#Knight Mail

[age-of-moonknight]

Time line question! I'm sure I could find it on my own, but I am feeling so lazy.

In the OG, how old would you say Marc is when he is when he's resurrected by Khonshu, when his dad dies, and when he runs off to join the Marines? Further looking into it, I know Lemire had a different time line. How old would you say Marc was when his father died and he ran off?

I know we have two very different time lines going on there. I'm wondering if Marc had to forge papers to join the Marines/Arm because I suspect he was about 17 in both cases. Unless he spent a year wandering around after he ran off... I know he was discharged for his psychiatric issues in both time lines, but I wonder if his age ever came up as a discrepancy.

I know they did mention his sketchy past with the hospitalizations that Marc somehow hid from them. This does imply that he did join with some forged papers.

Just me out here asking the real questions.

You ARE asking the real questions! And thank you so much for sharing them with me, because Marc’s life pre-Moon Knight is something I LOVE contemplating. To get straight to your question about whether Marc needed to forge documents about his age, most of the earlier comics indicate Marc was already 18 when he enlisted, but the Lemire run does leave some from room for interpretation!

As per usual, this got incredibly long and rambling, so the citations for and how I got all of these numbers are under the cut, but the long and the short of it is:

Elias dies (Hurwitz/Lemire) and Marc enlists: 18 years old

Two or three years in the Marine Corps: 20 or 21 years old

Five or six years with the CIA (for 8 years total pre-mercenary): 26 years old

Four years as a mercenary, ending with his resurrection: 30 years old

Elias dies (Zelenetz, 18 years after Marc left home): 36 years old

Thanks again for asking and if anyone wants to dive into all the rest, that's here too hahaha

Marc is a bit of a unique case in comics, at least of the ones I’ve come across, because we're actually given solid dates and timeframes for his backstory! The only problem, which is far more typical of comics, is that the established timeline of Marc’s backstory is repeatedly ignored/retconned/adjusted for the sliding timescale, etc. And that’s how we actually get three different variations on how and when Elias Spector died.

The first time we get any sort of dates related to Marc’s past is in Moon Knight (Vol. 1/1980), #37 by Alan Zelenetz, Bo Hampton, and Armando Gil, which establishes that Marc was “all of eighteen” when he joined up with the Marines, became a mercenary about 8 years later, and that a total of 18 years passed between when Marc left home and Elias’ death.

Accordingly, this is the only case where Elias dies after Marc had already become Moon Knight. For another piece of trivia, that issue also establishes that Marc was already by mercenary in 1976.

But as is often the case with comics, with a new creative team, the timeline gets a little wonky. In Gregg Hurwitz implies in Shadowland: Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2010), #1-2 that Marc joined up at 18, was old enough to have a little brother old enough to enlist (18 or 17 with both parents' approval) when Marc and his father had their falling out, and that Elias died immediately after their confrontation. Some sources, including the Marvel Wiki, argue that Hurwitz switched the timeline around even further in that Marc had already joined up and a couple years had passed before the ringside confrontation, but eh, make of that what you will.

In either case, pre-Lemire and as per Huston in Moon Knight (Vol. 5/2006), #3, the provided reason for Marc’s dishonorable discharge after two years in the Corps and before acting as a mercenary for four years was that he struck a superior officer (which,,,,fits so well with Marc’s historical issues with authority hahaha).

Huston also gives us a hard date of four years for how long Marc was a mercenary.

Lemire, as you alluded to, nonetheless proposes his own timeline in Moon Knight (Vol. 8/2016), #11: Elias passes away while Marc was in Putnam Psychiatric Hospital and Marc apparently lied his way into the Marine Corps afterwards, but Lemire doesn't provide any solid ages or dates to go off of.

Fun fact, Lemire DOES give Marc an extra year in the Corps (3 years as opposed to Huston's 2) and this is where we get the dishonorable discharge on the grounds of misrepresentation/mental health.

