Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers for Moon Knight (at least, for the first three episodes). If you do not wish to be spoiled, please turn about and leave the page. This post will still be here after you've gotten caught up, if you so choose to return (and I'll be happy if you do).
Update (16 April 2022): I wasn't particularly happy with how this post turned out initially... Felt like it was bad writing because I just didn't have much energy during this past week for some reason. Have edited it to hopefully make it better.
Update (21 April 2022): I have made further edits, though smaller ones this time.
(Image copyright Marvel Studios/Disney)
I'd never actually heard of Moon Knight before it was announced that Disney+ was making a series for it. I was immensely anticipating it, though, what with it being a new Marvel project (I'm always down for a new Marvel project) and the fact that Oscar Isaac was playing the lead. I have not been disappointed in the least. It used to be that my top three Marvel characters were Deadpool, Spider-Man, and Iron Man, but poor Tony has now officially been given the boot from the top tier by Khonshu's avatar (though I still like him, don't get me wrong).
Shortly after watching the first episode of Moon Knight, I decided to make use of my Marvel Unlimited subscription and check out some of his comics. So far I've read three (and am currently working on an Avengers one in which I think he tries to take over the world in, but I haven't gotten that far, so not sure I'm reading the right comic, but... it's the Avengers, so it's okay either way). Three comics, all of them more recent, does not make me an expert in the slightest, but it has definitely given me more of a background on the character and some perspective regarding the Disney series.
My main take away from both show and comics is that it is all bloody awesome!
Okay, so first things first: Comic-wise, Marc Spector is a guy who suffers from DID, and inside himself he has two other personalities: Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. Marc grew up Jewish, his father a rabbi. When he was young a close family friend, known to him as Uncle Yitz, turned out to be a sadistic serial killer Nazi whose victims of choice were Jews from the synagogue. Young Marc happens upon him in the act, and this trauma is credited to contributing to his dissociative disorder. (I appreciate that this incident isn't placed as the sole reason Marc has DID, as there are lots of factors that play into mental disorders like this, and just saying it was this one thing would be unrealistic and sort of demeaning.)
When Steven first shows up and Marc's father becomes aware that something is wrong with his son, he seeks professional help. The person who evaluated Marc suggested that he receive therapy for his disorder, and thus he landed in a mental hospital as a live-in patient. (This, of course, leads to some resentment towards his father, as he felt his father hid him away out of shame.) Somehow, after he is out, he manages to join the Marines, but they eventually discover that he is mentally unstable and dishonorably discharge him. He then goes on to become a mercenary, and when one of his jobs goes bad, he goes on to become dead.
Lucky him (or not, depending on perspective), he becomes dead at the foot of a statue of Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon and protector of those who travel at night. Khonshu gives Marc his life back in exchange for his servitude, and thus he becomes the god's avatar with the mission of punishing those who molest those under Khonshu's protection. So now he's got a fourth personality in his head (which, according to the comics, has actually caused physical brain damage, woo).
To sum up the relationship between Khonshu and Marc, I present you exhibit A:
Now, in the comics, Steven Grant is the billionaire playboy philanthropist trope (and it is his money that pays for all of Moon Knight's spiffy little toys, such as his crescent moon darts and glider and whatnot). Not gonna lie, I'm actually glad that the MCU series has deviated from this. With the bullshit billionaire oligarchs around the world, and especially the two knobs racing for the stars (with no actual plans of what to do upon actually getting there) and otherwise generally being dickheads that the US has bred, I'm not interested in seeing rich boys throwing their cocks and their monies around. (Honestly, I think this also might be why I love The Batman's Bruce Wayne so much... He's less a billionaire playboy philanthropist and more a broody hikikomori with money.)
The Steven Grant of the MCU is a mild-mannered gift shop-ist from North London. He's a vegan and a pacifist and, sadly, the type of awkward, wet rag guy who gets pushed around a lot. The security guard he sees every day can't manage to remember his name despite his repeated corrections, and his boss is downright abusive. Hell, his only 'friend' is a living statue (who is also Bertrand Crawley, one of his comic book associates) who he talks at fairly regularly, though it's a bit hard to gauge whether the guy is actually okay with this or whether he just has to put up with it because his job is to not move at all. He's also an Ancient Egypt nerd.
Basically, he's the internet's new baby who must be protected at all costs.
