Category: Features

In Moon Knight, so far, much of Moon Knight’s classic ensemble has been reduced to teases or cameos at best. Jean-Paul “Frenchie” Duchamp was a name in Marc Spector’s phone in Episode 1, and Bertrand Crawley has been making silent appearances as a human statue. Marc’s third identity from the comics, Jake Lockley, has not made an appearance or been referenced. A lot of classic elements from the Moon Knight comics are missing from Moon Knight.

One of the most significant characters in Moon Knight comics, other than Marc Spector and his alters, is Marlene Alarune. Marlene is Marc’s (and Steven’s) (and Jake’s) constant on-again-off-again romantic interest. She has been consistently present since Moon Knight #1 in 1980. While over 40 years of history saw plenty of changes to the character, overall, Marlene is not a great character. Moon Knight, though, apparently recognized the significance of her character and the ability for a love interest of Moon Knight to highlight Marc Spector’s dissociative identity disorder—we now have May Calamawy’s Layla El-Faouly. And Layla is great.

Marlene and Layla have different names, but their roles and pasts suggest that Layla is more or less a majorly upgraded Marlene. Obviously, both are love interests to Marc Spector. In the comics, Marlene was aware of Marc’s three identities and Moon Knight from the beginning. She generally dealt with it well, but at other times throughout her comics history, Marc’s DID was, reasonably, a source of frustration to say the least. Still, she has had relationships specifically with Marc, Steven, and Jake over time. More recently, she and Marc share a daughter named Diatrice, who was fathered by Jake, and Marc never knew for years. In Moon Knight, Layla is introduced as Marc’s soon-to-be ex-wife who was not aware of any identity other than Marc and Moon Knight. Marlene and Marc never married in the comics, but they often also had a rocky relationship.

Marlene met Marc almost at the same time that Marc became Moon Knight. Marlene is the daughter of an archaeologist who was killed by Bushman when the villain and his crew (including mercenary Marc Spector) raided the tomb Marlene’s father had discovered. After Bushman killed the archaeologist, Marc apparently had a moment of moral reckoning and turned against Bushman, saving Marlene and getting himself killed then revived by Khonshu in the process. We do not know much about Layla’s past in Moon Knight, but we learned in Episode 3 that her father was an archaeologist and was killed at some point. That is incredibly unlikely to be a coincidence, but whether Layla otherwise has the same general backstory as Marlene is yet to be seen. 

Marlene, it feels like, is a constant damsel in distress in the comics. She generally feels extremely superficial and it is just a given that Marc cares about her. There are times when she is non-stop jealous or angry for every action Marc takes, there are times she is at home waiting for Moon Knight when he gets back, there are times when they have broken up and he longs for her, and there are (again) many times where her being in trouble is half the plot or motivation of an issue. She has her moments, but Marlene just feels like an outdated trope that never quite evolved.

Layla, on the other hand, is certainly not a damsel in distress. She seems to know how to handle herself in a violent situation, sure. But she also arguably is the person leading the current plot in Moon Knight—without her knowledge and help, it is not clear how great at tracking down Ammut’s tomb Marc and Steven would be. Her knowledge of Ancient Egyptian artifacts and mythology is rivaled only by Steven, and she has connections in Egypt that seems to be able to get them anywhere. Layla seems weirdly OK with the DID thing Marc never told her about after getting to know Steven a little bit, but also is reasonably angry at Marc for several things. Of course, she mentioned early on that Marc and her fought side by side for the Scarab, only reaffirming that she can, at the very least, hold her own next to an ex-mercenary, Egyptian god avatar.

The only thing “damsel in distress” about Layla is perhaps the fact that Marc is trying to protect her from Khonshu. It does not seem like Layla even knows that Khonshu is interested in her as his next avatar. And to be fair, if Khonshu is interested in her as is next fist of vengeance, that says a lot about what she is capable of. There is also something to be said for the fact that Calamawy and Layla are Egyptian. While the role was not necessarily written for an Egyptian actress, the fact that the character can connect to that aspect of Moon Knight is valuable considering there are no other major Egyptian presences in front of the camera.

The first three episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney+.

Moon Knight has been carving out its own story without relying on its comic book history to create a world to explore. Because of that, many classic characters from Moon Knight comics are either not present in the series or take the form of smaller cameos. Episode 3 just revealed another example of a classic Moon Knight character appearing in a subtle way. As with others, it may simply be a nod to the comics, but it might also tease the character’s return in the future.

Episode 3 introduces us to the late Gaspard Ulliel‘s Anton Mogart. Better known as the villain Midnight Man, Mogart in the comics was originally a rather corny costumed art and jewel thief who always struck at midnight. Very early on in Moon Knight lore, Mogart was seemingly killed, but actually survived but with a melted and deformed face. He returns, having been driven insane, to work with Moon Knight’s greatest villain Bushman. While he eventually dies many years later, his son Jeff Wilde (calling himself Midnight) becomes Moon Knight’s sidekick for a brief time before also becoming a villain.

