What The Hell is “Moon Knight”?
Tonight, Marvel Studios revealed the first full trailer for Moon Knight, the next show coming to Disney+. The series stars Oscar Issac as Steven Grant, a gift-shop employee who finds himself dreaming of another life. A life where supernatural beings are faced by a warrior in white, a knight of the moon.
If you’re here, you’re probably wondering who Moon Knight is. He’s not one of the larger Marvel heroes, occupying a lower tier from folks like Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Thor. Despite that, Moon Knight has still had a pretty long run of series at Marvel Comics, transforming from an also-ran version of Batman into something completely different. Let’s dig in without further preamble.
New Moon
Moon Knight wasn’t actually intended to be a hero initially. The character debuted in Werewolf By Night, a book about a heroic werewolf named Jack Russell. (Yes, his happened.) The book was a mix between the horror comics that died out with the advent of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and Marvel’s standard superhero fare. Jack would change into a werewolf with each full moon, but instead of eating goats or people, he’d fight standard criminals and supervillains.
In Werewolf By Night #32 (written by Doug Moench with art from Don Perlin), Jack faces off against a white-clad warrior with silver weapons. This was Moon Knight, a mercenary hired by the mysterious Committee to capture the wolfman. After a short conflict leading into the next issue, the mercenary and Jack come to an understanding and part ways.
Marvel’s editors liked the look and vibe of the character, bringing him back in more heroic guest-starring roles over the years. In 1980, Moon Knight finally received his own solo series, written by creator Doug Moench and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. Moon Knight #1 offered up a new origin story for the character and firmed up his supporting cast.
The Origin
Marc Spector is a mercenary doing grunt work in Africa under the command of Raoul Bushman. (We don’t talk about him.) Bushman’s crew attacks the dig of archeologist Peter Alrune in order to steal the gold buried there. When Bushman kills the archaeologist and nearby civilians, Spector has second thoughts and breaks from the mercenary crew. His former commander doesn’t take too kindly to this, ordering the rest to dump Spector’s unconscious body in the desert.
Mostly dead, Spector wanders into the very tomb that Bushman is looking for, collapsing in front of the statue of the fake Egyptian god Khonshu. There his wounds are healed and he’s driven to take up Khonshu’s vestments to enact his revenge. After a little Assassin’s Creed action, we’re then brought forward into Moon Knight’s status quo. Folks have compared the character to DC Comics’ Batman, and this early foundation doesn’t stray far for the comparison.
In the United States, Marc Spector creates several identities to help his crime-fighting effort. The first is Steven Grant, a wealthy millionaire socialite, a la Bruce Wayne. This is, for all intents and purposes, the “main” life Marc leads. Then there’s the cabbie Jake Lockley, Spector’s vector into lower-class environments. And finally, there’s Moon Knight, Spector’s heroic alter-ego and the fist of Khonshu. Spector is joined by Marlene Alrune, the archeologist’s daughter, and his best friend Jean-Paul “Frenchie” DuChamp. DuChamp is also the pilot of the custom moon-shaped helicopter that allows Moon Knight to quickly get around the city.
It’s worth stressing at this point that Steven, Jake, and Moon Knight are just personas that Marc puts on and takes off in these early issues. Spector refers directly to them, but they’re not necessarily more than that in the beginning. The first volume plays around with these identities and even the idea of Khonshu being real or not. Both of these ideas would become bedrocks of the character in most future incarnations.
The Fist of Khonshu
In issue #9, Moench begins to dig into the idea of Moon Knight’s grand mission of vengeance. In this issue, Steven Grant’s butler Samuels asks Marlene if she really believes Khonshu brought Marc back to life. She dodges the question, but this becomes key for the readers from then on: is Khonshu real or the coping mechanism for a deeply troubled man?
Given the many writers over the years, Marvel has gone back and forth on the reality of Khonshu. Over the course of this first volume, Marc would eventually come to the conclusion that Khonshu didn’t exist, an interpretation that Moench was partial to.
This comes to the point in issue #36, when Dr. Strange pops up to warn about Marc about ancient priest possessing Marlene, he spends half the issue arguing that ghosts and gods aren’t real. By the end of issue and the run though, Marc believes in the supernatural again, though he shelves the mantle of Moon Knight.
A year later, Marvel brought the character back for a second volume, Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu. Unfortunately, this short-lived volume is one of the ones that Marvel has not digitized, so it’s not available on Marvel Unlimited or Comixology. This short run would see the supernatural aspects played up, with Marc gaining super-strength in the light of the full moon.
