Why Disney+ Moon Knight Was Not a Good Adaptation
My Views on the Disney+ MCU Shows
In my honest opinion, the quality of MCU projects went down after Endgame with a few exceptions like Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, Wakanda Forever and Werewolf by Night.
Therefore, my thoughts on the Disney+ MCU shows are pretty negative so far. WandaVision was really good until the finale. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was okay. What If…? was wasted potential. Hawkeye was mediocre. Secret Invasion was forgettable and boring. Ms. Marvel was lighthearted and fun but nothing special. Loki was a masterpiece and Echo was also mediocre with good character writing here and there.
But the one show that really bothered me as a long time comics and Moon Knight fan was — obviously — Disney+ Moon Knight.
In this article I will provide reasons and explain my stance on the show — why it’s a bad comic book adaptation.
Needless to say, I will be looking at the show from the comics’ perspective — judging it on the basis of its comic accuracy. Now, I’m not someone who wants adaptations to be exactly like their source materials but in this article, I will go into detail why the changes this show makes are harmful to the character and can have negative effects on its public perception.
Reason One — The Disregard of the Character’s Jewish Faith
Now I’m not Jewish by ethnicity nor do I partake in the Jewish faith, but I can criticize the show for its inaccuracies and complete disregard of the character’s Jewish history. Marc Spector’s roots are ingrained in the Jewish faith. Not only was his father a religious Jew but an actual Rabbi. A pacifistic Rabbi, fervently against violence of any kind.
This was Marc’s struggle as a child and young adult — one night, he saw his father return home bloodied and beaten with a Swastika slashed on his forehead. His father was persecuted for being Jewish in his neighborhood and did nothing for retaliation. No revenge. No defense. Leaving Marc confused.
Marc’s decision to become a fighter, learn boxing and his addiction with violence was a direct reaction of his father’s pacifism and his utter dependence on the God of the Hebrews.
Once Marc encounters Khonshu and becomes his Fist, we get to know what he thought of the God he left. He expresses his thoughts about his father’s God having an indifferent nature and giving His people constant trials while they endured.
His views about the God of Judaism and the God he now serves, ironically who’s also indifferent about his suffering, present a stark contrast and inconsistency within Marc’s thoughts. In later runs, he comes to realize his departure from the Jewish faith as a fault of his own character, carrying the guilt of giving up on his religion and heritage (I will explore this in Reason Two).
This complexity lacks in the MCU version as the show removes the religion aspect completely.
Moon Knight (1980) Issue #37 is a great issue belonging to the original run of the character that goes in depth with this specific topic — introducing a compelling backstory of the character’s father deeply related to the Jewish faith and how that affects Marc in the present as Moon Knight.
Reason Two — Guilt and Redemption
Before Marc was reborn and became the Fist of Khonshu, he was a mercenary; he worked for various clients but the most well known was Raoul Bushman, who later became his arch-nemesis.
After dying by the hands of Bushman and getting resurrected by Khonshu, the guilt of being a killer in his past life plays a major role in fueling Marc’s fire to continue fighting as Moon Knight; it motivates Marc to become a better person and better hero.
He’s a man driven by guilt.
Marc sees Moon Knight as a way to redeem himself and atone for past sins. It’s his second chance at life so he makes it a symbol of redemption for others. Being Moon Knight is a blessing rather than a curse.
But the show completely ignores all of that and adapts the cliché, “I want a normal life but I’m forced to be a superhero,” trope. Instead of Moon Knight being a chance at redemption for MCU Marc, it’s a curse. He hates being Moon Knight, carrying a trait antithetical to the character.
Reason Three — Steven Grant and Jake Lockley
The show not only does disservice to Marc and his character but even to his alters. Although these alters are not explored in-depth in the comics but in the canon, Steven Grant was the first alter to surface and interact with Marc — the alter represents Marc’s ideal personality. What he wants to be: Charming, reserved, and outgoing with a proper relationship.
The show snatches all of those qualities and makes Steven a goofy, lonely loser. For comedic purposes. Of course.
When it comes to Jake Lockley, he represents Marc’s yearn to be a family man — a likeable, down-to-earth person who you can be friends and have a late night beer with. He’s also a street scoundrel and a New York cabbie — a low-life who dwells with the ordinary, someone aware of the rough street lifestyle. That’s why he always surfaces when the character is interacting with side characters like Crawley, Gena and her kids, etc, to gain information from the streets.
Now we haven’t seen much of MCU Jake Lockley yet but judging from the little we’ve gotten of him so far — this adaptation doesn’t seem good.
The show doesn’t reveal Jake Lockley to the audience until the very end. Meanwhile, we get moments and hints that there may be a third alter when Steven or Marc both black out in the middle of a fight scene and they come back to see their opponents absolutely battered.
When he finally surfaces and appears at the very end, we see him brutally kill innocent people with no apparent remorse. He’s presented as if he’s a psychopath and an expert killer.
