Enarr — Roleplayer Guild

Nightly Ramblings

In Which Comic Books Are Dignified As Literature
Worthy Of Consideration Beyond That With Which
They Are Usually Ascribed

Or NR IWCBADALWOCBTWWTAUA for short and if that acronym seems insufficient, I recommend NI for shorter. Anyhow, I like comic books. I like 'em a lot. I always have. In fact, in my youth I developed a literal code of chivalry that I had sworn to, upheld through my middle teenage years and have since forgotten the actual terms of, based upon the behaviour and tenets of superheroes (one of which was Always Get Back Up).

I got into comic books because I was fixated on The Batman when I was a lad, and, not counting the Bionicle comics which confounded me at the time, my first actual comic book that I personally owned was Scott Snyder's Batman Annual #1, from back when the New 52 first launched. I loved it. The first series I would actually read all the way through was the first run on Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, trailed by Watchmen, Geoff Johns Green Lantern (My copy of Green Lantern: Secret Origin got stolen out of my locker when I was in middle school. I would've reaped my revenge had I known who it was. I hadn't finished reading it), and Vince Vaughan's The Runaways.

It wasn't the presence of violence, bright colors or the scantily clad women. I felt like comic books were the perfect storytelling medium. With opportunity for text and illustration, sometimes acting as one, usually working in concert that allowed me to get totally immersed. I didn't hate TV, but I'd usually rather have been reading a comic book. I found it much harder to think actively while watching TV. I didn't like my attention being steered at someone elses pace. I loved the intimacy of leaning over a page and ignoring everything else. I was a pretty solitary type for a litany of reasons.

You can't really share a comic book like you can an episode of a television show or an audiobook. It makes for an awkward experience. But I think that the fact that it's something you kinda have to do alone, makes it feel all the more communal when you'd get together with whatever buds you had that actually engaged with it on the same level, with similar immersion and neurotic single-minded fixation on the pages.

I guess NI is supposed to be that. I want to update this every Saturday, which means I'm already late, but hey, better late than never (sometimes). So the idea is that every week we're going to discuss a single issue of a comic book. From now until August 31st, we're gonna be focusing on Mark Waid's seminal Kingdom Come #1, at which point we'll get to talking about #2, until we're done and pick a new series/arc/run. Thanks for joining. I gotta fly to get to work, but I already read the first issue and I'll post my thoughts later.

C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T   P R O P O S A LM O O N  K N I G H T

M A R C   S P E C T O R   ♦   E X - M E R C E N A R Y   ♦   Q U E E N S   /  T H E   B R O N X   ♦   K H O N S H U

C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T:

"Careful there, you almost broke your arm."

As a child, Marc Spector discovered that his father's best friend was a neo-nazi serial killer that preyed upon Jews, such as his father Elias and himself. After anxiously telling his father about his outlandish discovery and speculating upon it, he was admitted into a psychiatric institution and treated as though he were suffering from dissociative episodes. While he was receiving treatment, it was discovered that his father had been murdered, the grief causing him to slip into the patterns of unwellness expected of him before he was discharged and returned to his family life.

After graduating from MIT with a Bachelor's Degree of Science in Engineering, he applied for a position with SHIELD, where he found work as a Counterintelligence Threat Analyst, assigned to monitor the unrest in Kahndaq that characterized the Muhunnad regime during the Arab Spring. He ultimately gained his accolades for his neurotic levels of dedication and willingness to pull all nighters in the name of research, which paid off when he discovered that the Kahndaqi ambassador was conspiring with US intelligence operatives to plan a siege on Bialya's nuclear arsenal.

Following a routine psych evaluation, Spector was honorably discharged and given a generous severance. It was never fully explained to him who had decided that he had suddenly become a liability, but adapting to civilian life was a challenging transition. Ultimately, he decided that his skillset was still of value, so he moved to Kahndaq, where he found work as a soldier of fortune, leveraging his history with SHIELD. He found a kindred spirit in Jean-Paul "Frenchie" Duchamp, a skilled helicopter pilot and mechanic who proved invaluable doubling as Mission Control.

