Moon Knight



"Bushman: What the-?! Moon Knight again- but it can't be! You're dead!

Moon Knight: I died in the tomb, Bushman? remember? You can't kill me - nothing can!"

Marc Spector, AKA the Moon Knight, is a lesser-known Marvel Comics superhero who debuted in Werewolf by Night #32 (August, 1975). He was created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin. Spector was once a U.S. Marine, but quit and became a mercenary when he went to Egypt. There, he befriended French pilot Jean-Paul DuChamp, often referred to simply as "Frenchie", while working for Raoul Bushman. The trio soon find an archaeological dig that unearthed a temple that contained a statue of the moon god Khonshu. Bushman decided to loot the site, and in so doing, killed the lead researcher, Dr. Alraune. In response, Spector picked a fight with Bushman that does not go as well as planned.

As Spector lays dying, Khonshu appears to him in a vision and offers to bring him back to life if he becomes the god's avatar on Earth. He does. After repaying his new Arch Enemy Bushman, he goes back to America with Frenchie and the late Dr. Alraune's daughter Marlene. Deciding to become a crime-fighter, Spector creates a silver cloaked costume and becomes the Moon Knight. Ashamed of his mercenary past, he invests the money he developed from those jobs, develops a small fortune, and creates the identity of Steven Grant, as well as the other identity of common taxicab driver Jake Lockley.

Later incarnations have had him lose his grip on reality and treat each of these personae as different people, among other identities crafted to suit his needs. Also commonly seen as a Captain Ersatz of Batman, due to the "millionaire playboy" Steven Grant personality and cape-wearing overly-thematic nighttime vigilantism.

Recently entered the spotlight (kind of) as an official member of Captain America's Steve Rogers' Secret Avengers after Siege.

"Ms. Marvel:"Who is this?"
 * All Myths Are True: Part of his origin story.
 * Alternate Company Equivalent: Of another "knight".
 * Eventually became something like Ryu and Ken. While Batman has the entire Bat Family, as well as being a major member of the Justice League, Moon Knight is an insane, third-string Avenger.
 * Ambiguously Jewish
 * Anti-Hero
 * Arch Enemy: Werewolf By Night, originally. Hence all the silver weapons. Bushman in later years.
 * The Atoner : In the recent series "the Vengeance of the Moon Knight", he genuinely tries to become a true hero, which doesn't kill, cripple or mutilate his opponents.
 * Ax Crazy: On his worst days, or when Khonshu is especially pushy.
 * Badass Normal: Moon Knight has no powers and relies on himself, his allies, or technology to win fights. However, he has been brought back from the dead at least three times by Khonshu. Some writers also give him enhanced strength with the waxing of the moon.
 * Batman Cold Open
 * Blood Knight: Khonshu spends most of his time trying to push Moon Knight into this role, with varying success.
 * Body Horror: At one point his body was wasting away
 * Bold Inflation
 * Chest Insignia: In most incarnations, a crescent moon.
 * C-List Fodder: Given that it took this long to give him a page of his own...
 * Often referenced in the current series. He even recalls his time as an Avenger: "Sent me to the West coast B team."
 * Finally made it to the A-List as a member of the Secret Avengers. The only problem is that nobody else knows he's A-list now.
 * Echo, frequent guest star of the newest series (Moon Knight V5). Played for Laughs when she calls the Avengers mansion under her real name.

Echo:"This is Maya Lopez."

Ms. Marvel:"Um, who are you and how did you get this number?"

Echo:"Carol, it's me, Maya Lopez."

Ms. Marvel:"Um."

Echo:"Echo."

Ms. Marvel.:"Oh. Oh, hey."

Echo:"You didn't remember my name, did you?"

And shortly after

Luke Cage:"Who was that?"

Ms. Marvel:"That was Echo."

Spider-Man:"Hey, yeah, she used to be on the [Avengers]."

Wolverine:"You just noticed she was gone?""