In Moon Knight, there is no mention of “Midnight Man,” but Anton Mogart is a significant figure in the episode. He is a very wealthy and connected man with an elaborate collection of black market artifacts, such as Senfu’s sarcophagus that Marc and Layla came to see. Layla notes that he keeps these things where only he can see them—in the comics, Mogart stole precious items just to own them rather than for the money. We last see Ulliel’s Mogart get hit by one of Moon Knight’s crescents. Whether that was fatal to the villain is ambiguous. There is certainly room for Mogart to return in Moon Knight or in future projects.

The first three episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney+.

Moon Knight seems to be doing a lot of things: an exploration of mental health, dense Ancient Egyptian mythology, and a classic superhero-needing villain. While Moon Knight is notably relatively disconnected from the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, it might be building another corner of it. While Episode 3 confirms Khonshu’s home realm, there is a twist.

Episode 3 of the series confirmed that the realm known as the Overvoid. Also known as the Othervoid or Celestial Heliopolis, the Overvoid is the home dimension of beings known as the Ancient Egyptian gods. While in the Pyramid of Giza, Khonshu speaks through Marc Spector to the other avatars and their gods and tells them to return to Earth from the Overvoid or risk losing Earth.

This is significant in a few ways. First, the actual existence of the Overvoid expands on the MCU cosmos. The Overvoid is an Asgard-like realm. Its appearance as a large city built on a tiny planet is similar to Asgard’s. Its passage to Earth is a golden bridge through space, called the Path of the Gods, which is similar to the Asgardians’ Bifrost. The world of space gods that came to be revered by humans is expanding—with Norse gods and now Ancient Egyptian gods, beings like the Olympians could come later.

More interesting for the potential events of Moon Knight, though, is the fact that Khonshu’s statement seems to imply that the gods can come and go willingly from the Overvoid. In the comics, that is just generally not true. In fact, the reason the gods use humans as avatars is specifically because they cannot have a physical presence on Earth. So usually, they are somewhat stuck in the Overvoid, but that may not be the case in Moon Knight. Considering Arthur Harrow is seeking out Ammit, this could have huge implications for the series.

The first three episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney+.

Throughout the past few weeks, more and more evidence in Moon Knight is pointing towards a potential introduction of a third personality alongside Marc Spector and Steven Grant. If the series does introduce another alter, chances are it will be Jake Lockley, who is the third classic Moon Knight identity from the comics. We have previously explored what looked like clues in Moon Knight Episode 1 and Episode 2. Even without Oscar Isaac’s own suggestion that Marc and Steven are not the only two characters he plays in the series, Episode 3 leaves very little room to doubt that there is another personality waiting to make their appearance. 

The Blackout

If anything in Moon Knight has virtually confirmed that Jake Lockley exists, it is the scene in Episode 3 where Marc and Steven both blackout while fighting a group of people. Previously, we saw Steven blackout when (presumably) Marc took control of the body, but we have never before been presented with a situation where we know neither of them could have been in control. During the fight, Marc and Steven blackout and reawaken to quite the massacre–they violently killed everyone they had been fighting. They both claim they were not responsible, which means someone else was. Considering in the comics Jake is often the most violent, brutal, and remorseless personality, it makes all too much sense that Jake could have taken over to do what had to be done to get them out of that situation.

“That Wasn’t Me”

While Marc Spector has certainly been portrayed as much more violent than Steven Grant, his actions do not align with the type of violence suggested by the blackout mentioned above. He has his moments, sure, like when Steven seemingly stops Marc before Marc slashes someone’s throat. But even in this episode, there are numerous times he specifically holds back while fighting. Another exciting tidbit for Jake Lockley searchers comes before the main blackout, where Marc encounters a group he had previously fought on the roof (and ultimately pretty brutally kicked the s*** out of).

He wants to talk to them for information, but they try to run because they are scared of him after the fight. He yells at them, “That wasn’t me!” Well, if Marc is trying to say whatever added violence came over him during the rooftop fight was not him, who was it? We know it was not Steven. There was not a blackout on the roof, but this goes along with previous clues that perhaps Jake takes over when it appears Marc loses his emotional/anger control and gets hyper-violent as he did briefly in the last episode. 

Arthur Harrow Definitely Seems to Know There are More Personalities

We do not know with certainty how much Arthur Harrow knows about our protagonists. But it seems to be much more than he shows on the surface. There is very little doubt that when he used his Ammit cane to try and judge Steven in Episode 1, he learned a lot about (at least) Steven and Marc. Episode 3 confirms that he learned at least some of Marc’s past–perhaps his memories–from this. Harrow tells Layla that he knows her father was murdered and that Marc is not telling her the truth about it. From what we have seen, there is no other way Harrow could know about Marc’s involvement in something like that unless the cane process showed him.

So why is this interesting? If he saw Marc by reading Steven, he could have seen other personalities that existed. While telling the court of avatars that Marc is unwell, he notes: “We have no idea how many personalities he might have.” This is reminiscent of the last episode as well, where he makes a similar comment that can be read as Harrow having knowledge of other personalities of Marc and Steven. If he had no reason to believe there were more than the two, it seems unlikely he would keep referencing more than the two he has met. Plus, it could be another subtle nod from the writers that more personalities are possible. 

The first three episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney+.