Who Is Marvel’s Moon Knight?

Since Disney Plus has launched, Marvel has announced countless new series that would be debuting on the streaming platform. Many of them featuring heroes we’ve come to know and love from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But they’re also using the streaming platform to introduce new heroes such as Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight to the MCU. Over the past month, we’ve got news of the official casting of Ms. Marvel and a now-debunked casting of She-Hulk. Following suit, sources are now saying that Marvel may have found their Moon Knight in Oscar Isaac. Everyone likely knows who Oscar Isaac is already. He played the title villain in X-Men: Age of Apocalypse as well as Poe Dameron in the recent trilogy of Star Wars movies. The real question a lot of people are probably wondering is who is Moon Knight?

Who Is Moon Knight?

Created by writer Doug Moench and artist Don Perlin, Moon Knight is the superhero alter ego of Marc Spector. He was first introduced in Werewolf by Night #32 (August 1975). Moon Knight is often compared to DC Comics’ Batman and they do share some similarities. Both are millionaires that use their wealth to fund their super-heroics. They’re both expert investigators and detectives. But, outside of that, there are more things that set them apart. The biggest is the fact that Moon Knight actually has superpowers. In his origins, Marc Spector is a former boxer and CIA agent turned mercenary. After being betrayed by a former employer, he was left near death. While laying there dying in an archaeological dig, Spector was visited by the Egyptian Goddess of the Moon, Khonshu. She offers him a second chance at life if he agrees to become her avatar on Earth. The powers granted to him were increased strength, speed, and endurance which grew and shrank based on the moon cycle. In recent continuity, Spector has lost those abilities. The other interesting aspect of the character is that he uses different identities to accomplish different tasks. Such as Steven Grant, a millionaire persona he uses to distance himself from his former life. Or Jake Lockley a taxicab driver that lets him stay connected to the criminal world.

What is Moon Knight?

The most interesting aspect of Marc Spector and Moon Knight is the personas he uses in his fight against crime. When answering a question about the similarities to Batman, Charlie Huston writer of the 2006 re-launch of Moon Knight pointed out these differences. He said that Bruce Wayne takes on another persona’s simply to aid in his fight. It’s merely undercover work for Batman. But Moon Knight’s alter egos aid him in both dealing with the criminal element and in dealing with his own personal demons. As a result and this is especially true in Marvel’s Ultimate Timeline, the use of these personas takes a heavy psychological toll on Marc Spector and has caused him to suffer from a dissociative identity disorder. It’s the reason that a lot of memes and characters reference to Moon Knight seems to focus on him being crazy.

When is Moon Knight?

Sadly, we don’t know a lot about when the Moon Knight Disney Plus series will air. It was announced in the second wave of announcements after Wandavision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki. Those three should be airing 2020 through 2021 and into 2022. It’s likely that once we get a hard confirmation on the casting of the role, that more info will start to leak. I’d place bets on the late 2022 to early 2023 window for Moon Knight.

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