Moon Knight: City of the Dead #4: Belly of the Gator

In Joseph Campbell’s seminal text, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the author describes the hero’s journey, which follows the core narrative of the departing hero. The template, also referred to as a monomyth, tracks the progression of a hero through a series of events that lead to changes and beyond. A key point of the journey is the stage Belly of the Whale, which represents the separation of the hero from their ordinary world, and marks the first instance where a character shows the possibility of change. 

Moon Knight: City of the Dead #4 – written by David Pepose with pencils by Marcelo Ferreira, inks by Jay Leisten, coloring from Rachelle Rosenberg, and lettering from VC’s Cory Petit – resumes Marc Spector’s emotional journey in the land of the dead. The Fist of Khonshu has been swallowed whole, leaving Scarlet Scarab to finish the mission. Khalil, the young child and soon-to-be avatar of Osiris, is flatlining back with Hunter’s Moon. The other doctor-turned-avatar of the moon god can stabilize the boy but realizes his time is drawing nearer. 

Back in the afterlife, Marc is forced to live through some of the most traumatic experiences of his life, including his first kill as a marine, the judgment of his brothers-in-arms, and even the shame of not saving Dr. Alraune. Stepping through these painful experiences, Moon Knight is tested by Ammut, the crocodile trying to convince the vigilante to give up and submit. A touching conversation with Dr. Alraune does wonders to assuage Marc’s regrets, providing a bit of closure just as the Jackal Knight steals Khalil’s power back in Duat. 

Pepose’s script for the issue twists and turns in Marc’s grief, building on the hero’s guilt to craft a compelling story of redemption. The script takes the idea of the Belly of the Whale and makes it manifest, trading an aquatic mammal for a harsh reptilian alligator. This change aligns with the Egyptian mythology of the character but evokes that notion of the monomyth structure. The stage happens later in the larger arc of the story than most heroes’ journeys but creates an excellent threshold moment. The issue is a tense exploration of the guilt and trauma associated with the cost of taking a life and finds itself in the catharsis of reconciling the past. 

Thanks to the fluid nature of Duat, Marc can make peace with his past, and Pepose writes an excellent scene between Marc and Dr. Alraune. Executing the moment with a sense of restraint, Pepose shows how effective a small win can be in the run for a character. It’s a perfect example of how theme and plot can be a way into a character, and how the malleable concept of the monomyth can be in the modern superhero. Pepose continues to support and bolster the main title’s core ethos, enriching the larger arc of the hero in a post-Age of Khonshu world. 

Expressions and facial tics sell the emotion in this issue, as Ferreira’s pencils are a welcome return. The artwork details the anguish and pain on each character’s face, with Badar and Marc in particular. The horror of watching a child die in the land of the living, and trapped in the cycle of pain that springs from the city of the dead. Ferreira’s linework is clean and firm, lacking in interpretation but selling genuine emotion. This grounds the issue as a mystical city of the underworld bleeds into the page. 

Ferreira’s pencils are enhanced thanks to Leisten’s inking style, which adds a harshness to the images across the page. The inks add weight to both the action sequences and the emotional beats, selling the respective elements of fighting and talking. Those thick lines sell the concrete against the fantastical, as the breadth of forgiveness clashes with the giant reptile eating people and jackal-headed villains battling a winged hero. The split between these two elements shows the book’s internal willingness to accept change, just like Marc can, in the context of the issue.  

Alongside the inking and pencils, Rosenberg’s consistent coloring reinforces the emotional ideas of the issue. The more interpretive palette of Marc’s tormenting feels sickly and acidic, as the green and reds eat away at the hero’s resolve. In the shift to the catharsis with Dr. Alraune, the book embraces a golden hue that gives off a sense of dawn unfolding, warm light basking Marc (and the reader) in the light of a new day. In the short sequence of the living world, Rosenberg switches gears and infuses a more ethereal hue that aligns itself with the main Moon Knight title, selling the division between life and death.