Characters / Marvel Comics: Moon Knight

Moon Knight and His Alters/Personas

Moon Knight

Moon Knight

"When you see me coming? RUN."

Alter Ego: The Fist of Khonshu, The Watcher of Night Travelers

First Appearance: Werewolf by Night #32 (May, 1975)

"I'm not real."

The appointed avatar of Khonshu, Moon Knight is the collective name of a system, which, together, creates an unstoppable force.

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• Ax-Crazy: A reputation he's built up for himself. His willingness to kill has put him in a position as a figure to be scared of.
• Becoming the Mask: Throughout modern Moon Knight, especially Moon Knight 2021 and Moon Knight 2014, he (Marc specifically) often refuses to leave his mask to an unhealthy extent. In Moon Knight 2014 and 2016 Mr. Knight is implied to be a seperate person to Marc.
  Scarlet: Your face.
  Mr. Knight: It's a mask.
  Scarlet: No. It's not a mask. It's your face.
  Mr. Knight: Smart kid.
  • Jed MacKay's run proposes that he intentionally buries himself into his Moon Knight alter ego to bury his former life as Marc Spector, the person that killed without remorse, drove his friends away, and overall did nothing to contribute to society or try to make the world a better place. A reason Marc gives for almost always wearing his mask is so he doesn't have to look at Marc Spector's bruised and bandaged face in the mirror.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Moon Knight has driven the majority of his original supporting cast away so that they wouldn't get into harm's way.
• Breakout Character: Started off as an Anti-Villain antagonist towards Werewolf by Night. Marv Wolfman liked him enough to make him star in his own one-off stories before getting him his own self-titled solo series.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Moon Knight is basically what Batman would be if Bruce Wayne wasn't possibly an insane masochistic Triple Shifter but flat out delusional, incurably violent Knight Templar with only a few token nods taken towards his own self preservation, to the point he has no concept of stealth. Moonknight's still an ultimately good, if needlessly dangerous crime fighter however, motivated by what he sees as past moral failings as a mercenary.
• The Cowl: While he works in the shadows and often at night, he wears all white because he wants to be seen coming.
• Crazy Sane: On a good day, he can actually use his erratic mental state to his advantage- for example, he has a resistance to most psychic tampering.
• The Dreaded: Thanks to his reputation of instability, his history of violence, and him not being as picky about killing as other heroes, most criminals view running into him as slightly preferable to running into the Punisher. In the 2021 series 8-ball immediately surrenders and begs for mercy the second Moon Knight shows up fearing that Marc would carve his face off as he did to Bushman. From the same series, Taskmaster comments that while he'll gladly go after the likes of Daredevil, Spider-Man, and even Captain America, he refuses to take any contracts against Moon Knight since unlike the others who might kick his ass, Marc is a whole different level of dangerous even compared to the Punisher and the memory of Marc crashing a helicopter into a building just to pursue him, on top of his history with Bushman is something Tasky never wants to relive.
• Expy: Of The Shadow and, to a lesser extent, Batman.This may be because the writer of his first solo run, Doug Moench, also wrote extensively on Batman.
  • Possibly of The Spectre, both being hooded agents of divine vengeance brought back to life to punish evildoers, and of course the host of the system is Marc Spector.
• Flip Personality: In Moon Knight 1980, Moon Knight's several civilian identities caused him to develop something similar to Dissociative Identity Disorder, though the run never stated a direct diagnosis. In Moon Knight 2016 his backstory was retconned, and it was stated that he has had specifically DID since childhood.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In his modern runs, other superheroes tend to think he belongs in a padded cell rather than out on the streets fighting crime. That said, there are one or two who'll hang out with him, like Tigra. In his 80s and 90s runs the wider superhero world was significantly kinder to him.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: Oftentimes, the reason why he would become murderous is because of Khonshu's influence, especially in Moon Knight 2006.
