Moonshadow #12

Issue Details

Synopsis

This issue is altered from the original Epic issue. The ending is altered and expanded, and it includes an interview with JM Dematteis and Jon J Muth at the end.Instead of beginning with a quote from literature, like all the other issues, this story begins with the old Moonshadow making a painting, although we can't see what he is making.The young Moonshadow, who has now clearly grown up from his experiences over the past two years or so, flies off with Ira, Frodo, and Flobidiah. They are looking for Lord Gaylord, who is apparently alive and has found the fabled Planet of Mists, where the mystic savior Shree Quack-Quack H'onnka is said to live. However Moon isn't sure the letter is even real, and doubts everything.They meet pilgrims of H'onnka on the planet, but not the mystic himself. They take up in a cave. Ira's health, unfortunately, is getting worse and worse, and Moon rages at the skies. Ira dies. Flobidiah, who loved him, leaves on her own pilgrimage for H'onnka.Moon is left alone once again, and in the deepest pit of despair out of all his many hard times during his adventures. In the original comic, the final pages are all wordless, and Moon's long-awaited moment of Awakening is symbolic and ambiguous, left up to the viewer to interpret. In this reprint, the experience is now narrated and clarified. The original was controversial for its lack of clarity; the reprint for its clarity. However, in both issues Moon casts away his mother's flute, then meets his mother's ghost. She leads him onto a tightrope, then he flies through metaphysical space, finally landing by the flute. A mystic light (perhaps that prophesied by H'onnka) appears, and he is bombarded by images of his recent life. Coming out of the cave, he plays his flute, having come to the point of Awakening referenced throughout the series, having made peace with himself. The issue ends with Blake's "Song of Innocence," which was also the poem used at the beginning of the first issue.Then, in an expanded...