Blog

Soldier. CIA Agent. Mercenary. Avatar of an Egyptian god. You know, that old trajectory. Marc Spector never really had a normal life but it certainly didn’t get any easier when he let an Egyptian god into his heart. His problems multiplied as things tend to do in his life. How does all this happen? How do you get to powered up by a god from ancient times? Let’s find out!

Marc Spector comes from a rabbi father who had survived Nazis only for the family to be under threat of a Nazi masquerading as the family’s friend so he could get closer to kill them. Marc was only a child when he would have to fight off someone trying to kill him just for being who he was. This trauma would lead to Marc developing dissociative identity disorder and spend a large portion of his youth in a hospital. His father would die and he would be allowed to leave the hospital, during this time, Marc would wonder if he was having hallucinations because a mysterious figure was visiting him.

When Marc reached adulthood, he would be released from the hospital, what does someone with no formal education and hiding his mental illness from society at large do? Join the military! He was there long enough to be trained to fight and kill but once it was revealed he had D.I.D. he was dishonorably discharged. He would continue to hide his background while taking on work in the C.I.A. and work there until they found out about his mental health and his dishonorable discharge and ended his career with them. He would take the skills he had developed and put them towards a similar field, mercenary work. Marc took to it well, he would befriend “Frenchie” DuChamp to begin a life as a soldier of fortune.

Work would take him all over the world, one place in particular would change everything. Egypt gigs would have him meeting Doctor Peter Alraune, his daughter Marlene, and fellow mercenary Raoul Bushman. Mercenary work brings in all kinds, some are in it for just the money and it is a means to an end, for some, the violence draws them in like moths to a flame. Whereas Marc and Frenchie were all about that money, Bushman reveled in the death and destruction, can you see where this is going? While protecting Alraune on his excavation of an ancient Egyptian altar to a long forgotten moon god, Khonshu, Bushman thought they were going for a pharaoh’s tomb that he wanted to plunder so in a rage, he killed the doctor. Marc would try and stop him but was mortally wounded. Marlene and Frenchie would try to keep Marc alive putting him under a statue of Khonshu but he died.

Marc would finally meet someone he was seeing out of the corner of his eye for his whole, the Egyptian moon god, Khonshu. Now finally being introduced, Khonshu had an offer for the recently deceased Marc, become his avatar on Earth and Marc could live again once more. The offer was taken, Khonshu had an avatar, Marc was alive. Realizing things had to change, Marc would return to New York City with Marlene and Frenchie in tow. Using his mercenary money with clever investments, Marc would accrue a fortune, for his new life. Marc would become Moon Knight, a crime fighter of the paranormal and mundane alike.

Now waging a war on crimes of all kinds, Marc would start building a rogue’s gallery and teaming up with fellow heroes. His adventures were often either dealing with deadly street crime and serial killers one night then going up against werewolves and cults the next. As Marc ascended in his work as Moon Knight, his life with his loved ones would dwindle. Time went on and Marc would lose his connections to Frenchie and Marlene, others would come and go, sometimes this included Marc’s own mental health.

Many gods have different aspects of themselves that people who worship them like to focus on to better fit their beliefs. When you are an avatar of a god while also being someone with dissociative identity disorder, you can take this into many different paths for who you are as a person. Marc wasn’t only Marc Spector, but Moon Knight was nearly his own entity, and eventually there was Mr. Knight, the classy and calculating hero who would converse with Khonshu the way one would converse with a mentor. All of them had a goal of helping those in need, especially Khonshu’s most common worshipers of old, travelers at night, his to protect.

Some nights Marc can be found in a full on superhero costume that wouldn’t look out of place alongside his Avengers teammates with a crescent moon drone to aide him in his missions. Other nights he is wrapped in ancient armor, looking like a fierce warrior of old, ready to do battle with ghosts and other creatures from beyond our senses. On nights when the police need his skills, the pure white suits of Mr. Knight arrive in a private, all white limousine who arrives to consult and save the day. Marc may have never really come back from that fight in Egypt, it could be argued Moon Knight simply wants to honor Marc’s legacy as best he can.

There you have it! Moon Knight is a character with a long history of bizarre adventures both on the street and in his own mind. He’s appeared on the small screen in animated form and been in a few video games but has yet to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps one day he’ll join the live action scene but for now we have plenty of great comics to look at.

Suggested Reading
Werewolf By Night #32
Moon Knight Vol. 1-6

Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net