Moon Knight just turned its coolest comic book reference into a silly joke
Even if episode 2 of Moon Knight, much like its premiere, is still frustratingly vague about what exactly its story is about, the series is slowly revealing more compelling shades to its protagonist.
The second episode, “Summon the Suit,” tells us a little more about the voices in Steven Grant’s (Oscar Isaac) head: there’s Marc Spector, who serves the Egyptian moon god Khonshu (who also has a presence in Steven’s mind) and that service involves a white superhero costume that magically appears when Marc does vigilante business. However, this week’s Moon Knight once again shows Steven resisting Marc’s presence. So when Steven tries to summon his alter’s powerful suit, it looks quite different, and like an actual suit. It’s a good joke, yet I am outraged.
First, let’s talk about why the joke is good. As far as Marvel Comics characters go, Moon Knight is complicated even by the medium’s generous standards. Over the years the character has gone by various outfits and personas as he’s gone from one creative team to the next. This means this new TV version of Moon Knight has a lot of knotty stuff to pull from, and a good way to nod towards that messy history without actually untangling it is to just wink at it and move on. It’s classic MCU.
In that sense, the new suit is a sight gag: Steven Grant has never seen the suit Marc Spector wears when fighting the supernatural jackal monsters Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) sends after him. So he just conjures up a dapper suit that, in keeping with Khonshu’s consistent brand identity, is all white and comes with a hood.
The problem — and again, this is a fannish indulgence — is that what it’s slyly joking at is so goddamn cool. Cool in a way that the show might ultimately struggle to
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