After being introduced in 2022, Oscar Isaac‘s Moon Knight has yet to reemerge in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga. Though it wasn’t quite the critical darling as some of its streaming predecessors, Moon Knight landed with fans and was one of Marvel’s most watched series, beginning with a strong premiere on Disney+. Samba TV, which measures viewership in millions of households, indicated that the first episode’s viewership was comparable to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and exceeded that of WandaVision and Hawkeye in the first five days of release. This suggests that Moon Knight garnered significant interest and viewership upon its debut which continued as it became the most in-demand series on the streaming service.
So I think Marvel Television has happened in waves, and I think Moon Knight happened in a wave of shows that were going to establish characters that would tie-in to the future.
-Brad Winderbaum
Despite the interest in the series and the further adventures of the character, Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum made it clear that while the studio has plans for the character, a second season of Moon Knight is not happening. But as fans wait to find out what those plans are, series writer Jeremy Slater has revealed that the original idea for the D+ show would have taken it in a significantly different direction.
In a recent interview, Slater told ComicBook.com that the original pitch for the series would have seen Raoul Bushman, who he’d previously revealed was intended to be the show’s big bad, serving as an avatar of an unnamed Egyptian god.
The archenemy of Moon Knight, Bushman first appeared in Moon Knight #1and was created by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. His history is deeply intertwined with Moon Knight’s alter ego, Marc Spector as the two were once fellow mercenaries and it was Bushman who shit and killed Spector, opening the door to him becoming the Fist of Khonshu. In one of the most graphic displays of vengeance in Marvel Comics history, Spector carved off Bushman’s face in Moon Knight, Volume 5, #2.
“The goal was if Marc Spector was the Avatar of Khonshu, we were going to take Bushman and make him the avatar of a different Egyptian god and let them duke it out,” Slater told Comic Book. However, the team ran into an unexpected roadblock. “The problem we kept running into was Black Panther had just come out and Michael B. Jordan was so damn good as Killmonger in that movie, that he casts such a big shadow…that everything we wrote wound up feeling a little derivative.”
As it turned out, the idea of having the Show’s villain also be an avatar was something that survived into the final draft, with Ethan Hawke‘s Arthur Harrow serve as the Earthly vessel of Ammit which lead to a crazy battle among the pyramids in Egypt. However, it sounds as though that choice wasn’t one made by Slater.
“Ultimately, [Marvel] went in a different direction and the director put together his own team of writers,” Slater explained. “You know when you are coming in to play in such a big sandbox that you are…borrowing someone else’s toys to play with for a short amount of time and, at the end of the day, they don’t belong to you. You know that going in, so it wasn’t a surprise at all.”
Hawke‘s Harrow certainly didn’t land on anyone’s “Best Marvel Baddie” list and Bushman would have absolutely been a fantastic antagonist had Slater and crew been able to crack the story. Unfortunately, without another season of Moon Knight in the cards, it’s hard to imagine the character will ever do battle against Marc Spector in the MCU.
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