition and a newsstand edition, both carrying a cover date of November 1980 and a cover price of 50 cents.
• Bill Sienkiewicz was required by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to completely redraw the issue after Shooter rejected Sienkiewicz's first version as too artistically experimental for a flagship first issue.
• The story has been reprinted numerous times, including in Essential Moon Knight Vol. 1 (2006, black and white), Moon Knight Epic Collection: Bad Moon Rising (2014), Moon Knight Omnibus Vol. 1 (2020), True Believers: The Criminally Insane — Bushman (2020), and a Facsimile Edition (July 2022).

Cast · 11 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Moon Knight

★

#12 1st appearance — Detective Flint

★

#14 1st appearance — Stained Glass Scarlet

★

#17 1st appearance — Master Sniper

★

#25 1st appearance — Black Spectre

★

#33 1st appearance — Joy Mercado

Variants (2)