• Good Is Not Nice: Let's count the ways.
  • There's the infamous face carving he gave to Bushman, which killed him the first time.
  • When Bushman was resurrected, Moon Knight beat him so badly that he ended up in Ravencroft begging for protection.
  • Even after rescuing a kidnapped girl, he crushes her remaining kidnapper with his Angel Wing just to teach others like him in the afterlife not to mess with him.
  • He sent a bunch of abused junkyard dogs to tear their owner apart.
  • When Waxman abducted his therapist, Moon Knight retaliated by trapping him in a steel ball which he then dropped into wet cement, which won't kill him but will imprison him forever.
• Good Wears White: He wears a white costume and does try do good, but he’s not a very nice guy if you get on his bad side.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: If J. Jonah Jameson finds Spider-Man to be a menace, wait till he meets Loony Moony. Almost the entire local superhero community hates Moon Knight for just how crazy and dangerous he can be. During Civil War, when Captain America and Iron Man were recruiting heroes to join them for their respective side, the two were quick to berate him. Steve went as far as to say that while Punisher belongs in a cage, Marc belongs in a straight-jacket. Speaking of Frank Castle, even he has zero tolerance or respect for Moon Knight. This was not the case in the 80s and 90s, however.
• I Work Alone: Has, at times, refused to work with other heroes because of this mentality, but in the 80s and 90s Moon Knight is, at times, defined by his connections, especially his side characters such as Frenchie, Marlene, and Gena. Later in his history he drove these people away.
• Jack of All Stats: With a mix of Wild Card, it's what makes him so dangerous. He's not the strongest, most skilled, smartest, or dangerous hero out there. But he's dangerously resourceful, has access to a variety of unorthodox weaponry, has a psychotic level of determination, and his percieved erraticism means criminals will never know what insane trick he'll pull. The more supernatural lean his stories have taken since the 2010s also means that sometimes he'll manage something well outside his typical capabilities with Khonshu's assistance, and again you won't see it coming.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While this applies to a lot of Moon Knight's character in general, his supposed superpowers also count as this. He used to have a thing where he would be stronger, faster, and more durable depending on the moon, but later whenever this was explained to others, they'd express scepticism, especially as he no longer demonstrated these abilities and is instead a mid-card Badass Normal. While it's possible that Khonshu did imbue him with enhanced strength and has only chosen to rescind this because of his questioned faith, it's equally likely that Marc was deluded enough into thinking he had powers, and thus would push himself further than was safe but resulted in feats of incredible strength (which is supported by how he spent the 2000s as Dented Iron because of how badly hurt his body was from his activities).
• Resurrective Immortality: The 2021 run establishes this is his actual superpower, one shared by the other Fists of Khonshu, but also reveals that previous Fists have eventually died and gone to their final rests, to rise again if disturbed. However, Marc is explicitly an anomaly by the Fists' standards, and what applies to them may not apply to him - and even if it does, and there is a final death awaiting him, it still won't be enough to finish him.
• Retroactive Legacy: There have been multiple Moon Knights throughout history, all of them having fought against Ra and his Sun King avatars.
• Split Personality: His most famous disorder. Primarily consists of Marc Spector (original alter), Steven Grant, and Jake Lockley. Sometimes, Moon Knight (in 1980), Mr. Knight (in 2014 and 2016), and even Khonshu (in 2006, 2016 and 2014) are implied to be their own separate alters as well.
• Terror Hero: Invokes this, with his percieved instability and supernatural background frightening criminals and even other heroes. He even wears white because he wants to be seen and strike fear into the hearts of men who see him coming.
  Moon Knight: When you see me coming? Run.

