The Dark Knight? No, this is… The Moon Knight.
The American television miniseries The Moon Knight was released on Mar. 30, exclusively on Disney+. The Moon Knight follows Steven Grant (Oscar Issac), a mild-mannered gift-shop employee who mysteriously becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Marc’s enemies converge upon them for having an ancient artifact that they want, he must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
Directed by Mohamed Diab, the show as a whole is great from the writing, the actors, the villains and the hero, or shall I say, heroes.
The Moon Knight is an overall change of pace that shows how Marvel doesn’t have to rely on light-hearted comedy for fans to enjoy its content. If Marvel keeps on this path by adding darker characters like Moon Knight, they will be able to bring in even more fans that care about the story than the comedic effects.
For starters, Moon Knight is an interesting character. The cherry on top of the character, to say the least, is that it is being played by Oscar Issac, who got to redeem himself from his previous role as Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse. Compared to all the other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) characters fans have seen so far, we have never seen anything like Marc Spector. The character is a lot darker than characters we are used to, like “heroic” Spiderman or Captain America. Rather, Spector is out for blood, killing anything in his path. But, despite his villanizing qualities, the character is exceptional and is loved by the audience, proving you don’t need to be the genuine “good” guy to be a beloved and complex hero.
Beyond an interesting main character, the show also gives us probably the best relationship the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever seen, and no, it’s not Marc and Layla. Rather, it’s arguably Marc and Steven learning to coexist with each other. For instance, Steven has to learn the purpose behind their polar identities converging, basically becoming best friends throughout the story. He finds out that Marche creates these alter egos to help cope with the loss of his brother, whom his mother blames on him. Truly, a character like Marc Spector has never been introduced in the MCU and preferably is a great step for Marvel to take on these deeper characters, as shown by fan support on the Moon Knight series. Steven is the perfect companion for Marc as your normal average Joe that is thrust into crazy events as they balance one another.
Despite its uniqueness, some would say there are faults within the show that Marvel could improve upon. With only six episodes in the season, critics imply that the show should have included more action, otherwise just more episodes in general. Admittedly, there was a lot of room for character development, but with how the show went, it is fine just the way it is, considering we could be getting a second season due to the appearance of Jake Lockley, the third personality of Moon Knight, showing up in the end credit season, basically hinting that this is not the end of The Moon Knight.
The season finale of The Moon Knight was both great and not so great. The sixth and final episode brought the plot to a messy close. Seeking to stop the goddess Ammit from proceeding to purify the souls of Cairo and then the world, we got to see the cool fight between Khonshu and Ammit. Not only that but seeing Layla fight alongside Marc and Steven was also amazing. Well, it was until half the fight was cut out because Marc blacked out and ended up killing mostly everyone, revealing Jake as his other alter ego. Sadly, even before the fight was shown, the producers cut it there with the customary credit sequence. While that seemingly spelled the end for the show’s villain, it opened up many pathways for how Marvel can take the character of Moon Knight in the future.
As of right now, nothing has been confirmed yet, but hopefully, in the near future, we get a season 2 of The Moon Knight or see him in some huge Marvel projects. Possibly a Midnight sons movie considering hints from the latest Marvel movie, Eternals, introducing Blade and Black Knight.
Just sit tight and stay tuned as there are a lot more Marvel productions in the making.