All these screenshots and citations to say,,,,the exact years are a little hard to pin down hahaha In regard to your question of if Marc had to lie about his age to get in to the Marines, earlier comics seem to pretty frequently indicate that Marc was at least 18 when he enlisted, with only Lemire's run leaving his age comparatively ambiguous. In the case of the latter timeline, then, there might be room to consider he forged some documents to appear older/avoid having to get parental consent to enlist if he was already creating other fake documents. If we're being strict, however, and going solely off what's found in the text (a foolhardy exercise when it comes to comics, but please bear with me), the text only says that he "lied to [his] recruiters," as opposed to submitting any sort of doctored documents. And I will say, and this is coming from only anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt, but I've encountered a number of accounts from the Global War on Terror-era of recruiters just being perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to discrepancies in medical records in order to boost there numbers. Guys trying to lie about their age or produce questionable documents, however, came under considerably more scrutiny, considering how much harder it is to fake how old someone is in the age of social security numbers and birth certificates. So Marc forging something is possible, but there's unfortunately just a bit more historical precedent in the early 2000's United States military of men being swept up by recruiters despite psychiatric or medical discrepancies that should have potentially disbarred them from combat positions. As for the rest of Marc's timeline, most accounts have Elias dying around the time Marc enlists, which would be about 18. Side note, Shadowland's comment about Randall enlisting right around that time as well could still work if he was only 9 months younger then Marc, which is an interesting concept. Similarly, authors most often portray Marc spending 2 or 3 years in the Corps (making Marc 20 or 21 years old) and then potentially going directly into the private sector for four years (24 or 25 years). If we're going with Zelenetz's "8 year [to] hone [his] fighting skills" comment, though, that fits better with the older concept that Marc spent some time running around the world with the CIA, which could account for the additional 5 or 6 years between when Marc got booted and when he became a mercenary (putting him at 25 or 26 years old). If we tack on Huston's idea of Marc spending four years as a mercenary at that point then, we get Marc having his fateful encounter in North Sudan when he was about 30 years old. Lastly, and mainly because I’m so incredibly fond of the Zelenetz issue, Moon Knight (Vol. 1/1980), #37 taking place 18 years after Marc left home would mean the first volume ends with him having been Moon Knight for about 6 years, at 36. That's how I square it all in my head at least, but I would love to hear other people's opinions!!!

[barnowlofnobility]

Getting into painting beyblades

[kissme-withyour-cherrylipstick]

Sir Elyan

This took me 21.5 hours I hope you like it 🥲 I'm never drawing chain mail again

[illustratus]

Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Frederic William Burton

[catssillyloves]

uhhhh yeah 👍

[prettybabybaby]

death eaters raping muggleborns like vikings would rape innocent women when pillaging 🫠🫠

I’ve had this exact though so many times it’s not even funny

content: noncon

like they view muggleborns as subhuman anyway so it only makes sense that they’d feel entitled to do whatever they please.

I’ve also had a reoccurring thought of young tom riddle finding a muggleborn!reader especially pretty and he can’t help but rape you one day… it’s sort of a catalyst for the rest of the death eaters to follow suit and rape any fuckhole they think is pretty enough. they just get so hard seeing the looks of pure fear on the muggleborn’s faces when they kick down the doors of what is supposed to be their safe haven, wands pointed at their and their families faces. sometimes they even go for their other family members like mothers or sisters, saving the muggleborns for last to make them watch…

[m3dieval]

petrus_apiarius' solution to the maille skirt closure and suspension is brilliant. Haven't seen anyone else do this, but it looks like less hassle than using a drawstring and you don't have to deal with having a big buckle on your back (a common solution I see).

