Quarter Bin 72 "Moon Knight is the connoisseur's Deadpool"

Let's recap.  These comics were not literally bought from a quarter bin.  The title of this column is symbolic.

Moon Knight #7 (Marvel)
From November 2014.
It strikes me that no one is running around trying to get Moon Knight into his own movie.  Well, maybe someone is, after the big success of Deadpool?  Because Moon Knight is basically the connoisseur's Deadpool.  Marvel has been trying for about as long as it has with Deadpool to get Moon Knight to connect.  At first a fairly lame and obvious Batman rip-off, because he was so expendable, Marvel let its creators loose, and for several short-lived series now (including one written by Brian Michael Bendis), Moon Knight has emerged as one of the company's better creative vehicles.  Now more or less a psychotic vigilante, a kind of Marvel version of the Spirit, Moon Knight in this particular series and/or issue is written by Brian Wood, who is well-loved in the comics community but with whom I've continually failed to connect as a reader.  This issue features a more or less straight Spirit adventure for Moon Knight, despite the fact that the tag line in the intro page specifically addresses that he is insane and this is what follows...Well, apparently in this series Marvel has determined that Moon Knight addresses how absurd the concept of vigilantes really is.  But the character still has better overall storytelling potential than the relentlessly one-note Deadpool...

Winter Soldier #1 (Marvel)
From May 2014.
Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes, is a signature character of Marvel's post-millennial comics, a resurrected, repackaged, repurposed superhero who helped lead the way to the Avengers movies and has otherwise spent a lot of time being written by Ed Brubaker, who envisioned the whole concept.  This issue, however, is written by Rick Remender, with whom I have a better record than Brian Wood.  But Winter Soldier, ironically, barely appears in this issue.  Instead, it's a Nick Fury/S.H.I.E.L.D. Cold War/Nazi Hangover adventure (as are a lot of Marvel stories).  Presumably later issues more directly feature, y'know, the Winter Soldier...

All-New X-Men #27 (Marvel)
From September 2014.
A series that shipped twice-monthly, All-New X-Men wasn't as old as its numbering this issue suggests.  I read the early issues thanks to the pairing of Brian Bendis and Stuart Immomen, who was finally emerging from a long quagmire in which he didn't draw very much like, y'know, Stuart Immonen.  But the Immonen who shows up in this issue is kind of phoning it in, as is Bendis, whose grand vision for his time-lost original X-Men and more contemporary mutants had kind of petered out into a time travel adventure...with future enemies!  I had high hopes for a Bendis X-Men.  Everyone did.  I mean, he nearly single-handedly invented the Avengers as we know them today (also contributing: The Ultimates and Brubaker's Captain America).  In the end, I think it was the overreliance on the increasingly baffling gimmick of the time-lost X-Men.  For one arc, it would have made perfect sense.  But then he just kept it going and going...Which is kind of a Bendis trademark.  And maybe something he really ought to work on...

Wolverine and the X-Men #9 (Marvel)
From November 2014.
This is from the days of "Death of Wolverine," so Marvel was about to kill off its most popular character in order to spite 20th Century Fox.  But these were good days.  This issue features Logan confronting a rogue student (saddled with a terrible name I won't dignify here) who eventually makes it clear that it isn't all X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants.  There's a third option.  There always is.  So, a pretty good issue.