Warren Ellis' well-received Moon Knight reboot continues to impress with an excellent second issue. The comic goes down a brilliant near-experimental route as it focuses on half a dozen or so civilians in an office block at the end of the working day only to follow them out to the street where they get shot in the head by an unseen shooter. Enter Moon Knight! If you've read Ellis' Transmetropolitan series (highly recommended if you haven't), you'll be familiar with the sniper on the rooftop angle as that's how Volume 8: Dirge opened. While it's a setup familiar to Ellis, the way he presents it in this issue is really imaginative. It starts with an eight panel grid and then as people get picked off, panels start disappearing to symbolise the dead, replaced with blank spaces filled with the sniper's thoughts. This continues until you get more and more white spaces on the page and then you get a single panel on a page surrounded by empty whiteness - and THEN Moon Knight makes his appearance! It's a really innovative and effective way of presenting and developing the story. Moon Knight's appearance is suitably dramatic, swooping in under a full moon on a glider behind the killer's back. This time around he's wearing his traditional Moon Knight outfit, having ditched the cool white suit seen in the first issue, and colourist Jordie Bellaire's decision to keep Moon Knight uncoloured - not coloured white, uncoloured - remains an inspired choice. He really stands out on the page. There's a great fight sequence between Moon Knight and the sniper, and artist Declan Shalvey pays homage to Batman artist Jock in one panel by drawing Moon Knight in the Batman pose, tucking his cape behind him as he dives, which also references the idea that Moon Knight is Marvel's "white Batman".
It's a fine comic but it's a story that feels interchangeable with any number of Marvel superheroes - you could put practically any non-powered Marvel character in Moon Knight's place and it'd still work. As good as it is, it doesn't feel like a Moon Knight comic. It's still enjoyable though, it just lacks a unique character feel to it. Moon Knight #2 is another brilliant issue from this outstanding creative team which features some really imaginative layouts and an exciting, done-in-one story. It may not be a great Moon Knight comic, but it's a great comic that happens to have Moon Knight in it.
Published by Marvel, Moon Knight #2 by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey is out now