Marc Spector

Marc Spector

First Appearance: Werewolf by Night #32 (May, 1975)

The host to the Moon Knight system, who writers often write as the "original," Marc Spector is a former mercenary left for dead in the Egyptian desert by his boss. But, he was resurrected by the Egyptian god Khonshu.

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• Boomerang Bigot: In the past- primarily in his late teens and in his mercenary days. He's Jewish, but while he's not exactly anti-semitic, he used to struggle with a lot of resentment at his own culture because of the Trauma Conga Line that the Jewish people, and specifically himself in his childhood, have gone through over the centuries. It's less that he hated Judaism so much as he hated how some Jewish people, particularly his Rabbi father, didn't fight back hard enough from the persecution they received. The last two issues of Moon Knight 1980 show him reconciling with his fathers legacy after he died.
• Depending on the Artist: Marc received an eyebrow scar during the fight where he killed Bushman during Huston's run. Artists have since flip-flipped on including it in following runs.
• Expy: Of Kent Allard, The Shadow's original identity.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Much like his costumed identity, Marc Spector is generally hated by those who know him. Given everything about him, it's understandable, and it plays heavily into his self-loathing.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He hates himself, hates looking at himself, and hates being himself. He hates even more that his loved ones care about him because he doesn't know how anyone could care about him. Although, over time, he has learned to be at peace with himself and conquer his personal demons.
• Hitman with a Heart: Marc was a mercenary, and his disagreement with Bushman's brutality was what led to him becoming Moon Knight.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rusted bronze, really. Marc is, typically, a short-tempered, violent, volatile jerk who butts heads with most people he meets and always has a chip on his shoulder, to say nothing of how much he used to resent his father for being a pacifist. But Marc cares strongly for those he knows, and a lot of his self-loathing and poor treatment of them is born out of worry they'll be hurt by their association with him, and in his nicer days. He could be a genuine knight in shining armour if he wasn't so damaged from his past life.
• The Kirk: In the Bemis run, he's the midpoint between his alters, the one that ties them together and keeps them under wraps. Typically though, this is inverted, with Marc being the most unstable and damaged of Moon Knight's alters.
• Not Quite Dead: An ambiguous mystery throughout the series. Was he simply near-death before recovering conveniently under Khonshu's statue? Or was he actually brought back to life by the god?
• Semper Fi: He was in the Marine Corps prior to becoming Moon Knight. He was even able to fight Frank Castle, another former Marine, to a standstill.
• Strong and Skilled: He has extensive combat training, both from his time in the Marines and as a mercenary, in addition to his superpowers.

Steven Grant

Steven Grant

First Appearance: Marvel Spotlight #28 (March, 1976)

A pacifistic, wealthy businessman that Moon Knight uses to fund his vigilante career.

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• Crimefighting with Cash: Marc built up quite a large savings account from his PMC work, and Steven has invested it well enough to have a sizeable piggybank to buy the resources needed for a superhero operation.
• Depending on the Writer: Much like Jake, Steven’s personality is one that tends to depend on the writer. Sometimes he’s a sociable, highly charismatic ladies man type who lives up to the millionaire playboy cliché, but is vapid and uninvolved in the vigilantism. Other times, he’s actively using his wealth to build connections with richer, wealthier criminals in order to get into their business and take them down, and is a smart, calculating and reasonable person.
• Expy: Of Lamont Cranston and Bruce Wayne.
• Out of Focus: Marc's increasing status as a loner eventually did away with any need for Steven, who mostly existed as a justification for Moon Knight's wealth. He's around along with Jake, but otherwise the two have generally been reduced to Continuity Nods more than actual characters. The MacKay run, alongside having Marc start to open up to others again, makes an effort to pull Steven back into focus, tweaking his role so he's the alter with connections among the rich and powerful
• The Spock: The logical and reasonable third of Spector's alters.

Jake Lockley

Jake Lockley

First Appearance: Marvel Spotlight #28 (March, 1976)

A gruff, sociable yet violent cabdriver that garners intel from the streets.

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• The Atoner: During Vengeance of the Moon Knight, Jake took over as the host and began actively pushing for Moon Knight to be a more heroic figure. His refusal to take lives annoys the hell out of Khonshu.
• Depending on the Writer: Like Steven, Jake’s personality has varied over the years. Typically he was gruff but reasonable, and had the most developed social life of the alters (who mostly seemed to limit their circle to Steven’s staff, Marlene, and Frenchie). During the 2000s, he even replaced Marc as the host, and showed he was a capable Action Hero who was comfortable with engaging in violence when needed but didn’t go overboard like Marc was known for, and actively resisted Khonshu’s influence. For the Bemis run, though, Lockley was recharacterised as the most violent of the alters, one who had a scary enough appetite for violence that it concerned even Khonshu, and who had basically bullied Marlene into a loveless, purely physical relationship. Ironically, during the time he was host, he had rekindled things with Marlene and it was explicitly shown that he was a loving boyfriend, and she appreciated explicitly he wasn’t as hot-and-cold with her as Marc was. The MacKay run pushed him back to his earlier portrayal.
• Expy: Of Moe Shrevnitz, The Shadow's cabbie.
• Good Is Not Nice:
  • The Bemis run turned him into the personification of this part of Marc's personality. It's heavily implied he's done terrible things that Marc isn't aware of and is horrifying enough to scare a mind-reading supervillain.
  • Even before this, Vengeance of the Moon Knight has him finish his fight with the undead Bushman by savagely beating him within an inch of his new life. While Bushman survived, Jake's brutality was so beyond what Marc was capable of that the usually psychotic, monstrous Bushman is reduced to a paranoid crying mess begging for protection from Moon Knight.
• Luke, You Are My Father: It's revealed fathered a daughter with Marlene without the rest of the systems knowledge.
• The McCoy: The most brutal and emotional of the three alters in the Bemis run, possibly right behind Khonshu in terms of ruthlessness.
• Out of Focus: Along with Steven, Jake got shuffled out of the limelight due to Marc becoming more and more of a loner. Marc had lost the need for an alter who was close to word on the streets and Jake had joined Steven in mostly just hanging out in Marc's subconscious. The MacKay run makes an effort to address this by having Marc discover that he does need someone with an ear to the street, bringing Jake back into action.
• Nice Guy: Jake is typically The Heart of Marc's alters, aside from the Bemis run, which had him as the McCoy. His tenure as the host even paved a path for Moon Knight to become The Atoner for a bit.
• Retcon: The Bemis run switches his and Marc's personalities, turning Marc into The Kirk to Jake's McCoy rather than Jake being The Everyman Nice Guy who kept Marc grounded. The MacKay run switches them back.

