Fans of the MCU got to renew their hype-meter this past Monday when the trailer for Marvel’s newest show on their Disney+ streaming service, Moon Knight,dropped during the NFL Playoff game between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams. The trailer showed the many different sides of Steven Grant, which include Marc Spector and Jake Lockley. Each of these distinct personalities has their own life, job, and behaviors. The character of Moon Knight in general deals with a lot of mental health issues that many comics try to avoid. Where others shy away, Moon Knight leans in and from what we saw in that trailer, Moon Knight looks like it will lean into that topic as well.
So, what is it about Moon Knight that blends it so well with mental health? Well, quite a lot. Avoiding the origin story as it will probably be a good part of the upcoming show, let’s focus on how Moon Knight goes about being a superhero. Unlike most people with multiple personalities, Grant uses his to his advantage. The personality of Jake Lockley, the cab driver, was created so Grant would have an eye on the street at all time. Marc Spector is the CIA/Army trained assassin and fighter, Grant is the rich personality that operates in society. It’s a very fluid situation, but Grant maneuvers between the personalities with the precision one would expect of a superhero.
Then there’s the conversation to be had about Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Night. This is the being that makes a deal with a dying Spector to keep him alive in exchange for being his avatar of justice on Earth. In other words, he has a god in his head that only he can see telling him what to do and who to kill. He has this along with his dissociative identity disorder. We get a glimpse of this being in the trailer with Grant hauling as much ass as he can to run from it.
As you can see, Grant has some stuff going on with him. Hopefully you don’t need too much more proof to decide if this guy has mental health issues, but you’ll surely get it throughout the show if you do happen to need it. And it seems odd to be saying this, but I’m actually excited for that. Mental health is a really tough topic and it’s only been recently that we, as a society, have really leaned into understanding people with mental health issues. Having the largest studio in Hollywood use the largest and most profitable franchise in film history to explore these issues means that it’s actually being taken seriously. We’re not going to just skirt this stuff any more, Moon Knight is going to place it front and center.
The continual battle between the different personalities of Moon Knight make him one of the more intriguing characters. Because these personalities are so distinct, each one has the potential to offer something different to the show. A day in the life of Jake Lockley is going to be much different that a night at a philanthropy event with Steven Grant or a flashback into the days of Spector’s mercenary and CIA duties. There are different avenues and interactions to explore and each person provides a different set of relationships and bonds.
It’s these bonds that are central to the character of Moon Knight. Whether it’s Frenchie or Bertrand Crawley, each of these sidekicks only reveal themselves to the distinct personalities of Moon Knight. Crawley is Jake Lockley’s go-to guy for information, whereas Frenchie AKA Jean-Paul Duchamp, is Marc Spector’s trustly pilot and confidant. Each of these people understand a different side of Moon Knight and it’s the different tapestries they’ll weave that will create the cloth that is Moon Knight on Disney+. Mental health is an extremely important issues and kudos for Marvel and Disney for being brave enough to take it head-on and make it part of the fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Check out the Moon Knight trailer below. The show drops on March 30th. BSO will have continued coverage on this and other Marvel shows. You can follow the author of this column on Twitter: @FightOnTwist