Merge:Moon Knight

Moon Knight is an Egyptian-themed, Jewish superhero from Marvel Comics.

Publication history
The character was created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin in Werewolf by Night (vol. 1) #32 (August 1975), with his first solo action in Marvel Premiere v.1 #28-29 (1976). Later has starred in three eponymous ongoing series and several miniseries. Moon Knight's most notable artist over the years has been Bill Sienkiewicz. He illustrated many of Moon Knight's appearances in ''Hulk! Magazine'', and also launched the character's first solo series. He stayed onboard for 25+ issues and enjoyed a long tenure on the comic, producing memorable covers for Moon Knight as well. He is widely considered the definitive Moon Knight artist. Writer Doug Moench also had a long, productive run, defining the character with often dark adventures.

During the early 1980s Moon Knight was one of the three Marvel titles turned into direct distribution only titles. The Moon Knight series ended in Moon Knight (v3) #60 with art by Stephen Platt depicting his death.

A new Moon Knight ongoing series was launched in April 2006 by David Finch and Charlie Huston.

Origin
Moon Knight was originally Marc Spector, an American rabbi's wayward son who had become a mercenary. As a mercenary he became a skilled combatant, and befriended the French pilot Jean-Paul DuChamp, who he came to call "Frenchie". While the pair were working for the African mercenary Raoul Bushman in Egypt, he stumbled upon an archaeological dig whose crew included Dr. Peter Alraune and his daughter Marlene. The dig had uncovered an ancient temple whose artifacts included a statue of the Egyptian god Khonshu. Bushman stated his intent to loot the dig; this provoked Dr. Alraune to attack Bushman, a decision that cost him his life. In response to Alraune's murder, Spector challenged Bushman to personal combat; he was beaten nearly to death and left to die in the sub-zero temperatures of the desert night.

Spector was found by nearby Egyptians who worshipped the ancient Egyptian gods and was carried to their temple. His heart stopped, but he did not die. Khonshu appeared to him in a vision, offering Spector his life if he would serve the god on Earth. Spector was returned to life in a haze. He concealed himself within the silver shroud that covered Khonshu's statue and again confronted Bushman. He defeated Bushman and returned to America with Marlene Alraune, Frenchie, and the statue of Khonshu that had seemingly empowered him. With no further communication from Khonshu, he determined that he had hallucinated the encounter; nevertheless, he decided to become a crimefighter. He created a silver cloaked costume, based on the appearance of the shroud he had worn while battling Bushman, and became the Moon Knight.

On his first outing as the Moon Knight, he battled the werewolf Jack Russell, better known as the Werewolf by Night. After this encounter he laid low for a time; during this period the money that he had accumulated as a mercenary had grown into a small fortune, thanks to wise investments on Spector's part. To distance himself from his mercenary past he created the identity of the millionaire Steven Grant, using this identity to purchase a spacious estate; to remain in contact with the common man he also created the identity of taxicab driver Jake Lockley. Resuming his activities as Moon Knight, he battled a number of criminals and supervillains of a bizarre and mystical nature. However, the stress of maintaining four separate identities began to take its toll on his psyche. Marlene convinced him to retire the Grant and Lockley aliases, to sell the statue of Khonshu, and to retire as Moon Knight.

As a side note, in his first appearance in Werewolf by Night, his name was spelt "Mark", not "Marc", and it was in fact the organization that hired him that gave him both his costume and the name 'Moon Knight', originally making his weapons and armour out of silver to better fight the werewolf. This origin was clearly forgotten about when they decided to flesh out the character further.

Fist of Khonshu
However, Moon Knight's retirement was short-lived. He was soon telepathically summoned to Egypt by the cult of Khonshu who had saved his life. They gave him a small arsenal of moon-themed projectile weaponry, such as throwing discs and crescent-shaped blades, originally designed by Hawkeye during a jaunt to ancient Egypt. Khonshu himself then appeared to Spector and entered his body, giving him superhuman strength which waxed and waned with the phases of the moon. As the direct agent of Khonshu he recovered the statue of Khonshu and joined the West Coast Avengers, but at the cost of alienating Marlene and Frenchie. Khonshu was eventually forcibly expelled from his body by Daimon Hellstrom. Reuniting with his friends, Moon Knight began his career of adventuring anew. He died in battle, only to be once again resurrected by the statue of Khonshu.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight
After "Fist of Khonshu," Moon Knight entered a third volume. It was the longest-running series, lasting sixty issues before ending. In the final chapter, Moon Knight is killed violently, sacrificing himself to save his loved ones from a computerized villain called Seth and his "Zero Hour" program.

This volume also introduces Moon Knight's teenage sidekick "Midnight" aka Jeff Wilde. Wilde is actually the son of Midnight Man, a villain from the first volume. Midnight makes few appearances until Moon Knight #24, by then he has been turned into a cyborg and is eventually killed in the "Round Robin" story arc of Amazing Spider-Man, spanning issues #353-#358.

Starting with issue #38 Moon Knight started appearing in armour rather than his kevlar costume. The costume change was explained to fans as needed retooling to extend the life of the series. In the comic, however, it is explained that Moon Knight needs the armour to hold his body together after being infected by a disease by the then possessed Hobgoblin. The disease is revealed to be Demogoblin trying to possess him.

