Marvel Studio’s Moon Knight is just around the corner. It’s last episode will air just a couple of days before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. There are only a total of 6 episodes. So, in this post let me clear some questions about Moon Knight. I’ll also put a brief description about what we’ll be seeing in the show, This is a new character which Marvel Studios is introducing which too has the potential to join the Avengers.
Who is Marc Spector?
In the trailer the person who we actually see is not Steve Grant but Marc Spector. That’s just an interesting way how the series will start. The character of Marc Spector will be at the centre of this series.
In the comics Marc Spector is a rebellious son in a Jewish family. He first grows up to become a boxer and then a marine. After some time, he becomes a mercenary working for the highest bidder and earns a lot of money.
Now, Marvel may change this storyline a bit but overall everything will remain same.
During a mercenary mission, he meets a man named Frenchie. A person named Raoul Bushman hires him to steal some Egyptian Artifacts. Bushman ends up in fight to kill the lead archaeologist who also has a daughter named Marlene.
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Marc Spector stops him but gets defeated and is left to die. He crawls his way and comes near the statue of Egyptian God Khonshu, where Khonshu makes a deal with him that he can live if he agrees to become his Avatar on Earth. Marc makes the deal and thus gets all the powers becoming the Moon Knight.
Who is Steve Grant?
After the deal with Khonshu is made, Marlene, Frenchie and Marc go back to USA. Marc then starts roaming at night as Moon Knight.
But to keep away the fact that he is Moon Knight, Marc creates separate personalities of Steve Grant which is a millionaire personality and Jake Lockley. Lockley is an aggressive taxi driver .
Again, there are lesser chances of Jake Lockley being shown in the series.
But as he tries to live multiple lives at once, tables turn on Marc as he develops dissociative personality disorder. Which means that he himself cannot remember the deeds of him as Marc when he becomes Steve Grant. He keeps on hallucinating about whatever happened on that mercenary mission questioning what is happening to him.
That is what we saw in the trailer.
Who is Moon Knight?
Moon Knight is a Darker Character of MCU. In the comics, Moon Knight actually debuted as a villain in the Werewolf by Night comic book. He wasn’t supposed to be a recurring character but he was so strong as a character that Marvel Editorial wanted Moon Knight back. So, Marvel brought him back in the HULK MAGAZINE.
HULK MAGAZINE was a bit different than the normal comics and was targeted at adult stories with darker things.
Khonshu is not the mighty god but there are also other older Gods than him. It’ll be interesting to see how MCU explain his origin story. That’s because Khonshu and Kathone came around the same timeline. Kathone is the one who wrote the DARKHOLD. Kathone is the god of Chaos and hence, DARKHOLD is chaos magic.
What are the powers of Moon Knight?
Moon Knight draws his powers from the Egyptian God Khonshu.
Moon Knight’s powers are similar to those of Black Panther; enhanced speed, strength, endurance and healing factor. But the major difference here is that because Khonshu is the Moon God, his powers are vary according to the phases of the moon.
At full Moon, he’s the strongest whereas when there’s new Moon or during Waning Crescent he’s power tends to decrease.
Because of his disorder, he can switch personalities quickly to endure more pain. Khonshu keeps appearing to him, giving him visions & hallucinations making him doubt what is real and what’s not. But Moon Knight keeps using a lot of tech using the money made from mercenary missions.
Moon Knight can also be resurrected. That’s because he’s an Avatar of Khonshu. So every time he dies he’s brought back by Khonshu.
What to expect in Moon Knight?
The series will begin with us getting to see Steve Grant’s life. Gradually, we’ll get to know that there’s something more to Steve, something darker. He is holding some secret.
The series will put us in question if he’s trying to play or fool. That is to say, at a point we as an audience will be put in a doubt about what’s going on. Is it Marc? Or Steve?
For now, I think we’ll only see Marc Spector and Steve Grant.
Marvel seems to have changed the storyline for Marlene. Instead of her we’ll see Layla. So, she went to Egypt with Marc Spector. After that they came to England.
Marc will watch news highlights in the morning and wonder whether it was him fighting at the night as Moon Knight? He’ll then have visions if he’s the Moon Knight.
Then towards the end, we’ll get the face-off between Khonshu and March Spector where we’ll get an explanation. Khonshu deliberately chose Marc because, other older Gods who chose other people lost their power and influence on them. The older gods are trapped in a pocket dimension called the overvoid. Also with the rise in technology, people have stopped believing in God. These gods generate power as people worship them. But as no one worships them, they’re no longer powerful.
Khonshu explains that Marc Spector was very weak minded to it was easy to manipulate him to become his Avatar. In fact, Khonshu is very selfish. But Khonshu is trying to stop all the other gods who’re trapped in the pocket dimension and thus protecting the main MCU timeline. Khonshu along with all the other Gods are trapped in this pocket dimension; pantheon so he can’t physically come out. But he can use Marc as his Avatar. Khonshu’s actually lying about his origin and being young. He’s very old.
Other elder gods such as Seth and Konshu’s father Alman Ra are also doing the same things with other people. Manipulating other people to become their Avatar and promising them power.
Moon Knight starts to see visions of Manhattan covered in Sand just like Egypt. It’s just a far stretched vision of what might happen if the other Gods are successful in what they want.
We’ll get to see Moon Knight in two costumes. One is the detective Knight costume which he wears when he’s investigating. The other is the combat costume, which he’ll wear when fighting with people. Basically when Moon Knight feels that there’s danger near by.
Now, it’s not that we’ll see Marc Spector changing into these costumes. Note that, Marc Spector is chosen by Khonshu who is an Egyptian God. So, we’ll just see him transform into these costumes depending on the situations.
Who’ll be Villain?
Ethan Hawke’s character Arthur Harrow will be seen as villain. Arthur Harrow is based on Sobek – the alligator god. Arthur’s left side of the face is paralyzed and is always in pain. So he’s researching pain.
As seen in the Arthur’s also searching for ancient artifacts. That’s when he stumbles upon this wooden staff which can open a portal.
I’m not entirely sure as to where this portal opens into but the creature we see are called Seth Dogs.
I’m thinking that Arthur Harrow isn’t the main villain and that it’s Sobek who’s making him do all the bad things. We’ll also see Arthur getting access to the pantheon where all the gods are trapped in the climax.
Predictions for Moon Knight
Moon Knight is a totally new character hence, introducing him in a mini series actually makes sense. But Marvel Studios is adopting a new approach of introducing already developed characters through word building.
That’s what they did with Shang-Chi and Eternals. We don’t see them getting developed.
I’m hoping that Moon Knights character development will be better at-least than Shang Chi and Eternals. Part of this is also because Oscar Issac is a terrific actor.
From the trailer we can already see that the fight sequences are well choreographed with stable cameras. But here’s the downside, because Moon Knight’s on Disney Plus, we’ll never get to see any blood shed.
Phase 4 Crossovers
Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness can also address Khonshu however the chances are very less. But we’re also going to have Thor Love & Thunder later this year where Gor The Butcher goes on a killing spree to kill all the gods. So, there are strong chances of Moon Knight crossing over in Phase 4 until he somehow meets the Avengers.
Due to the Egyptian connection of Khonshu, we may see Moon Knight cross paths with Kang : The Conqueror.
In the comics, the very first variant of Kang is an Egyptian King. When this King gets tired of ruling over Egypt he gives it over to Apocalypse for ruling it. In the X-men movies under the banner of Fox, Apocalypse was played by Issac Oscar.
Hence, it’ll be interesting to see if this storyline is explored.
But in future there are strong chances of Moon Knight, Black Knight and Blade crossing over.