ptahrrific | title drops

Two selections from the current era of MK comics, for fic reasons:

moon-silvered, lunatic, cratered

Marc vs. a janitor with mind-control powers but really petty villain ambitions, Moon Knight (2021) issue 2:

transcript 2.1

Marc: I’m not even talking about my mental illness. I’m sure something like dissociative identity disorder is old hat to you. After all, you’re used to sharing space in someone’s mind.

Let me show you something new.

You, who have touched any number of minds…how does it feel to touch the truly alien?

The universe is composed almost entirely of darkness, Hawley. It’s the default state.

Little wonder, then, when early men looked up from the terrifying darkness of night, beset by predators and worse, and saw light…

transcript 2.2

Marc: …they worshipped it as a god.

Mine is the cold fire of the moon.

Mine is the tidal pull on the salt-blood beating through your heart. Mine is the silver madness that illuminates but does not warm.

transcript 2.3

Marc: COME AND WORSHIP.

transcript 2.4

Marc: My brain is moon-silvered, lunatic, cratered with a god’s fingerprints. The deep structures of my mind have been irreversibly changed by communion with an ultraterrestrial intelligence. This is my poisoned ground. This is my temple.

But I take my weaknesses and turn them to my advantage.

I take my scars…and make them my weapons.

(Coffin labels: [blank], Lockley, Grant, Spector)

transcript 2.5

Marc: Selah.

There. Nice, nice. It’s done. It’s over.

Soldier: How–? What did you do?

Marc: Nothing that he’ll recover from.

Hawley: moon moon moon

no one could blame you

Marc having a great well-adjusted talk with Dr. Sterman about his father issues, Moon Knight (2021) issue 5:

transcript 5.1

Marc: “Unhappy.” Heh. Why should I be happy, Dr. Sterman? When has happiness ever mattered to the Fist of Khonshu? I don’t have “happiness.” I have my duty. I have my debt.

Andrea: There it is again. That’s how you think Moon Knight should talk. Glibness and angst. What a combination. Don’t insult me by talking to me like a character from a video game, Marc.

Marc: …

Marc: Are you Jewish, Dr. Sterman?

transcript 5.2

Marc: Of course, there’s being raised Jewish. And then there’s being raised by a rabbi.

My father was the kindest, gentlest man I’ve ever known. But there was never anything kind or gentle in me. He was a man of peace. He hated violence. And I thought that made him weak. A weak man serving an indifferent god.

Because those were our stories, weren’t they? We lost our homes, our land. We were enslaved and then escaped out into the desert. And from then up till now, we took our licks from practically everyone. My father taught me that it was our perseverance that was our greatest quality as a people.

How we never gave up our faith, our laws, our covenant with God. How we could laugh to keep from crying. No matter what happened to us.

So when I died in Selima, can you blame me for accepting Khonshu’s offer? I put aside a god who had let terrible things happen to his people, a god who I had never seen, never heard, in favor of a god who spoke right to me and promised: “Join me. Be my son. And together we will get things done.”

Andrea: No one could blame you for wanting to live, Marc.

transcript 5.3

Marc (voiceover): But that’s just it, isn’t it? All my life, I thought that my father was weak. Because he was kind and gentle, and would never raise a hand in violence.

But he would have died before he broke faith with God, before recognizing another. “You shall have no other gods before me…for I, the Lord your G-d, am a jealous G-d.”

When it came down to it, I was the weak one. I sold out everything I had been raised to believe in to save my own neck. To further indulge my addiction to violence. My father’s god took us out of Egypt. My new god had kept us there.