In the first episode, poor Steven wakes up to find himself face down on the ground, with a dislocated jaw, somewhere in the Alps. This is definitely a shock to him, since last he remembered, he was in bed in his flat in London. He's known for a while that he 'sleepwalks' and just thinks he has a sleeping disorder. So after dealing with quite a bit of shenanigans in the mountains, wherein he keeps blacking out and waking up in a slightly worse situation than before, not to mention witnessing Arthur Harrow, our lovely zealot of a villain, murder a woman for something she might do in future, he wakes up back in his bed thinking it is all a dream. Or, at least, convincing himself that it was.
Now, the show starts us out on a Thursday with Steven reporting to work at the museum. Shortly after he gets there, a co-worker comes up to confirm a date that he had no idea about, which is supposed to be for the following night. After Steven wakes up from his 'dream' and reports to the restaurant, he ends up having to call his date, as she hasn't shown up. She very angrily points out that it's Sunday, so Steven is left shocked with the fact that he's just lost two and a half days worth of time.
I bring up this heartbreaking scene for one main reason... I have seen criticism of the premise, because 'why didn't he just look at his phone for the date'? That's a fairly reasonable question, save that a lot of phones don't show what day of the week it is, just what the numerical date is. It is also very much worth mentioning that Steven spends a lot of his time, apparently, being disoriented due to sleep deprivation. (Did people just not notice those massive bags on his eyes? Props to the make up department, though.) He tries his best to keep himself awake for as long as possible to reduce the chances he'll just wander off, but then you also have to take into consideration that even while his personality is sleeping, the body is often not, and that is also going to amount to a great level of exhaustion. So I give him a pass on not knowing what day it was, ya know?
His surprises don't end there, though. Fun for him, he finds out that what happened in the Alps wasn't a dream, as Harrow decides to pop in at the museum to say hi. More insanity ensues, as Steven ends up being chased by a rather nasty looking jackal at the end of his shift, and while Marc is able to convince him to let him save their collective arse, he does, in fact, break the fuck out of a very nice looking toilet...
Next day, Steven is expecting the jackal to show up on the CCTV footage, so he volunteers to go with J.B., the security guard, to look. Yet another shock for him, there's no jackal to be seen, just him running about an empty museum like a madman. He asks to see the footage of him exiting the toilet, and we see Marc emerge, who then looks straight at the camera like a douche, because he had to have known exactly what he was doing. Steven gets sacked, understandably, and we get yet another absolute heartbreak for him: having to remove his name tag and turn it in to HR...
I do wonder, though... The show seems to keep implying that the body belongs to Steven, not to Marc. We are first introduced to him as Steven. Steven is (was) the one with the day job and an actual flat (as opposed to a cot in a storage rental unit) and a pet fish (what happened to Gus, though?). There is also the fact that Marc has stated on several occasions that once his deal with Khonshu has been met, Steven will never hear from him again. I'm sort of wondering what is going to happen when Steven learns that it's Marc's body, not his... He's not exactly taking the news that his head is basically a flat-share particularly well in the first place.
I'm also curious about Marc's apparent willingness to just go away. When Steven gets picked up by Billy and Bobbi (I'm so glad I read some comics between episodes 1 and 2, 'cause I so got to be Cap with the whole, 'I understood that reference' thing!), Bobbi decides to inform him about the murder of archaeologists that she says Marc contributed to. In the comics, the bit with the archaeology team is the aforementioned job that went south that lead to Marc's death. He attempted to prevent Bushman, who was employing him at the time, killing the archaeologists, which included Marlene (who becomes his on again, off again love interest in the comics) and her father.
Episode 3 implies, via Arthur Harrow, that the group of murdered archaeologists in this universe included Layla's father and that Marc had something to do with their demise. Layla being Marc's wife (and apparently the fans' new waifu). I'm really hoping we get to find out soon whether Marc was actually involved the murder of the archaeology team, or if it went the same road as the comics, where his refusal is what got him killed. It's probably the latter, but perhaps he's willing to fade into the background because he's wallowing in a certain amount of self-hatred because he couldn't save them? He's the type...
One thing I love about episode 3 is that we have finally met Jake! Well... sort of. Fucking hell...
So, there has been speculation over whether Jake has been in the other two episodes, and it's possible that he has, but episode 3 is where we actually know it's Jake (even though he still hasn't been formally named or anything, damn it), or at the very least, that it isn't Marc or Steven. Jake is the more violent of Marc's personalities. I haven't read anything yet where he's featured much, but he does come across as one of those hard-boiled types that will fucking end you if you cross him. In one comic arc I was reading, Jake actually chides Marc for not killing the bad guys he deals with, saying that it ends up getting all put on him to do it.
