Moon Knight is a Marvel character that seems to be under the radar of a lot of general comic book fans. If you keep to TV shows and films you would not have much idea who he is. Although the growing popularity of the character hopefully means that Moon Knight will appear on film/tv at some point soon.
Who Is Moon Knight?
The character was created by writer, Doug Moench and artist, Don Perlin in 1975 appearing as a guest villain in Werewolf By Night #32. Similar to Wolverine, the reception of Moon Knight and the story behind the character led to popularity and his own comic book in 1980’s which has ran on and off since.
The unique part with Moon Knight is that he has dissociative identity disorder and is four characters in one. He started off as Marc Spector, an ex-marine come mercenary. While working a gig in Egypt involving the discovery of an ancient shrine to the Egyptian Moon God Khonshu, Spector is left for dead in the sands. When he dies he is visited by Khonshu in a vision and is given the offer to return to life and serve as the enforcer of the moon god which he accepts and becomes Khnonshu’s avatar on Earth, the Moon Knight.
The Hand of Khonshu
On his return to the United States, Spector invests his money and creates the alter ego Steven Grant to be the face of his business empire and use the character of Jake Lockley to be his street level persona gathering information. This is where Moon Knight is different from other comics where they have one alter ego, with Moon Knight there are four distinct characters fighting for control, Marc Spector, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley and Khonshu.
Moon Knight has been compared to Batman a lot which is understandable. He is a rich, self-financed crime fighter. He is an expert detective and his military background has given him proficiency in hand to hand combat and use of weapons. His weapon of choice is also similar to Batman’s batarangs with his Crescent Darts.
Moon Knight is extremely violent.
Where Batman is avenging his parents and has a line not to cross, the Moon Knight is carrying out Khonshu’s will and using that as an excuse to be as violent as possible, he doesn’t have a red line. The moon association also results in a boost in his strength, endurance and agility depending on the lunar cycle. Where Batman wears black to hide in the shadows, Moon Knight wears white so that his enemies can see him coming, showing his confidence in his abilities and the fear he wants to emit.
What Has Moon Knight Been Up To?
As part of the Marvel Legacy event, the Moon Knight comic was relaunched as issue #188 in 2017 with the numbering incorporating previous volumes of the comic. The current run of the comic is writer by Max Bemis with art by Jacen Burrows. Max Bemis is singer and songwriter for the band Say Anything. He follows in the footsteps of Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance), Tom DeLonge (Blink 182), Gene Simmons and Alice Cooper who have moved in to writing comic books.
The latest story arc (‘Crazy Runs in the Family’) involves the creation of a new major villain for Moon Knight. Using the Egyptian mythology, Bemis has created the mysterious Patient 86 who has become the avatar of the Sun God Ra called Sun King, who wishes to take his son Khonshu down. This Sun King has recruited another established villain, Raoul Bushman who was the mercenary that left Spector near death in the Egyptian desert, to finally defeat Moon Knight. What can be said so far of Bemis’ run is that he is taking the established background and lore of the character and creating much needed new villains and adding to the established mythology. The character needed more villains to try and get him on to the top tier of Marvel characters.
Moon Knight has appeared in other mediums. He was a playable character in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006) and Lego Marvel Superheroes (2013) and has appeared as a background character in a number of other video games. On TV, the character has appeared in the animated shows, Ultimate Spider-man (The Moon Knight Before Christmas, 2016) and recently on Avengers Assemble: Secret Wars (Beyond, 2017). Although these were filtered versions of the character his costume remained accurate and has given the character much deserved exposure. It can’t be long until he is given a chance. A small cameo in Netflix’s Punisher could have worked as Moon Knight would be more at home on one of Netflix’s violent underbelly crime fighting shows than on the big team ups of the cinema. Although this character has more than enough potential to get his own film. We will have to wait and see what comes…
