Plus, Brother Voodoo! And a Geraldo Rivera cameo...oh, too far to stop now, let's just shove through here. From 1989,
Marc Spector: Moon Knight #9, "Zombie Saturday Night" Written by Charles (Chuck) Dixon, pencils by Sal Velluto, inks by Mark Farmer.
Brother Voodoo had gotten beat by voodoo priest/wannabe drug kingpin Dr. Friday, and was only now recovering from the zombi drug that had been force-fed to him. His medallion had been taken, so he couldn't use his powers; so he came to Moon Knight for help. B-V didn't look great, but was willing to go in guns blazing, with Moon Knight and Midnight! Midnight...? I hadn't read a lot of his appearances: this was Marc's short-lived sidekick,
Jeff Wilde. He was the son of old Moon Knight foe the Midnight Man; and had fought MK under that alias, but was maybe trying to redeem himself. For his part, Marc doesn't seem particularly invested in him? Midnight nearly gets shot by the zombi henchmen while trying to get down from the chopper, and Marc only just now realizes his costume wasn't Kevlar. (Marc also takes a call from his accountant, who is furious over an upcoming IRS audit, and can't figure out why Marc would need so much aviation fuel.)
Dr. Friday is killed by his partner, for bringing heat down on them, but he gives his back-up plan or instructions to a chalk-white zombi, who gets out while Brother Voodoo guns down several others. Brother Voodoo then connects with his brother's spirit to break the zombi spell. Midnight isn't sure he believes in "all that Shirley MacLaine junk," but Marc says he's had some experience with it. Later, the white zombi--that sounds familiar somehow--tracks down Friday's killer.
Man, if Jason Todd rubbed you the wrong way back then, Jeff is raising the bar. He repeatedly refers to Brother Voodoo, Jericho Drumm, as "Jerry" which seems really disrespectful, too. He's probably best known for the Spider-Man biweekly story "
Round Robin: the Sidekick's Revenge," which I've read like
one issue of, and I think I
just got the Robin/"Sidekick's Revenge" thing? Seriously, I could never get past why that was in Spidey's book and not Moon Knight's, but enh. And again, Midnight's showed up a couple times since, because Moon Knight really needs a deeper bench of bad guys. I know one event issue or mini or something tried to make another bad guy from the
Marc Spector run out to be a big deal, but Marc doesn't remember
Chainsaw any more than you do.
Gee, do you think Hasbro will ever put out this version of Brother Voodoo as an official ML figure? Probably not but at least this one looks different enough from the others to be worth putting out. Actually I’d prefer if they ever make another BV figure, that it’d be his classic look.
ReplyDeleteYou know I was & still am a big fan of that 6-part Round Robin storyline for nothing else than all the cool 90’s street characters that got roped into showing up. Even Nova briefly showed up before leaving in the middle of it. Of course that was before I ever truly knew or had an investment in Midnight. Now that I’ve seen what he was before that I can definitely see why he didn’t pan out as a sidekick and yes, Marc definitely shoulders a lot of the blame for that. Probably could’ve avoided years of unnecessary drama & stress if he’d just told Jeff to go get a real job or something instead 🤷♂️
Midnight’s origin kinda reminds me of Frog-Man, the son of the old Daredevil villain Leap Frog. Only, you know, less funny.
ReplyDeleteTrue, true.
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