[princessmoms]

Flatteringly, this new generation is often referred to as "chaosborn". I think its rather catchy, don't you? -Discord

[Patreon] [Artist’s Blog]

[vinzred]

[age-of-moonknight]

Interested to hear what your thoughts on the 2021 run's use of villains is considering how wildly different each one was from arc to arc

Ooooh, thank you for sending an ask! Especially since it's always fun to revisit the 2021 run. Also because, I must confess, I tend to not give the rogue's gallery their due so I appreciate the excuse to really buckle down and focus on them for a change. :D As it seems to be the case with a lot of my responses, things got a little long, so a list of all the villains in Moon Knight (Vol. 9/2021) to help me keep track of things and my miscellaneous thoughts on matters are included under the cut. Thanks again!!!

The villains of the 2021 run are as follows:

The Structure (including Tutor, Nemean, and Grand Mal): #1, #13-14, #16-18

Zodiac ("Terry"): #1, #5-7, #11-12, #18-19, #25, #27-30

Vermin: #1

Hawley (the janitor with the sweat thing): #2

Rampage (Stuart Clarke): #4, #25

Jigsaw (Billy Russo): #4, #11

Manslaughter Marsdale: #7, #25

Stained Glass Scarlet (Scarlet Fasinera my beloved): #8

House of Shadows (The Midnight Mission): #9

Waxman: #10, #25

Rutherford Winner: #10, #25

Black Spectre III (Robert Plesko): #18-#19, #25, #27, #29-30

Commodore Donald Planet: #19

Harlequin Hit-Men (Herb and Sheila Hollister): #19-20

Sarnak: #21, #23, #25, #27-29

New Enforcers: #23

Morpheus (Robert Markham): #24

Man Mountain Marko: (bonus: Devil's Reign: Moon Knight) #25

Black Spectre II (Ryan Trent): #25, #27-29

Vibro: #26-27

With honorable mentions to

Hunter's Moon who definitely wasn't a villain but who did represent a generally antagonistic force in issues #1 and #3

The real antagonist of issue #22 being Marc thinking it would be a good idea to dress up as Midnight Man, steal money, and lie to Greer

,,,,and to 8-Ball who pops up in issues #1, #7, #20, #25, #28, and #30

Now that that's all sorted, two things really stuck out to me about the villains Mr. MacKay chose to use in vol. 9: A. the EXTREME deep cuts and/or throwbacks and B. how quite frequently, the identity of the villain didn't matter as much as whatever else Moon Knight had going on interpersonally in that issue.

This is me just conjecturing here, but I would propose that Mr. MacKay could get away with inserting honestly downright obscure villains, such as the Harlequin Hit-Men, or villains that aren't particularly developed beyond their cool power set, such as Grand Mal and Nemean, because Marc having to reckon with the murder of old comrades or finally have a decent conversation with Jake and Steven (issues #20 and #14 respectively) is where all of the emotional investment was for those issues; the big, classic comic book punch up was almost window dressing at that point for the issue's real conflict and the villains could have been practically interchangeable. I would also go so far as to suggest that the encounters with Hawley the janitor in issue #2 and the relatively less obscure Waxman in #10, Jigsaw in #11, and Zodiac in #12 were predominantly to establish Marc's moral limits as a hero and had comparatively little to do with the villains as characters themselves. Personally, and this might be because of my own slight biases where I tend to not focus on the villains on much, I find it commendable that MacKay as a comic book writer was able to craft some gripping stories where a good deal of the narrative momentum came from interpersonal dynamics and knowing one's own self in a genre that pretty consistently relies on flash without the narrative feeling too slow or,,,,navel-gaze-y. Again, this might just be my opinion, but it feels appropriate for Moon Knight comics, which have always been a little contemplative with Moon Knight's complexities being a major draw. The fact that MacKay then used that structure to sometimes bring back bronze age villains with fewer than five appearances made it all the more fun for us comic fans who like such deep cuts hahaha

This is also not to say though that there weren't some cases of "author very purposefully chooses a specific character to reveal something about the hero." There's Hunter's Moon who, when acting antagonistically to Moon Knight, represented what it could look like for Mark to really fully give himself over to Khonshu (issue #3). Then there's also Mr. MacKay's tendency to bring back old villains and tweak them a bit to reflect Moon Knight's development as it was progressing in vol. 9. A positive example is the House of Shadows (RIP) which moves on from just being a despised entity cursed with unlimited resurrections to having a new purpose in helping the community. Scarlet Fasinera (RIP), however, is an instance of how a champion for justice can begin to lose humanity in a warped life after death, a common ominous theme in vol. 9.

