Depressing, but not for the reason you think.

"Abject Depression Week" started off with the loss of a little girl--there's nowhere to go but up, right? How about a man, and a vigilante, unable to break the circle of violence? From 1982, Moon Knight #26, "Hit It!" Written by Doug Moench, art by Bill Sienkiewicz.

On a hot night in New York City, a man sees in the paper his father's obituary. Abused as a child, he now feels robbed of the chance to ever "pay him back" and seething with years of rage, goes berserk, punching his way through random bystanders on his way to the funeral parlor. (There is a rather amusing panel of the man plowing through a locked door like he was the Kool-Aid Man, only really angry.)

Moon Knight follows the trail of bloodied noses and banged-up jaws to the man, who has decked a priest and smashed open his father's coffin. He dares MK to hit him--why not? His dad did! The priest even extorts MK to pop the man one, but MK says there's been enough hitting tonight. Until the man hits him in the back of the head, and he's left with no other choice. (Well, that's not true; I guess Moon Knight could've stood there and let the man punch him until he was all punched out...)

It's a sad story, and it's a little more bittersweet in that it was pretty much the highwater mark of Bill Sienkiewicz's run on the book: he still did a few more issues, but felt he had peaked there. Not to underscore his involvement, but in an interview at Horror Comic Book News, Doug Moench says "I originally did 'Hit It!' as a 5-6 page story. Bill Sienkiewicz went crazy on the story. He turned it into a longer story, he kept expanding the panels on the story." (Check out the rest of the interview!)

More depression later today!