It goes without saying, that those who delve a little into Moon Knight’s origins will find out that the superhero was originally conceived as Marvel’s direct response to DC’s Batman. He even has a billionaire comic book persona that engages in a playboy lifestyle, however, while MCU Moon Knight may be built different, his punches pack as much punishment as Bruce Wayne’s in The Batman, something that’s not typical of Marvel’s more upright Avengers, such as Captain America.
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Moon Knight Is Out Of Control
By his own admission to the Egyptian pantheon of gods, Marc Spector is unwell, which is a bit of an understatement to describe the multiple personality disorder that makes him look outright unhinged in the eyes of the rest of the world. Nevertheless, his worsened psychiatric condition is why Moon Knight is able to get away with a more direct and violent fighting style even in Marvel’s pristine clean universe, as it’s easier to forgive superhero that’s not a master of his own mental domain.
When the audience first meets Steven Grant, he’s a nice guy, he’s shy, he’s not even able to ask a girl out but that is something his other personas are better off doing, and the same goes for fighting bad guys. Steven is detached from the most hardcore action in the show, add to that the fact that most of these fights take place without the audience actually seeing them, and viewers are left to imagine what’s actually going on, instead of swallowing the MCU’s PG-13 account of events.
It’s one thing to have Batman come out of the dark and start punching villains left and right while he’s taking a bunch of gunfire, but when Moon Knight goes off in one of his fade to black time jumps all viewers have is the limits of their own imagination to piece out how the fight went down. The sight of Steven or Marc surrounded by wounded enemies is never pretty, they have no idea of what happened and neither does the audience, although for the former the mystery acts as a powerful driver to seduce them into wanting more.
Oftentimes, an average person’s imagination can conceive things far worse, bloodier, or more impressive than what filmmakers can get across on screen or pass through censors. With the recent revelation that there’s most likely another Moon Knight persona taking over at certain points and the story, the protagonist’s primitive impulses are far from fully explored.
Just Splash Some More Blood On It
Sure, it’s one thing to actually pick apart the entire state of mind that Konshu imposes on his host avatar, but to a more obvious extent, it’s also quite safe to say that Moon Knight is a little bit more liberal when it comes to violent blood-splattery action than other Marvel productions. Why is this? Well, it has to do with MCU becoming ready to push more boundaries, but also with the hero’s own brand of superpowers as he can’t fire CGI energy blasts like Wanda Maximoff or Iron Man would.
Moon Knight is still more comic book accurate when he puts on the suit and this means hand-to-hand combat reliant on gadgets, just like Batman. Couple that with Moon Knight’s slight horror movie inspirations and the more violent style becomes more of a necessity than just a flashy resource in order to keep the series’ tone consistent.
Steven is supposed to be scared of what these other personalities are capable of doing, and the mess they leave behind makes it quite clear they actually have no problem crossing Batman’s line of “no killing”, which further cements their brutality. As Isaac has said in interviews, Moon Knight is not supposed to be one of those superheroes that viewers might want to fantasize about becoming, because with his great power comes the burden of having one’s mind completely messed up.
The latest episode is the one to feature the most amount of action yet, and it shows Moon Knight being downright stabbed. Even if he doesn’t take any real damage, the temporary scare Steven’s Mr. Knight gets is enough to draw him out of the battlefield.
It won’t come as a shocker to find out that in Avengers: Age of Ultron or any of the biggest MCU battles there are a lot of casualties and collateral damage, and yet, Moon Knight is the least shy in Marvel to admit a lot of people are going to die when either Jake Lockley or the suit come out to play.
Both Steven and Marc are very much aware of this, but regardless of that, the psychological journey the character is on makes all this killing secondary on his list of traumatic experiences because, well, Konshu and his Moon Knight need a higher tolerance for bloody messes and so will viewers if they want to jump on board for this fantastic journey.
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