Today, see why Moon Knight cut all ties from the Avengers back in the 1990s.
This is a feature called "Beg Steal or Borrow," which is about when comic book characters are abruptly pulled from one book to another. I'm not talking about when comic book characters simply migrate from one title to another. I mean examples where a writer has a character taken out of the book against their wishes. It almost always happens in team books, but sometimes it occurs in solo titles, as well.
This is a tricky one, since it is more about how Moon Knight was taken out of the Avengers after he was already OUT of the Avengers, but as you'll see, I think it still counts!
WHEN DID MOON KNIGHT JOIN THE AVENGERS AND WHEN DID HE QUIT?
I just wrote about this strange period in Moon Knight's life the other day, but to quickly recap, let's note that he joined the Avengers in West Coast Avengers #24 (by Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom and Mike Machlan) after he was sent to help bring the Avengers back from being lost in time and then his multiple personalities helped save the day (as covered in a recent CBR article) and he joined the Avengers at the end of the issue...
In West Coast Avengers #41 (by Tom DeFalco, Ralph Macchio and Tom Morgan), we learned that Khonshu had possessed Marc Spector's body this whole time that Moon Knight was an Avenger and so Marc didn't even join the Avengers of his own volition, so he left the team...
HOW DOES THE COMIC BOOK SALES BOOM OF THE 1990s FIGURE INTO ALL OF THIS?
One of the unexpected side effects of the success of the Direct Market in the late 1980s was that comic book publishers now had much lower overhead for any given comic book. Under the old newsstand system, they would have to accept returns on any copies that didn't sell. So even a book with decent sellthrough in the 70% area meant that the comic book company would be printing 30% of their print run of that comic on copies that were then going to be thrown into the trash. Once they no longer had to worry about returns, the printing cost on each comic lowered dramatically. This allowed comic book companies to begin spending more money on production, hence the innovations in things like coloring and page quality. It also made it possible for publishers to experiment with "special" covers, as they would only be printing as many covers as were ordered, so they would not have to print any extra "special" covers that would be returned later (and thus making the whole experiment cost-prohibitive). This, then, launched the era of comic book gimmick covers.
One of the interesting things about gimmick covers is how they sort of became status symbols, of a sort. They would raise sales, of course, and so having a gimmick cover was good for the creators of a given comic book in terms of royalties and, at the same time, it showed that the company believed in your title if it was willing to give your book a gimmick cover.
Moon Knight's comic book series that launched in the late 1980s, Marc Spector: Moon Knight, was never a huge seller, and as a result, it also never had a gimmick cover. That changed with its 50th issue ("anniversary" issues tended to be the most common time that a comic book editor was able to convince the higher-ups to give a book a gimmick cover, which led to stuff, like, "The 35th anniversary of the X-Men!" or whatever), which featured a die-cut cover, with Moon Knight burning his Avengers ID card on the cover...
And when you opened up the cover, it had a nice gatefold piece by regular Marc Spector: Moon Knight artist, James Fry (with inker Chris Ivy)..
Before that point, though, first Moon Knight got sucked into the sales-boosting crossover, Infinity War. Infinity Gauntlet came out in 1991 and not many comic book titles were willing to tie into it, but when it became a blockbuster, EVERYONE (well, except for the X-Men titles that printed money back then, they were probably, like, "Pshaw! Infinity War wishes it could sell like we do already) wanted in on its sequel, Infinity War, including Moon Knight...
But how do you get Moon Knight involved in a major crossover like that? Well, the same thing that led to the above gimmick cover - you look to his Avengers RESERVE membership!
WAS MOON KNIGHT EVEN REALLY A "RESERVE MEMBER" OF THE AVENGERS?
In Avengers #305 (by John Byrne, Paul Ryan and Tom Palmer), Captain America called all of the heroes who had ever been Avengers together to propose a new shortlived idea about the Avengers just being sort of one big team where different heroes would show up when they could...
Moon Knight didn't show up.
In Avengers #329 (by Larry Hama, Ryan and Palmer), Captain America called all of the heroes who had ever been Avengers to ratify a new Avengers charter, along with voting for official members and their official backup heroes who would step up if the main heroes couldn't answer the call...
Moon Knight didn't show up.
When his former West Coast team members were voting for main members and alternates at the same time in Avengers West Coast #69 (by Roy and Dann Thomas, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi), he didn't even make the alternates list, when Machine Man did, and he had never even WORKED with the West Coast Avengers at the time!
Finally, in Avengers #345 (by Bob Harras, Steve Epting and Palmer), when Captain America called all Avengers to help in the Operation: Galactic Storm conflict with the fate of the Earth at stake...
Moon Knight didn't show up.
HOWEVER, in Marc Spector: Moon Knight #40 (by Terry Kavangah, Ron Garney, Gary Kwapisz and Tom Palmer), Moon Knight then used his Avengers reserve membership ID to bluff Reed Richards into helping him get into the Latverian embassy for a vendetta against Doctor Doom...
That reserve membership saw Moon Knight called up to serve during the Infinity War conflict, and this time, he answered the call, as shown in Marc Spector: Moon Knight #41 (by Kavanagh, Kwapisz and Palmer)...
In that same issue, though, Captain America insisted that Moon Knight report to Avengers headquarters when the Infinity War deal was over so he could answer for the unauthorized use of the ID card...
Moon Knight obviously never did show up to get yelled at..
WHY DID MOON KNIGHT BURN HIS AVENGERS MEMBERSHIP ID?
In Marc Spector: Moon Knight #50 (by Kavanagh, James Fry and Chris Ivy), Black Widow kept calling Moon Knight, as she had taken over as the leader of th Abengers after Captain America took a leave of absence following Operation: Galactic Storm (when a bunch of Avengers killed the Supreme Intelligence despite Cap's objections)...
Black Widow then sent Thor to collect him...
After a quick fight between Moon Knight and Thor and Moon Knight briefly stopping the fight to stop an assault on the streets of New York City (where he then gave Thor this highhanded "See what you miss from your ivory towers" type of deal), Thor brings him in...
Since Moon Knight was a member of the West Coast branch of the Avengers, Black Widow brings in Hawkeye and USAgent into the discussion (why USAgent? I have no idea. Except maybe he was kind of popular?)
The heroes all debate whether Moon Knight should be allowed to remain an Avenger...
But then during the debate, Moon Knight gets a lead on his missing buddy, Frenchie, and he makes everyone's decision for them, just lighting his ID card on fire and leaving it for the Avengers as evidence that he quit...
An interesting way to use Avengers membership both to explain why Moon Knight was in on a major sales-boosting crossover and then for his depature from the team to get him a sales-boosting gimmick cover. Clever, Terry Kavangh!
If anyone else has a suggestion for an example of a comic book character being taken from a series, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!