Marc Spector became a soldier of fortune, but occasionally indulged in fugues as the playboy philanthropist Steven Grant. Rinsing out his wallet on cars, public outreach programs and expensive women, he began a juggling act that was so involved, he escaped from his vacation by adopting the persona of Jake Lockley, an alcoholic cab driver constantly scrubbing the Earth for fast cash and a dust up. While acting as a mercenary, he found work under the accomplished guerrilla fighter Raoul Bushman, who was hired to raid an Egyptian digsite and retrieve the unusual gem stones that were found there.

It was here that they met Peter and Marlene Alraune, a father and daughter archaeologist team. Peter was killed by Bushman after being provoked, though Spector had attempted to dissuade him. His daughter, Marlene, attempted an escape, where Spector attempted intervention again. This time, Bushman was tired of dealing with Spector and stabbed him, inflicting what had been presumed to be a killing blow, leaving him to bleed out by an ancient statue where he would wake up hours later.

He had a dream, or some sort of vision, where he was met by Khonshu. He was presented with a deal, life in service to the moon god, acting as the his Knight of Vengeance, who would reap the blood of the wicked and protect those who travel under the moon's watchful eye. Rising under the wickedly smiling razor thin lips of a crescent moon, Spector wrapped himself in fresh sheets that shimmered a molten white under the luminescence of night. He reaped much blood that night, leaving a crimson oasis in his wake as he eliminated all of Bushman's underlings, though he underestimated the threat presented by Bushman himself. He succeeded in rescuing Marlene and then arranged for her to stay in Steven Grant's estate in Staten Island, not entirely selflessly.

Upon arriving back in America, Marc Spector laid himself to rest, in a manner of speaking, preferring instead to reserve violence for his newest persona "The Moon Knight". Taking cues from some of the more grounded stories of the Batman of yesteryear, he invested in designing a suit of highly flexible body armor complete with a cape capable of allowing him to glide off of rooftops "safely".

Thanks to his experience in reconnaissance, he has been able to loosely track Bushman's activities, discovering that the diamonds, sometimes referred to collectively as The Heart of Darkness, are something of a recurring motif and he has therefore concluded that if he can acquire enough of them, he can lure Bushman into a trap, where he can claim vengeance. In the meantime, he continues refining his approach with Frenchie at his side.

C H A R A C T E R   M O T I V A T I O N S   &   G O A L S:
I felt it was high time I reintegrate with my coven of internet nerds. After attempting a Legion of Superheroes sheet that was swatted down because the idea of characters traveling between the present and the future of a different world seemed too convoluted and the lack of a singular protagonist in my Green Lantern sheet was evidently not sufficiently compelling, I decided that I'd revise my approach for the time being. I just want to come home.

Now, as for why I chose Moon Knight specifically: I wanted to revisit a slightly more grounded world of non-superpowered or minimally superpowered vigilantism. To that end, I considered who else was being played. I considered attempting a Pied Piper, where I could collaborate with Hillan, but figured that there were other options that offered both superior creative freedom and entanglement. I considered doing a version of Wilcat where Ted would mentor his son Tom, but that's extremely reminiscent of Wraith's very own Batman Beyond approach. In the end, I figured that Moon Knight's background involving government agencies, far out earthbound exploration and intimate cast of characters would be really easy to integrate into this game's mainstream.

This isn't quite a Moon Knight year one, but he's not quite the expy of Denny O'Neil's Batman that appeared in Marc Spector - Moon Knight, but he wants to be. He's on track to be as involved with the supernatural as he was in his earliest appearances or, if you haven't read those, his fixation on slightly monstrous villains will be reminiscent of Batman's earliest encounters with chemically enabled villains such as Doctor Death or Hugo Strange.