"Moon Knight: You're going down, ugly. You're going down and you're staying... you're not going down."
 * The Cowl
 * Crimefighting with Cash: Spector is a rich man, but he has found that he is "cash poor," as in a lot of his wealth is in assets that are hard to liquidate quickly into cash.
 * Darker and Edgier
 * Death by Origin Story: One of few instances where the death is the protagonist's.
 * Death Is Cheap: Marc Spector has died something like three times in continuity, and been resurrected by Khonshu each time, often within the same story arc.
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!: No matter how beaten up he gets, he rarely lets anyone else help him out, at least initially. Even Khonshu.
 * Double Consciousness
 * Evil Costume Switch: Oddly enough, hasn't happened to Moon Knight, but rather.
 * It may not have happened in the 616 'verse, but in the Ultimate universe, at one point he creates a fake villain persona known as Ronin in order to work his way into the Kingpin's organization and ends up Becoming the Mask.
 * Fighting From the Inside: See Split Personality Takeover below.
 * First-Episode Resurrection
 * Heroic Bystander: Upon being attacked by three supervillains at once, Moon Knight manages to defeat two of them but is tied up by Coachwhip's electrical coils. Coachwhip is about to fry Moon Knight when a bystander sprays her with a hose, shorting out her equipment and knocking her out from the feedback.
 * I Work Alone: Subverted. Despite his loner identity and typically taking on most of the hard work on missions, Moon Knight openly relies on his partner Frenchie. He even adopts a sidekick at one point.
 * Jerkass Gods: In the arc The Bottom, Khonshu is revealed to be something of a Jerkass God, as well as a Blood Knight.
 * Loners Are Freaks
 * Los Angeles Where the current book takes place.
 * Lunacy: Look at the guy, then look at all of his different personalities, then look at the guy.
 * Is it any wonder, considering the origin of the word "lunacy"?
 * As Spider-Man once commented: "Moony. Rhymes with looney."
 * Multilayer Facade: As part of his multiple personality psychopathy, sometimes even he didn't know who the "real" person was under all the double- and triple-personalities.
 * No Sense of Humor: Spector, Depending on the Writer.
 * Private Military Contractors: Spector's backstory.
 * Punch-Punch-Punch Uh-Oh: One arc involving voodoo zombies has one of these moments as Moon Knight finds even his higher-than-average strength unable to faze an assailant.


 * Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Moon Knight's "Steven Grant" identity.
 * Rogues Gallery: Not a terribly interesting one, though.
 * It's getting better though - how about The Profile?
 * Secret Identity: Several. Partially subverted in that several major villains seem to know one or all of them, despite his best efforts-- a fact which he frequently laments.
 * Secret Identity Identity: Even he can't tell any more.
 * Sherlock Scan: A minor enemy of Moon Knight called The Profile specializes in this, literally to the point of it being a superpower. He is eventually defeated due to Moon Knight being an agent of a god. While the Knight himself could be analyzed, the god could not due to not being present.
 * Show Within a Show: In the New Moon Knight ongoing. There is a Xena like show based on his adventures called "Legend of Konshu".
 * Sidekick: He reluctantly takes on a sidekick in the form of Midnight at one point.
 * Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter!: Marc has been known to get a little emotional and yell at his Khonshu statue.
 * Split Personality: Moon Knight is afflicted with this in the Ultimate universe. It comes and goes in the 616 Universe.
 * One of them is a little girl. With no eyes.
 * In the current ongoing, the personalities are Marc Spector, Captain America, Wolverine, and Spider-Man. Interestingly, the personalities aren't dissociative, they are always active and aware of each other. Marc is the head personality, while the others usually just give advice and comment on the current situation. At times, Marc calls in one of the other personalities to fight for him. Also, unlike most characters with the condition, Marc is completely fine with all the different personalities, and so are they.
 * Split Personality Takeover: In the Ultimate universe Warriors story arc,
 * Thememobile: While Moon Knight's Jake Lockley persona is a cab driver, Moon Knight typically travels by way of moon-shaped helicopter. For some reason, this does not attract attention.
 * To be fair, in the Marvel Universe, that's probably isn't that out of the ordinary.
 * Thou Shalt Not Kill: Brutally subverted. In the prologue to the The Bottom arc,
 * Weapon of Choice: His arsenal is pretty unstable, having used a spiked gauntlet, a bow, guns that fire bolas, and a whole bunch of other weapons. His main weapons, however, are are a truncheon that can become a grapling hook or nunchuks, and "crescent darts", shuriken shaped like a crescent moon. In the Secret Avengers, he uses a gun that shoots crescent shocktoxin darts.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: See Thou Shalt Not Kill above.
 * This is outdone by the fact that he keeps the carved off face as a memento. Khonshu appears to him as a faceless Bushman from this point on. Two arcs later, while struggling with personality issues, Spector retrieves the face-mask and puts it on before being caught by Marlene, who flees screaming.