Moon Knight #24: Dream Raid

Moon Knight #24 – written by Jed MacKay with art by Federico Sabbatini, colors from Rachelle Rosenberg, and letters by VC’s Cory Petit – doesn’t rest on the laurels of its crossover with Venom and avoids a lethargic prelude to the oversized #25. Instead, various plotlines start to coalesce as Moon Knight battles d-list villain Morpheus (not of the Endless, but of the science experiment gone wrong variety). The story sees Moon Knight work his way through a building and various dream sequences to reach the villain.

The dreams range from a hilarious superhero fantasy courtesy of a mailman, Jake Lockley’s ultimate party, and a winking nod to the Avengers storyline that kicked off this run. After resisting the siren’s call of perfect lives in the dreams, Moon Knight finds Morpheus bleeding out after refusing to accept a shadowy figure’s invitation to fight the moon vigilante. Morpheus reveals the name of the villain, which connects some dots between the seemingly one-off issues of the run and setups a big bad for MacKay’s Moon Knight endgame. 

The issue is a pulse-pounding adventure that wastes no time setting up the hook of Moon Knight battling Morpheus and his created dreams. MacKay mixes gripping action with introspective moments as each of Moon Knight’s personalities gets the opportunity to reveal their deepest desires, and how the Moon Knight personality breaks them all out of it. That threading succeeds as MacKay allows the desire to feed the action, and vice-versa. It becomes a strong hook that makes this an introspective, action-forward plot. 

Sabbatini is an excellent choice to bring this balance to life, switching from Alessandro Cappuccio’s more elastic action to linework that channels the dreamlike quality that Morpheus brings to the issue. Each dream is illustrated with a keen eye to the idealized, full of cheer and smiles that feel out of place with the tragedy baked into the character. From the first page of a family BBQ, something feels off thanks to Sabbatini’s rendering of (non)reality. Instead, Moon Knight/Marc Spector becomes this specter that haunts each dream and the Moon Knight costume stands out against the idyllic. 

Once the action picks up as Morpheus tries to appeal to Moon Knight’s violent nature, the dreams shift from this idealized sense of peace to a perfect set-up for carnage. Moon Knight fights in an endless city full of blood and foes, and a mountain of defeated villains becomes the perch that the vigilante ascends. It’s a jarring shift that MacKay and Sabbatini execute perfectly, allowing it to play the desperation that Morpheus is feeling, telegraphing his final fate as Moon Knight approaches the end of the journey. 

These moments are punctuated by Rosenberg’s coloring, which is the great equalizer of this run. The visual continuity that the palettes bring to every issue is exemplified when the switch between Cappuccio and Sabbatini occurs. The harsh blue whites of Moon Knight ensure that even as the hero changes costumes or styles, he retains the ethereal, unsettling quality established back in the first issue of this run. Many of the tones that Rosenberg deploys in these dream sequences also echo back to previous stories or scenes, like the harsh reds evoking the fight with the assassins in the sentient Midnight Mission. 

The visual coherence ensures that even as the artistic styles differ in execution, they’re unified by the strength of the book’s hues. Rosenberg doesn’t just play the hits with the colors in this issue either, as the use of warm, natural hues help to underscore the dreamlike quality at the opening of the issue, layering in the feeling of something being off about the scene. Later on, Rosenberg will shift the palette to nothing but grey, black, and white for a page that sees him walking the alley between dreams. It’s a stark change from the bright neons that bring a vibrance to the art but works as a stunning refrain that showcases the liminal nature of Morpheus’s powers.