No guilt or problem butchering innocent and guilty people. That is not only inaccurate to Jake’s character but extremely disrespectful to DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) representation — DID is an important aspect of the character that this show chooses to adapt.
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How is it disrespectful? The show chooses to adapt the ‘Evil Alter’ trope. A stereotypical trope associated with DID characters where an alter is presented as a violent murderer or the/a villain of the story.
In reality, these ‘evil alters’ do not exist. The alter closest to this type would be called a ‘Persecutor alter’ but even then there is a protective logic behind the persecutors’ actions and are mostly targeted towards the host or the system. Jake, in the show, is shown to kill even innocent people with zero remorse, as shown in the provided screenshots.
Reason Four — The Side Characters
One of the most important and iconic aspects of Moon Knight is his side characters. The classic roster of his side characters include Jean-Paul Duchamp (Frenchie), Marlene, Crawley, Gena and her kids; they are essential in telling a Moon Knight story as they all serve different roles inherently tied to Moon Knight’s character — telling us, the reader, something about his nature.
Marlene ground the fancy, billionaire that is Steven Grant. Crawley and Gena & her kids reflect Jake’s humanity and his relationship with the friendly neighborhood. Frenchie shows us his long partnership with Marc Spector, meeting him at a morally abhorrent part of his life but seeing him grow and helping him in the Moon Knight mission.
The show removes all of that meaning by not including the characters at all — no Marlene, no Gena and her kids, no Frenchie.
Though it does have Crawley, but as a minor character — barely a character; he’s a living statue by the sidewalk. No dialogues, no sense of connection. Just a mute character sitting alone to listen to Steven’s rants about his long days.
Reason Five — Superpowers
Another reason that makes comic Moon Knight stand out among his fellow street-level heroes is the fact that he doesn’t have any superpowers.
Spider-Man, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, etc — all of them have some level of supernatural abilities — except for Moon Knight and Punisher (I might write a separate article for Punisher, he deserves one for sure.)
Now, Moon Knight does get a few random superpowers here and there, since he has a vast history with different writers taking on the character, but for the most part in his history (the kind of history that resonated the most with the fans), Moon Knight is a powerless and human masked vigilante with expert level and almost animalistic fighting skills. The high chances of him dying in every fight he gets into and him making out alive is what makes him badass and stand out among other heroes.
One thing that differentiates him from the Punisher is his choice of attire — while Frank wears clothes that are mostly black and uses stealth, Moon Knight wears bright white, intentionally making his enemies aware that he is coming. He is a wild dog.
The show, for some reason, decides to make his suit bulletproof and near invincible — to the point where he’s able to not only take bullets but get stabbed by multiple spears and survive like happened, removing the tension that his combat provides — his ruthlessness mixed with his vulnerability.
The Positives
Now as much as I dislike the show, there are still some positives that doesn’t make it absolutely insufferable.
Layla El-Faouly
The only good change this show made was adding Layla. Replacing the roles Marlene and her father play in the origin of Moon Knight with Layla and her father, two actual Egyptians, benefited the story as it added sense of connection between them and the village that was raided by Bushman and Marc. Though, it would’ve been nice to see the origin but that’s a different complaint.
The actress, May Calamawy, did an amazing job as well.
The Suits
Another great quality of the show was how it did the suits — though contextually, I’m not a fan of them at all but speaking purely in terms of design, the mixture of Egyptian elements (the golden parts and the Mummified look) with Moon Knight’s classic design was done masterfully and Mr Knight’s suit was also designed incredibly well.
The Soundtrack
Though not how I imagine Moon Knight’s ideal music to sound like, the soundtrack/music they chose to go with served its purpose of providing a mixture of the mystery element associated with the character and the Egyptian aspect of the character. It’s unique, epic and heroic. It’s a great superhero theme.
Conclusion
Disney+ Moon Knight is a horrible comic book adaptation because it fails to (or just simply chooses not to) adapt the fundamentals of Moon Knight that makes the character who he is.
For the sake of differentiating the character from Batman to avoid the common, baseless and downright stupid, ‘Moon Knight is just Marvel’s Batman,’ complaints, it completely changes the character to the point where it’s barely recognizable — apart from the white costume and suit, obviously.
Instead of writing the show in such a way that it respects and adapts the essentials properly while differentiating itself enough that it’s not a 1:1 copy of the source material (some great examples of this are Netflix Daredevil, the Raimi Spider-Man films, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman), the writers chose to take the lazy route and disregard the character’s history.
Only way to fix this adaptation is to reboot it entirely and it seems like this is what they’re going for as it is rumored that Avengers 4 and 5 are going to deal with the multiverse…
Let’s see.
And that’s it for today! I will return with another exciting topic for another story another day but meanwhile, make sure to drop a clap and a follow!
All images, comic panels and covers used in this article belong to Marvel Comics.