Mr. Knight

Mr. Knight

First Appearance: Moon Knight (Vol. 7) #1 (March, 2014)

A more sensible, detective-noir version of Moon Knight.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: A case can be made he is one for Steve Ditko creation Mr. A, or even Rorschach.
• Ambiguous Situation: It’s not clarified exactly how distinct Mr Knight is from Moon Knight and/or Marc Spector. Given the character, he could just be a costume Marc wears for more ‘civilised’ interactions, but his attitude and actions do point to him being a different alter. In which case, is he Steven or Jake, or even someone else entirely?
• Badass in a Nice Suit: It is very nice and he is very badass.
• Danger Deadpan: Always calm under pressure, to the point that he'll snark to the face of a giant Frankenstein monster.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Mr. Knight actually first appeared in Warren Ellis' run on Secret Avengers, before he got the spotlight put on him through the 2014 series.
• Loophole Abuse: As Flint explains, this persona is primarily adopted so the police aren't technically working with notorious vigilante Moon Knight, but rather anonymous concerned citizen "Mr. Knight".
• Sherlock Scan: Moon Knight seems to have picked this up for this persona.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Mr. Knight has generally become the mostly default costume for Marc while the regular or a variation of the Moon Knight suit with the hood and cape is only brought out for intense combat situations.

Khonshu

Khonshu

"You are my son."

Notable Aliases: Chonsu, Khensu, Chons, God of Vengeance, God of the Moon

First Appearance: Moon Knight #1 (August, 1980)

Khonshu is one of the Gods of Celestial Heliopolis, worshiped by the ancient Egyptians. In ancient times, Khonshu served as the God of the Moon, making him the guardian of night travelers. However, he also served a much more sinister role, as the God of Vengeance. The dueling nature of these titles, like the phases of the moon themselves, means Khonshu's motives are constantly shifting. When Marc Spector laid down before the Statue of Khonshu, he was seemingly revived by the long-forgotten god and was reborn as his avatar on Earth.

Whether or not the Khonshu Marc interacts with is the real thing has been a hotly debated issue. At times Marc has been (seemingly) granted supernatural powers based on the phases of the moon thanks to the Moon God, but these abilities were very unpredictable and haven't manifested in years. Due to Marc's mental states, it is believed by many, including Marc at times, that the Khonshu he sees is only another aspect of his fractured psyche. Whatever the case, Khonshu has served as both inhibiter and enabler to Marc's double life.

