Interesting. And a little disturbing, since Ellis can often go a bit mad himself.
To be fair, Finch and Huston's Moon Knight was back in 2006. That was back when CIVIL WAR was just being started and plans for SECRET INVASION were in the cradle. Had Bendis done MOON KNIGHT then, it simply would have tied into his Skrull crap. It is possible whatever "draft" he had for the franchise has been edited since.
That said, I do see that is where the character is going. Most writers focus not on his supernatural pulp roots but on his crazy he is. Gregg Hurwitz's run focused on Moon Knight trying to get past that and be a better hero, albeit by having his cabbie personality of Jake Lockley in control, not Marc Specter. But after 13 issues of material, it ends with Marc back in control, which I saw as a deck clearing exercise to make way for whatever Bendis is doing. Have to make sure the toys are exactly as they were when the big kid comes over. Can't expect him to adapt to anything he doesn't want to.
Mental instability has always been part of the Moon Knight character. Some would argue that without it, he can become very mundane. I simply feel that some writers can take that to too far a degree and make him seem not far removed from Cletus Kassidy. Just as a "stable" Moon Knight may appear mundane, so can a perpetually dark, crazy, brooding Moon Knight can also become predictable - the difference is that often comes off as more pretentious ("it's dark so it HAS to be good"). Many writers, Bendis at times included, assume misery is the same as character development.
The two elements to me don't have to be mutually exclusive. The idea that an Egyptian god really exists, really has resurrected someone more than once, and constantly "speaks" to him, even outright possesses his body at times, is MORE than enough to drive someone mad. There's that old saying that goes something like, "If you talk to god, you're a preacher; if god talks back, you're insane." Unfortunately, many writers sometimes envision Marc as "the Son Of Sam" in a cloak rather than someone driven to mental trauma from the pressure of having a god (and not even the god he was raised to believe in as a Jew, but the god from a pantheon that actually enslaved the Jews, technically) talk to, influence, and occasionally possess him.
To be fair to Bendis, he has attempted to get into more magical stuff in his NEW AVENGERS stories since DISASSEMBLED, when he claimed Chaos Magic didn't exist. In his debit, they've usually proven to show that Bendis simply does not understand how magic and the supernatural work in Marvel, and if he does, he doesn't care. In NEW AVENGERS, he has had Aggomotto seek the Eye Of Aggomotto for power, which is ludicrous because in every prior story, the Eye is simply one of several artifacts that Aggomotto empowers, not that he needs himself. It is akin to Jesus Christ seeking a cross to use against vampires. It's an obvious, blatant mistake. Will anyone treat it as such? No. Bendis is The Numbah One Guy. OTHER writers will have to work around it, fix it, whatever. Bendis is like that star football player on a high school or college team. It doesn't matter what he messes up in class, or even if he does bad things off the field. He's the one who wins those games, so the rest of the school establishment do whatever they can to mop up after. Never is the player confronted, and nothing changes. But in the end, even the player is not aided, because he is trapped in a false bubble of security.
And that is where Bendis is as a writer. Because an editor, since about 2005-2006, has never told him "NO", has never read a draft and went, "Y'know, you made an error here, and there's a bit of a plot hole there, and you have two characters who do nothing but grunt, I think you should rewrite this because I know you can do better, and our fans and universe deserve your best, not your copy & paste dialogue that you clearly wrote while watching 'GLEE' in your boxers" in years. He gets, "this is brilliant, Mr. Bendis sir" before he even loads up Microsoft Word. He thus believes he doesn't need to evolve anymore, and he really, honestly, needed to do so as a writer about six years ago. He hasn't had to, and he probably never will. No one, especially an adult, changes or improves unless they HAVE to. It's just human nature.
One day when Bendis is much older, he may write something and someone who doesn't work for Marvel or still remembers those far gone days of goodness will look at his draft and go, "What you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this shop is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." And Bendis won't even know how he got to that point. He'll have become John Bryne or Chris Claremont, someone who was coddled and yes-man'd so much that they're in retirement age and still stuck in spin cycle, repeating themselves and their most predictable cliches. And yes, that is totally a "BILLY MADISON" reference.
Now, it is very possible that Bendis could get it all right for MOON KNIGHT. That he wants to work with the Khonshu stuff while taking the multiple personality angle to a new, interesting level. It will sell well and actually deserve to do so for quality. It's all possible. If anything, it's more possible than his Avengers work suddenly improving. But I have a hard time telling myself it is likely. Corporately, though, Bendis/Maleev on MOON KNIGHT is a good move. It WILL get attention and if THEY can't make it sell, whether it's good, bad, or average, NO ONE at Marvel may be able to.