Regardless, Moon Knight’s status quo would switch again and again over the years. These days, it’s mostly a given that Khonshu is real, especially since the god was an antagonist in a recent arc of Jason Aaron’s Avengers.
The Many Lives of Marc Spector
This brings us back to Marc’s other personas. Again, early on in the run, Steven, Jake, and Moon Knight aren’t entirely different identities, they’re personas he puts on to get certain jobs done. Marlene briefly mentions Marc’s overall mental health a few times over the first run, calling him “schizo-darling” in one issue and “schizo” in another. (It’s not great, Bob!) Back in the day, schizophrenia was frequently confused multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder), so that’s where Moench was leaning without fully committing.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, if he’s gonna actively atone for his past and try to do good, how’s he gonna find out where he can do this?’ It always bugged me with Batman and The Flash, all of these superheroes… I hated when they would just happen upon a bank robbery,” Moench told the Into The Knight Podcast about the creation of Marc’s personas. “So I deliberately tried to come up with a logical way for this guy to practice his craft. ”
In the first run, Grant is the primary persona behind which Spector lives his life. Marc Spector is a mercenary that traveled the world to kill people; if you could leave that behind to become a a rich cool guy, wouldn’t you?
“Marc Spector is the real guy, but the real guy has decided to change. Lockley is phony and Steven Grant is phony, but on the other hand, he meets Marlene as Steven Grant. She’s kind of in love with that aspect, that version of him, so Steven Grant starts to become the more dominant one,” added Moench.
Alan Zelentz would refer to Spector as the “man of many phases” in a back-up editorial in Moon Knight #18. (Zelentz would become a writer on Moon Knight towards the end of Volume 1 and in Volume 2.) Further runs have gone fully into Marc Spector’s DID, making it a strong facet of the character. With DID as a focus for Moon Knight, writers have added and removed personalities from run to run. Steven Grant and Jake Lockley have fallen off over the years, but others have risen in prominence.
The rundown of major personalities:
- Steven Grant: The wealthy socialite.
- Jack Lockley: The working class cabbie.
- Moon Knight: The brutal warrior of the night.
- Mr. Knight: The detective. A bit less “superhero” than Moon Knight.
There have been others, like Space Knight Marc, Inner Child in the Ultimate universe, or even versions of Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America in one run. But the four above are the primary personalities that pop up. The first three are the foundation, that continue on through the years, while Mr. Knight first popped up in Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey’ run on the character and has persisted until now.
The Heavy Violence of Moon Knight
One aspect that will close out this explainer is Moon Knight’s propensity for strong violence. While many of the Marvel heroes get in fisticuffs, Moon Knight is generally categorized like Daredevil and the Punisher, generally a bit more brutal in his actions and more willing to kill. While Moench’s earlier run is a bit lighter, as it goes on Moon Knight becomes more willing to hurt, to maim, and to kill.
This was the 1980s of course, with many superheroes turning darker. So with an already dark hero, things took a turn. The character has lived on the more violent side of the Marvel Universe since then. Especially when it comes to his supernatural adventures, where it tends to more understandable that he takes the lives of villains.
For a long time, Moon Knight has actually enjoyed causing violence. Writers Chuck Dixon, Charlie Huston, and Warren Ellis have made this a strong part of the character. Huston’s run actually has Moon Knight kill Bushman and carve the skin from his face. That’s the opening of the run!
It doesn’t look like the Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart will stray far from this ideal. Not only is Moon Knight shown brutally beating an inhuman creature in the trailer, but the main poster shows the character’s gloved hand holding a bloody throwing weapon. If I had to hang the Disney+ series on a specific premise, think supernatural Daredevil with mental illness.
How Marvel Studios will handle that is… questionable. The understanding of mental illness has come a long way since Moon Knight’s creation in 1972. The supernatural leanings of the character seem to be in the forefront instead. But Marc Spector and Steven Grant are shown or mentioned in the trailer, so at least some aspect of his DID will make its way across.
More modern runs have found a place for Marc Spector’s mental illness, but will the show?
Moon Knight will be airing on Disney+ on March 30. If you want to catch up on the character in the meantime, here’s a few runs you can take a look at.
The Original Moench Run: Marvel Unlimited, Comixology
Marvel Now: Marvel Unlimited, Comixology
The Current Run: Marvel Unlimited, Comixlogy
