Marvel and Disney+ are going dark with Moon Knight, and these are rundowns for what makes the Fist of Khonshu tick in the pages of the comics.
By the end of this month, Disney and Marvel Studios will embark on their most radically different mainline MCU project with Moon Knight. The upcoming Disney+ TV series features an impressive main cast featuring Oscar Isaac ( Dune, Ex Machina, the Star Wars series) as the titular nocturnal hero and Ethan Hawke ( Dead Poets Society, Boyhood) as villain Arthur Harrow. Created by comic book veterans Doug Moench and Don Perlin in 1975 for Werewolf by Night, the gritty vigilante established himself as one of Marvel Comics’ best — if underrated — street-level heroes alongside the likes of Daredevil and Spider-Man. Like the former, Moon Knight takes on darker subject matters than what the mainstream Marvel Cinematic Universe has audiences accustomed to. Though it feels like almost every upcoming MCU production gets touted as a big shake-up to the formula, the psychological nature of the superhero’s source material, on top of the talent attached to it, is what should make fans (and prospective ones) hopeful for what’s to come. The acclaimed Daredevil series (now having completed its migration from Netflix to Disney+) was able to get away with much more due to its loose connections to the MCU, so Moon Knight could be the first litmus test for the streamer on how grounded and grim its willing to go. Marc Spector — the hero’s alter ego — suffers from a dissociative identity disorder, splitting his personality with four others. The character’s most praised comics tend to tackle themes of mental health, trauma, and the struggles of maintaining autonomy. The character’s unique personalities and experiences make for cerebral and intimate storytelling that should get fans excited for the future. Marvel Comics’ Moon Knight begins and ends with Marc Spector. The Jewish son of a rabbi and former Marine and CIA operative turned mercenary, Spector is killed by his oldest nemesis and fellow mercenary Raoul Bushman while on a mission in Sudan, but is then suddenly revived by the ancient Egyptian god Khonshu. The comics maintained a degree of ambiguity as to whether Khonshu is real or a product of his disorder, but he’s later confirmed as a real otherworldly entity. Spector alleges that Khonshu reached out to him, and picked him as Khonshu’s avatar on Earth to become the Moon Knight.