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• Art Evolution: Usually originally appeared as either Moon Knight with a bird skull for a head or a robed ambiguous humanoid with a bird skull for a head, but after the Ellis-Shalvey run, settled into a cobweb drenched man in a white suit...with a bird skull for a head.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Is a god with powers to match and in modern times is always seen in a dapper white suit.
• Big Bad: Of the 2016 series and the "Age of Khonshu" storyline in The Avengers (Jason Aaron).
• Daddy Issues: He's been at odds with his father, Amon Ra, for centuries. The two have warred against each other using their respective avatars, Khonshu's Moon Knight and Ra's Sun King.
• Depending on the Writer: He's either a bad influence to Marc who drives him to violence, a mostly benevolent but violent god who has the best intentions when pushing Marc, or a little bit of both.
• Egyptian Mythology: Khonshu was worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians as the God of the Moon.
• God of the Moon: His mortal champions take their names from the moon (Moon Knight, Hunter's Moon), he's constantly feuded with the Egyptian sun god, his nature and goals constantly seem to change and and he's outright called the Egyptian moon god.
• Handwave: The Fantastic Four once traveled back to Ancient Egypt, but never ran into the Egyptian gods while there (and they were there a while). Apparently Rama-Tut's conquest upset them so bad they turned their back on mankind. And that's why they didn't show up then.
• Jerkass Gods: On bad days. Which are often. Khonshu saves Marc from the brink of death but has since been always pushing him to be a ruthless vigilante instead of the hero he wants to be.
• Lunacy: The source of his power, being a god of the moon.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The biggest source of this debate about Moon Knight's character. He's constantly flip-flopping between an alter (or delusion/hallucination) of Marc's or Real After All, oftentimes with contradictions within the same series. Post-2010 stories show Khonshu is a very real Elder God and has been influencing various people to become his Moon Knight for millennia. However, Moon Knight has increasingly became a character confined to his own series with little to no crossover with others, leading to the possibility that entire adventures may in fact be entirely in Marc’s head. The Lemire run (which briefly tried to explain that Khonshu was an alien) was from the first-to-last issue an extensive Battle in the Centre of the Mind with every character being just Marc’s subconscious memory of them rather than actually being those characters, with Khonshu shown to be lying to Marc about the nature of the adventure in order to hijack his body, leading to questioning on what he is. Meanwhile the Bemis run that followed saw Marc interact with Sun King, who claimed to be an avatar of Ra in the same way Marc is of Khonshu, however this was due to Sun King being a superhuman with severe mental problems who was basically gaslighted by his therapist into believing he was Ra, explicitly inspired by Marc’s delusions of Khonshu, creating the possibility that the Ra-Khonshu rivalry was just a shared delusion the two developed. Then Jason Aaron's "Age of Khonshu" came down firmly on the side of Khonshu existing independently of Marc.
• Mysterious Backer: A retcon states he played a part in Rama-Tut's defeat waaaaaaay back in Fantastic Four #19, re-empowering Ben Grimm so he'd turn back into the Thing, without ever revealing himself.
• Real After All: Any ambiguity the series had about his existence has been tossed out the window with the "Age of Khonshu" storyline where he directly pushes Marc to battle the Avengers and gets subsequently imprisoned on Asgard.
• Shown Their Work: Khonshu being the protector of nighttime travelers is probably a reference to Khonsu's name widely believed to be meaning "traveler". Khonsu is also sometimes depicted with the head of a bird, a falcon to be exact, though not as a skull and MU Khonshu's beak is much longer than a falcon's.
• Trickster Mentor: Will either directly aid Marc in his heroics or fool him into doing something he doesn't want to do. At his worst, he becomes an Evil Mentor and pushes Marc into brutality and madness.
• Unexplained Recovery: After being killed by the gentle means of getting his giant bird skull crushed to dust, he suddenly reappears in Max Bemis's run completely fine and unambiguously back on Marc's side. While Jed MacKay's run doesn't explain his return, it does comment he'd been put in his place during the Bemis run.
• Villain in a White Suit: Has a history of morally ambiguous behavior and is often seen in a white suit.

"Lockley"

"Lockley"

First Appearance: Moon Knight (Vol. 7) #8 (October, 2014)

The mysterious persona that emerges to deal with a terrorist attack on the One World Trade Center.

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• Knight Templar: He does something to the terrorist's hand that we don't fully see, it just drenches "Lockley" in the guy's blood. It scares the daylights out of everyone watching the footage filmed by Moon Knight's scarabs and it lands him on a wanted list.
  "Lockley": You were dead the minute you came up with the idea to do this.
• Nothing Is Scarier: His appearance is a big mystery that not even Brian Wood's run cared to fully elaborate on. The emergence of this never before seen persona is meant to be a giveaway that something is wrong with Marc and Khonshu's connection as Warsame pulled strings to co-opt the latter.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He appears in a grand total of one issue but it's his actions that forces Detective Flint to turn in his badge, turn Moon Knight into a wanted criminal, and pave the path for Elsa Warsame to take Khonshu away from Marc.
• The Spook: There is generally no explanation for where he came from, what he is, or what's become of him after his first and only appearance. His name implies that he's Jake, but he also comes across as especially more brutal than Moon Knight usually is.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He only ever appeared in his debut issue.

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