Resurrection War
In 1998, writer Doug Moench, artist Tommy Edwards, and inker Robert Campanella brought the deceased hero back in a four-part mini series. In 1999, Moench and artist Mark Texeira worked together on another four-part series called "High strangers" which was nominated for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan award for Favorite Limited Series.

Minor Appearances
Moon Knight all but disappeared from the Marvel Universe for awhile. In 2001 and 2002 he was a part of Marvel knights non-team. After making a brief appearace during the Avengers Disassembled story-arc, he made a minor return in the 2005 Marvel Team-Up miniseries, fighting alongside Spider-Man, Daredevil and the Punisher. His appearance in that story was so well received by the fans that Marvel shortly afterward announced a Moon Knight miniseries, which was later decided to continue as an ongoing series before the first issue hit stores.

"The Bottom"
The first arc, "The Bottom", of the 2006 relaunch of Moon Knight, by writer Charlie Huston and penciler David Finch, explores Marc Spector's return to crime-fighting following his self-imposed exile.

Character analysis
Moon Knight is often criticized as an ersatz Batman and the parallels are indeed apparent. Writer of the 2006 relaunch of Moon Knight, Charlie Huston, attempted to answer these criticisms in an interview with Comixfan. The interviewer noted that the comparison is not baseless, as both Moon Knight and the Dark Knight are wealthy, "normal" humans that use gadgetry to fight crime. Though not specifically mentioned by the interviewer, further comparisons may be drawn due to the two characters' specialized vehicles, use of themes in their gadgets, and use of fear to aid their fight against the criminal element.

Huston, though he disagreed, accepted that the character may be a rip-off of Batman, but went on to contrast the two by noting in particular differences in origin, motives, and personality. "Bruce Wayne," he said, "fights crime to avenge the murders of his parents," whereas Moon Knight "beats up whoever has it coming because he believes he is the avatar of the Egyptian god of vengeance and it helps him to feel better about all the people he killed when he was a mercenary." Thus, while Batman is motivated by vengeance for wrong done to his parents, Marc Spector primarily seeks redemption from crimes he committed in his mercenary past. Huston further notes that Bruce Wayne, Batman's alterego, takes on other personalities merely to aid in his fight. However, Moon Knight has three alteregos which aid him as much in dealing with personal demons as fighting law-breakers, and which have taken a further psychological toll of causing multiple personality disorder.

Powers and abilities
Over the course of his life as a U.S. Marine, boxer, mercenary, C.I.A. operative and costumed superhero, Marc Spector has become one of the finest hand-to-hand combatants in the world. He is an Olympic-level athlete and excels as a combat strategist. He has employed a variety of weapons over the course of his career, including throwing darts and a truncheon similar to Daredevil's. He is a superb driver and can pilot a helicopter, though he usually leaves this to Frenchie.

Although it is emphasized more in his second series, early appearances of Moon Knight depict his ability to gain superhuman strength and agility with the waxing and waning phases of the moon (e.g., Marvel Spotlight #28). The fuller the moon, the more strength Moon Knight derives from it. In an early appearace, it is theorized that Moon Knight gained this power by being injured in a fight with the Werewolf by Night (Hulk! Magazine #13). However, this has never been confirmed, and it is generally assumed that this particular ability is the result of his connection to the moon god, Khonshu. He is also resistant to some psychic attacks.

Moon Knight was given special weapons by the cult of Khonshu, including bolas, golden throwing darts shaped like scarabs and a golden club in the shape of an ankh that glowed in the presence of danger. Most of these weapons were crafted by Hawkeye (see Fist of Khonshu above).

During his third series, Moon Knight's silver-white costume was improved to include adamantium, and he acquired an array of high-tech weaponry.

Ultimate Moon Knight
Moon Knight first appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man #79 during the Warriors story-arc. He was an active participant of a gang war waged by the Kingpin and newcomer Hammerhead. He didn't really side with anyone; he wanted the Kingpin and Hammerhead to be taken down, yet at the same time he considered Spider-Man to be a nuisance that needlessly put innocent lives in danger.

In the climax of the arc, Moon Knight along with several other characters, ambushed Hammerhead's penthouse. During the battle, he was impaled by the assassin Elektra.

Later, when Elektra was about to kill Black Cat, Moon Knight managed to gain enough strength and subdue Elektra via a moon-blade to head, saving Black Cat before he slipped into a coma.

There was no mention of any supernatural origin to this Moon Knight, although it seemed clear that he was expert with weapons and martial arts. It was also noted that he had a form of dissociative identity disorder; the "identities" of Steven Grant, Marc Spector and Moon Knight all appeared as separate people in a "dream sequence" of sorts. There was also a little girl present in the dream, although whether or not she factors into Moon Knight's psyche remains to be seen.

In other media

 * Marc Spector's name is briefly mentioned in the pilot episode of Blade: The Series (starring Kirk Jones). It is mentioned that Spector's expertise is in werewolves. Marc is also a collegue of Professor Melvin Caylo, a specialist in vampires. Spector has yet to fully appear in the series.


 * In the episode "Cheat is On" of the television sitcom Grounded for Life, Eddie is reading Moon Knight Vol. 1, issues #5 and #6.

Awards
The 1999 miniseries was a votegetter for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Limited Series for 1999.