Basically, Marc is a man who has created a routine that involves adopting new selves so thoroughly that it isn't simply lying anymore, it even goes beyond character acting to the point that he could probably fool a psychic. As Marc Spector, he is dedicated to being Moon Knight, to developing his equipment, his technique, learning new things all the time and implementing new strategies, growing as aggressively as he can in order to redeem himself and in order to take vengeance for the sake of 'goodness' in general, in Khonshu's name. His behavior as Jake Lockley and Steven Grant allow him an escape, though they sometimes seem to work as a team, or perhaps, more aptly, as a family.

The end of Season Two's first act, for Marc, as I envision is, will see him baiting Raoul Bushman into a fight to the death where Marc will acquire much of the Heart of Darkness, a diamond containing Eclipso's being, which will allow Eclipso to speak to Spector, much as Khonshu does, and will result in him journeying to Kahndaq to retrieve the final pieces of the Heart of Darkness, which basically will put a nail in the second act. As for the third act, Marc will need help to confront Eclipso, probably with help from other superheroes.

I really want to be an active participant, so I thought of some things that other players could do if they wanted to affect Moon Knight's story in the IC. So if you want your character's story to perk Moon Knight's ears up, just do anything in Kahndaq or come into possession of a fragment of the Heart of Darkness.

C H A R A C T E R   N O T E S:
Marc Spector
Marc Spector / Moon Knight: 26 year old former SHIELD agent, former mercenary, present superhero / Avatar of Khonshu. The basic superhero package.

Jake Lockley: 34 year old alcoholic cab driver. Killed a man when he was younger and scared himself because he liked it so much. Driver's license expired two years ago and he doesn't carry insurance.

Steven Grant:  36 year old wealthy philanthropist who owns a bona fide mansion by the Southeastern coast of Staten Island. Is presently dating and living with Marlene Alraune who assumes that this is the true self of her rescuer. Is undergoing something of a mid-life crisis.

Khonshu: Obscure ancient Egyptian god of the moon and patron deity of those who travel by night. Continues to bless Spector with life. Demands tribute in the form of blood.

Allies
Marlene Alraune: Steven Grant's live in girlfriend. Enjoys engaging with the academics of archaeology. Endorses Steven's other activities but doesn't appreciate the full extent of the violence that he metes out.

Jean-Paul "Frenchie" Duchamp: Often found on the other end of an encrypted comm link, cross referencing police databases and various other depositories for information regarding the people and places that Moon Knight comes across. Is secretly in love with Spector.

Antagonists
Morpheus: An insomniac unable to dispell his rotting dream energy through the regular means.

Raoul Bushman: Merciless mercenary collecting the pieces of the Heart of Darkness, armed with steel fangs, distinguished by a bleached white skull shape on his face.

Eclipso: God's Wrath incarnate whose consciousness has been trapped inside a shattered diamond known as the Heart of Darkness (horcruxes) that will claim the body of a human host upon enough of them being gathered up.

S A M P L E   P O S T:

Manhattan, New York City

"... received reports of a lethal stabbing at 210 West 46th Street, the Marquis Theater. Suspect is still at large." The news crinkled in The Moon Knight's ear as Frenchie patched in a feed from the police scanners.

His new cowl had the comm link built in to circumvent the hassles of a handheld walkie talkie. Spector had been rather insistent that, rather than simply defaulting to commonplace systems with government strength encryption, they manufacture their own quantum entangled intermediaries that would ensure that their transmissions would be both instantaneous and impossible to intercept without destroying. It took several months to arrange for the facilities to manufacture them quietly, but they had made it happen. After all, an unknowable amount of revolutions had failed in the past because they failed to prioritize communications over firepower.

"Well, Mark, it looks like The Marquis was debuting a musical adaptation of the classic slasher film Dreadcastle. Never did like the original much myself. Terribly pulpy," Frenchie drabbled. "But according to this charming little film on Instagram, the killer was wearing a mask that looks roughly like a caricature of a human face if it were crossed with a tax-evading Muppet. I wish I could demonstrate the true extent of how terrible the look of it is using words, my friend."