I am of the opinion that Jake is responsible for kicking Marc out both times while he's trying to question that trio of zealots about Harrow's whereabouts, not just the second (more obvious) time. I base this on the fact that they're freaked the fuck out by him when he finds them again after waking up in the taxi. (Do wonder why Jake would be sending him home, though...)
It's very interesting to me, though, that Marc doesn't seem to know that Jake exists. I mean, we don't really expect Steven to know, obviously, as he only just learned that Marc exists in the first place, but Marc has known about Steven probably for about as long as he's been around, at least long enough that he had to promise Khonshu that his wet noodle of an alternate personality wouldn't be a problem with the whole Moon Knight business. But both Marc and Steven are blaming the other for killing those two men (though, honestly, Marc should know better...).
I kinda both really want and really don't want to see Oscar Isaac with a mustache in the mirror as Jake...
Speaking of mirrors, one of the little details I caught that amused me is right toward the end of episode 2. In the previous scene, Steven, angry that he's not in control of the body, tells Marc that he's going to torment him until he gives it back, at which point Marc ends up having a fit and kicking the mirror they're talking through repeatedly out of frustration. The Cairo scene starts with a pan across the room Marc is staying in, in which we see a cloth fall from the mirror in the corner of the room, which is also broken (and seemingly turned to face the wall). The upper part of the mirror is shattered, as if someone, I dunno, punched it because the person inside was being insufferable. Apparently Steven was trying to make good on his threat and ended up pissing Marc off again. Whoops?
I've been wondering if Steven said something that got under Marc's skin, and that's why he was drinking straight from the bottle.
I will say, I rather like how the show has decided to handle the difference between Moon Knight and Mr Knight. In all honesty, I'm still not sure I understand it in the comics, other than the fact that they're both Marc. The show, though, has given Moon Knight to Marc and Mr Knight to Steven. I've seen speculation about whether Jake will get his own version of the suit, but in the comics all I've noticed that's different when he's in control as the Knight is that he pulls the mask up to uncover the bottom part of his face (to be fair, I've only seen him in the suit once). Maybe it makes his proverbial mustache itch?
One other thing I love about episode 3 is when they're in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Marc is walking in, looking more serious than the word could ever even mean, but you see Steven in the reflection just having an absolute nerdgasm. Out of everything that's happened to him over the past few days, from waking up in a foreign country to being chased by invisible canines to his life being threatened to being locked inside his own head, he is still just chuffed as all fucking hell (even, if you will, over the moon) at being inside an Egyptian pyramid. It's adorable.
The scene that follows is, to me, the heart wrenching scene of episode 3. Khonshu, being the arse that he is, gives Marc no information on how a meeting of the Ennead works... But how it works is basically the gods speaking via possession of their avatars. You can tell, during this scene, that Khonshu speaking through Marc is having a grave effect on him, and it appears to be taking both a mental and a physical toll (in one shot you can catch a tear falling, and in another you see him mouth the word 'fuck' after Khonshu has stopped talking).
And despite Khonshu saying that their case against Harrow needed to be indisputable, he doesn't actually present anything other than accusations and arrogance. News flash, sir pigeon, that's pretty fucking disputable on every level.
When Arthur Harrow is called to face the allegations against him, he turns the tide against Marc instead by saying that Khonshu is himself seeking Ammit due to jealousy and that he is using Marc because Marc is broken. Marc is obviously overwhelmed, and he cannot adequately defend against Harrow's accusations (especially since the last part is true... I don't know if it will be brought up in the show, but the comics have had Khonshu flat out say that he chose Marc because his mind is weak). Osiris decides there is not enough evidence against Harrow and decrees the matter closed. (I am curious, considering the ending scene where Harrow goes to speak with the bound Khonshu, whether Osiris is in on it, or if he's just that stupid and/or hardheaded...)
Another great thing that we got to see in episode 3 was Moon Knight's cape doing the whole crescent moon form thing:
The cape forming a crescent moon is something that happens in the comics, and so it was really fun to see it do its thing in the show, as well.
So... I think I've edited this enough that it's definitely a better post... Hopefully. There is one last thing I have, though... a chicken and egg question: Did Marc fall for Layla because she reminded him of Steven, or did Steven end up being imbued with certain traits and interests because Marc fell in love with Layla?
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