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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 9 months

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Breaking down the comics: Going Home.

Moon Knight, Issue #14: Stained Glass Scarlet

OH BOY OH BOY.

Just…Take a minute to appreciate this art:

Damn that’s beautiful!

Okay everyone!

Here's a bit of rogue history for you! Especially since Scarlet showed up in a recent run!

Her story is a sad one.

The story starts in an abandoned church. A story of forgotten worship, run down and empty pews, infested sanctuary, and empty promises of atonement.

"But high above the corruption, just under the church's vaulted roof in what was once the attic, there is a place of melancholy comfort... If not sanctuary.

It is here that Scarlet-- Stained Glass Scarlet-- has lived for the past three years, quiet as languid smoke, unknown by the crumbling world outside."

Damn fine narration as always, Moench.

And damn fine art.

She carries out a lonely routine. Playing on the silent ruined Organ, gazing at the vast empty space and far away stars, playing pre-recorded chess games, and at last looking through her old photo album.

"And each piece of the past is like a shard of stained glass... But all of them, even glimpsed together never adding up to a window with a clear view."

She looks at pictures of her first communion. Her wedding. Her baby.

The album ends in a newspaper clipping "Joe 'Mad Dog' Fasinera escapes prison. Guard killed in break."

Cut to a vastly different location. "A fortress of wealth and security...Sanctuary."

We are at Grant Mansion.

Here we see Steven and Marlene sharing a moment.

Marelene remarks that they really are lucky.

"[...] Referring to you, to the change you've accomplished. Going from a conscienceless mercenary to a man like Moon Knight is no light-"

"Yes... well, if it's the miraculous redemption of my spirit we're talking about-"

They sit together and look at a collected work of "Alphonse Mucha."

You have to understand something about comics. When they show you a book with a title or author, it has a purpose.

You are supposed to recognize the name or title and understand that it will have an impact on the story later.

So...

Alphonse Mucha. Who is that?

He's a Czech painter/illustrator/graphic artist from the art Nouveau period.

He did this:

Yeah. THAT. You've seen his work. You'll also notice that the second cover image has a similar style.

He also did this stained glass art piece in the :

He loved his country of Czechoslovakia and did many works celebrating the slavic people and the independence of his country... in 1920s-1930.

Yeah... You see where this is going if you know your history.

When Hitler invaded and took over Czechoslovakia, Mucha was captured as a nationalist and severely interrogated for many days. When he was released, he was in poor health. He contracted pneumonia and died a month before the outbreak of WWII.

Check out his art, it's beautiful.

You should also keep in mind that The Spectors are also from Czechoslovakia.

"The clerk in Rizzoli's said he's seen the originals of these--ten feet tall, almost like stained glass windows--hanging in belgium."

So Steven bought this book.

Why? Sure, he's about being rich and living the high light. In earlier issues (particularly the one with Mogart) he had shown an interest in art.

But why this one?

Marlene goes to the piano and starts to play "In My Life" by the Beatles.

Wait, when did this comic come out?

December 1981.

Ahhhh. The one year anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

Sometimes comics cover world events and note how they affect others.

We see them cry and hug.

"The dream is over. John Lennon is dead. [....] Guns. And guilt."

We cut to Scarlet, listening to the news on the radio.

It talks about gunfire in the Bronx attributed to the 'Mad Dog' Fasinera, the escaped convict.

The radio goes on about Mad Dog going on a murder spree.

Scarlet sheds some tears.

Back at the mansion, Steven also hears about the shootings. He runs to get ready as Moon Knight.

We cut to Mad Dog in a shoot out. He talks about revenge for his father and getting his father's money. He's going ot 'cut the old neighborhood to ribbons'.

We see Moon Knight on the roof getting into the chopper.

"Don't worry about it, Lady- Grant'll be back."

"Who will be back, Steven?"

"Okay, Already. I'LL be back."

Again, we see the push by Marlene to have them all be Steven and the push back and frustration.

Marlene still at this point thinks they are pretending to be someone else and she wants them all to just be Steven.

Scarlet also cloaks up in her signature red outfit and heads out into the night.

Moon Knight fights the Mad Dog and his gang shooting up a store. He busts in and breaks it up, taking down a few while the others get away.

He follows them to an abandoned grocery store and sees Scarlet standing outside.

She goes inside and finds the rest of Mad Dog's gang, but no Mad Dog. She demands to know where Joe 'Mad Dog' is.

She tells them that when they see Joe to tell him 'What he's looking for is in the church." She then leaves.

Moon Knight follows her back to the church and confronts her.