"Until we determine how to effectively convey the impression of visual stimulus over a spoken medium, it's an evil we'll have to keep combating," Spector snarked, as his feet and palms made contact with the buildings roof. As much work as they had put into the armor, the idea of running fast was at odds with landing softly within the framework of their current design, thanks to the principle of shock absorption. So he figured his best move was to roll out of a glide. Not the best way to enter combat due to the disorienting nature of the maneuver, but as a mid range transportation solution, it served it's purpose for now.

Getting his bearings, he sized up the roof of The Marquis, with the full moon above him, unblinking like the eye of his ever vigilant God, patron deity of all who traveled by night. It'd been about ten minutes since the first report. The situation apparently wasn't dire enough for droves of police officers to lock down the place, yet. Though Spector could see that some had arrived and, judging by their vacant vehicle, had apparently beaten him inside.

"Frenchie, who is it that was stabbed?"

"That would be Fred Walker, the gentleman who had been hired to play the part of the near invincible serial killer. Ironically, it looks like he was a really nice kid, y'know his voice actually bears a striking resemblance to Dave Mitchell."

"I'm losing interest, Frenchie," Spector informed him as he broke into the maintenance stairs before making his way down into the menacing darkness of the vertical corridor, flicking on a flash light mounted beside his mask.

"My bad. Anyhow, the lad was apparently drug off without leaving a trace of blood behind. Which seems rather telling to me, how about you?"

"I've been told that revenge is best served cold. I think it's gonna be hot and sticky and scarlet tonight," he smiled egregiously, dribbling his eyebrows.

As he neared the bottom of the staircase, he heard the faintest clink of a small piece of metal stroking the doorknob over and over, the sort of sounds that you can only ever hear when your heart is still and no one is talking. So he scurried to the door and, using his left hand, opened it and with his right, seized the throat of the man attempting to sneak in.

"Come on in, buddy," he said as he yanked the masked man into the darkness, thumb clogging the scream in his throat while he reeled him in. "Y'know, I'd be more than happy to take you to the jail on the moon. Only one little problem," he said as he slammed the door shut on the fiend's shoulder, eliciting a desperate wheeze from the man. "The moon is all full."

Frenchie started laughing far longer than most would deem reasonable, but it didn't matter. Marc joined in, easing the pressure off of the man's throat after firmly shutting the door for a bit of privacy. As the beam from Moon Knight's cowl washed over him, he could see that the stabber was now covered in blood.

"It was a PR stunt, wasn't it? You probably made him think it was all his idea to have the old slasher pretend to kill him so that you could lure him away and actually do it. Because you're not a random superfan, you're the original film's killer."

The bastard went for his knife, covered in blood, drawing it up, preparing to clamp down on the white garbed vigilante like a cobra prepares to clamp down on a rat. The difference is that a rat can't grab onto a cobra's fang and guide it into it's own flesh.

"Take it easy, buddy. So you missed the mark on this particular murder. You may not be a criminal mastermind, but that's no reason to stab yourself." Cruelly, Spector teased the man whose hand lay on the handle of a blade that had freshly been driven into his own thigh with all the might he could muster and then some. "Alright you knucklehead. Here's what's gonna happen: If you pull that blade out, you're gonna bleed to death faster than you can say I was framed. But if you play it smart and walk over to the cops who are desperately trying to minimize the paperwork they have to file tonight so that they can go home at a reasonable hour, you might get to live out the the next twenty to twenty-five years in a cell receiving free meals and state issued housing."

The magnificent Moon Knight gave him a solid punch to the gut and another to grow on before throwing the door open and waving for him to approach the policemen. "Go on now, boy-o. You've got your whole life ahead of you."

P O S T   C A T A L O G:
A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

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