Huh, I was mixing up the names for Bushman and Bushmaster. Which has nothing to do with today's book! From 1976, Marvel Spotlight #29, "The Deadly Gambit of Conquer-Lord!" Written by Doug Moench, art by Don Perlin. With a Kirby/Milgrom cover!
On the splash page of this issue, Moon Knight jumps Conquer-Lord as he takes a shot at the mayor...with a sniper rifle, from about twenty feet away? Well, while Moon Knight manages to save the mayor and get him to call off the manhunt on our hero, C-L takes Marlene hostage. Despite the overcompensating name, Conquer-Lord also has a number of spies all over the city, including one trying to pass himself off as Marc Spector's new valet. (There are a couple dated slurs here...) Marc pretends to get punched out, so he can follow the valet back to his boss; who has trussed up Marlene in a deathtrap over an alligator tank.
At Conquer-Lord's base, Moon Knight has to face the villain on a life-sized chessboard full of gun-toting pieces and exploding squares; which isn't really in line with MK's usual bad guys. Which might be why Conquer-Lord hasn't returned like Bushman or Black Spectre. That and the name...
Hmmm, a really good writer could do something with this Conquer-Lord guy, like a Warren Ellis or something like that. And a chessboard with killer chess pieces? I wonder if the writers on harry Potter were inspired by this story. Of course there were the Chessmen in Iron Man, so there's that too.
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