Entertainment Swindon

The comic, ‘Werewolf by Night’ from 1975 featuring the first appearance of the character Moon Knight, fetched £370 in an online sale of comics and horror collectables which took place at The Cotswold Auction Company’s Love Lane salesroom in Cirencester on 30th & 31st July.

This book is the first appearance of Moon Knight, a Marvel vigilante with multiple personalities who appeared in the 2022 Disney+ series starring Oscar Isaac. Moon Knight, a character created by writer Doug Moench and artist Don Perlin for Marvel Comics.

The importance of Werewolf by Night #32 was that it was the first appearance of Moon Knight in August 1975.

Marc Spector is former Force Recon Marine and CIA Operative becomes a mercenary and during a job in Sudan, Spector is left for dead by a fellow mercenary Raoul Bushman. Mortally wounded, Spector and dies near the Egyptian Moon God Khonshu statue where he is revived fully healed claiming Khonshu wants him to be the ‘Moon Knight’, the ‘left fist of Khonshu’ redeeming his life of violence by now protecting and avenging the innocent, becoming the crime fighter ‘Moon Knight’ back in the States.

The US edition was 25c and in the UK 9p, a far cry from the cost of todays comics. The copy on auction at The Cotswold Auction Company was a UK edition. According to the CGC Census, only 4930 US copies are known to still exist and only 209 with the UK price on the cover of the comic. Comics like other memrobilia such as baseball cards are graded in their quality condition, only nineteen copies of #32 share the highest recorded grade of 9.8 where one of these was sold at Heritage Auctions sold for $31,200 in March 2020.

Since the release of both Moon Knight & Werewolf by Night on Disney+, there has been a boost to the interest in the comics featuring these two characters.

Neither of the characters meet each other in the two releases, but Werewolf by Night does give us a first look at the Marvel character Man-Thing.