She tells him her story.

Joe is her son!

"I was young, Moon Knight, in love with the idea of being in love..."

She talks about how Joe was the result and consequence of her love. Now, she means to 'salvage' the consequences and save Joe.

When she was much younger, she wanted to be an actress or a nun. She chose the role of being a nun.

Once she was a nun, she realized that she was only acting and regretted her choice.

She realized this when she met a man named "Vince". Vine had just stolen a lot of money and run to the church out of guilt.

She helped him and 6 months later she married him and left the church.

"Instead, I devoted myself to my husband, hoping I could help him change, hoping I could use my own failure to redeem him... The baby came and I named him Joseph... But Vince never came to the hospital once. I had to take a cab home."

After 15 years, she realized that this too was just a 'role'. Vince robbed a bank and killed the guard. He stashed the money and got in a shoot out with the police, who killed him in front of the church.

When Joe heard his father was killed, he 'declared war on law and order."

By 19 he had killed someone and left home. He went to jail for life.

When her son went to jail, she moved to the church. "Jut to play another role, the fallen woman turned mad hemit."

Moon Knight asks her why the church.

"Just before the police caught up to him, Vince told a friend that he was going to hide the bank money in a special place where he 'pulled an angel straight down from heaven'."

She moved to the church knowing that her son would eventually come looking for the money.

Joe makes a draatic entrance and demands to know where the money is.

She begs him to stop. To give up and turn himself in.

Moon Knight gets shot in a scuffel and Scarlet shoots Joe.

Joe staggers and accidentally grabs the church bell rope. As he falls, all the hidden money falls down with him.

Scarlet stands over her dead son.

"Thomas Wolfe's Maudlin line is true, Moon Knight... You never can go home again. Once you've turned your back on it... It's gone. Forever."

(A very hard and true statement. I wonder if it hit home for Marc too. A man that ran from home and turned his back on everything. Had he ever tried to go home? Or was he still running?)

Scarlet disappears into the night. Moon Knight stands over the discarded gun. “Guns…” Lamenting on how easily they take and destroy. Much like the death of John Lennon. An idea that is killed.

Moon Knight returns back to the mansion, wounded but alive.

"Some succeed in their chosen mission. Others fail, no matter how hard they try."

That is the end of the issue, but not the last time we will see Stained Glass Scarlet.

I’ll cover each of her appearances, but this is a Moon Knight Villain that I always did enjoy.

So what about the artist? Alphonse Mucha is best known for his Art Nouveau period, but it wasn’t what he wanted to be known for.

For him, he loved his home. He loved his little country that had fought and struggled to become whole. One of his final pieces was about his own people. “History of the Slav”. It depicted his people’s struggles to survive and build their country.

It was put in a museum for a bit then rolled up and put into storage.

Now and then it is pulled out and shown in Prague, but not for long or often. His country was then invaded and torn apart over and over again. He died as it was on the brink.

Again, we have to remember that the Spectors are from Czech. While Mucha was devoutly Catholic and did a lot of work that went to the churches, he wasn’t openly recognized for a lot of it. He was most famous for the work he did in Paris.

Scarlet tried to find herself and found herself in role after role, pretending to be happy and not finding herself. Her legacy becomes her failure to save her husband and then her son, born from her misguided attempt to find her purpose. She then kills that legacy.

It’s odd in this comic how Moon Knight really doesn’t have much of a role in it. We focus on Mucha, John Lennon, and Scarlet.

The bits we do see of Moon Knight are him looking into an artist from Czech who left a legacy he didn’t want. Him lamenting over the senseless killing of a man that meant so much to a lot of people. And him hearing the story of a woman trapped in finding her meaning and her past.

It’s one of those issues that leaves you feeling like you are taking a peak behind a curtain but can’t quite see the full picture. It also leaves you wondering.

And later, much later, in recent issues, when we see the remains of Scarlet, there is a sadness there. A bit of the past that Moon Knight could never let go of. And we’ll see more of that later when she shows up again.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight Comics #Moon Knight meta #Analyzing the comics #Marc Spector #Steven Grant #Jake Lockley #Stained Glass Scarlet #Moon Knight's rouge gallery #For everyone that had no idea what that new Stained Glass Scarlet episode really was about #I want more than anything to dive into the idea of Steven wanting to know his past #I want Steven to research his own people #I want Marc to talk about going home #I want Jake to touch on the fact that he has built his own people because he has none #I'm not normal about Moon Knight #I love Stained Glass Scarlet #She always makes Moon Knight pause and reflect #He lets her get away

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