One other character that necessitates a little discussion is Robert "Sigmund" Plesko with his return as the third Black Spectre. Am I particularly compelled by Plesko's motivation apparently being that he "became bored with being a mere observer...a minnow in [Moon Knight's] wake" of shark-like destruction (#30) and decided to try his own hand at creating a little chaos? I'm only admitting this because you asked for my thoughts as this is veering into personal opinion territory aslkdfj, but I don't personally find such a motivation interesting for a villain, especially after he was built up as being the ultimate antagonist of the volume. I am nonetheless majorly compelled by A. how Mr. MacKay plucked Plesko out of the twilight issues of Marc Spector: Moon Knight as I'm always a sucker for supporting characters making a comeback, B. how he wove Plesko into Marc and Frenchie's history with Bushman as I am also always a sucker for a reference to the wild dog days, and C. that of all characters, Mr. MacKay chose to bring back the guy that Marc Spector: Moon Knight's #55's creators used to suggest for the first time in comics (that I've found) that Marc had "an extremely complex multiple identity syndrome" (the early 90's were rough). Plesko's motivations as a character may have been a little rough, but I love how he is another variation on a theme that has been popping up in Moon Knight comics since the very first volume: no matter what March does, he can't escape his violent past, he can only confront it when it rears its ugly head and starts threatening to do damage again (with Marc's willingness to do so even to the point of occasionally dying in the process being one of the things I find most personally intriguing about his character).

As for some additional miscellaneous notes:

They essentially had cameo roles, but I did appreciate Mr. MacKay's inclusion of Black Spectre II (Ryan Trent) and Morpheus. I love a bonafide Moon Knight villain.

I realized that I haven't discussed the Structure much despite how prevalent that organization was in the first half of the volume and I guess that's because the exact details of the Structure wasn't quite as important to me as the fact that they were vampires !!! I love when Moon Knight comics blend the street-level with a little bit of the fantastic as that is a niche that is so incredibly Moon Knight™️ to me. So between that and how they're the reason why we have the lovely Reese as a reoccurring supporting character, I'm grateful for how they served the story even if they didn't leave the biggest impression on me.

[redbootsindoriath]

Once upon a time, ten years or so ago, I wrote a ridiculous children's book about a squirrel knight. To this day it's still the only book I've ever completed a full draft for, and I've considered editing it and seeing if I can't get it published someday, but I would like to have illustrations for it first. One of the problems I've encountered with that, though, is putting plate armor on squirrels. So if I have to suffer through drawing it then you guys have to suffer through seeing it.

[ladyevilmetals]

Chainmaille Coif by Lady Evil Metals

[renstrapp]

Mail club for MARCH!! Dame Sabrina and Princess Annul Adeline and a lovely tattoo style sun x moon sticker. All printed here in Portland! Shoutout to Saturn Stickers for printing my stickers.

You can read more about these designs and their origin on the Patreon post <3

[illustratus]

Crusaders Sighting Jerusalem by Edwin Austin Abbey

[the-bar-sinister]

This is a question you may delete if it doesn't interest you.

If such a thing as a "knight pride flag" existed, what colors would it have?

I mean like a flag to display the pride of being a knight, not necessarily the flag an actual knight would carry around to bear arms or whatever.

There's no better Knight Pride flag than the one that's been flown for 5000 years, anon.

[sodaneko]

the ancient and bloodthirsty entity who haunts my narrative and i saw you from across the ritual chamber and we love your vibe