MOON KNIGHT

 

MOON KNIGHT

Real Name: Marc Spector

First Appearance: Werewolf by Night (Vol. 1) #32, August 1975

Powers: Marc Spector was a Jewish-American mercenary working in Egypt when he suffered a crisis-of-conscience and saved some bystanders from his cruel leader. After sustaining mortal wounds from his leader, Spector was brought to the recently unearthed temple of Khonshu by Marlene, a woman he rescued. Marc Spector actually died there, but while bathing in the light of the moon, he received a vision of Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon and Taker of Vengeance, charging him to change his ways and rise up as a force against evil, becoming the Moon's Knight of Vengeance.

Spector returned to America and set himself up as the Moon Knight alongside his new lover, Marlene, and his mercenary partner "Frenchie" who served as the pilot for his Mooncopters. He also created two additional identities for himself: Millionaire playboy Steven Grant and New York cabbie Jack Lockley, in order to establish multiple information networks for his vigilante operations.

Marc Spector is a skilled boxer, commando, martial artist, acrobat, gymnast and pilot. As the Moon Knight, Spector relied almost exclusively on his own fighting skills and a supply of crescent throwing darts. He occasionally used nunchaku and truncheon rods as well, and early in his career altered his cape so it could be used as a glider foil. On his first chronicled mission, Moon Knight was bitten by a werewolf. He administered a vaccine that prevented the lycanthropy virus from transforming him into a werewolf as well, but his metabolism was altered by the process. For a period of months afterwards, Moon Knight developed a level of superhuman strength under the light of the moon, but this eventually faded away after his system metabolized all of the virus and vaccine out of his body. After an extensive period, Moon Knight was pushed to the breaking point as the stress of maintaining four separate identities took its toll on his mind. Spector quit his roles as Moon Knight, Grant, and Lockley and went into retirement.

He eventually returned to being a costumed vigilante, though, with Khonshu taking a more active role in his Knight's duties. Three immortal priests of Khonshu compelled Marc to return to his role as Moon Knight, and they outfitted him with new weapons and abilities in the name of Khonshu. Spector now employed scarab-encrusted darts, throwing irons, an ivory boomerang, a grappling hook, golden wrist bracelets, and an ankh which could be used as a bludgeon, and glowed in the presence of evil. Khonshu also bestowed the gift of lunar-powered strength on Moon Knight: Marc would possess no superhuman powers during the day, but his strength and endurance increased when the sun went down. During the nights of the new moon, when no moon was visible in the sky, Spector could lift roughly 800 lbs. Over the next two weeks, his strength would continue to increase until nights of the full moon when he could lift 4,000 lbs (or 2 tons). After the full moon, his nightly strength would begin to decrease until the next new moon, and so on. Finally, Moon Knight now received visions of specific missions that Khonshu wanted him to undertake, first sent by the priests and later delivered by Khonshu himself. It was at this point that Moon Knight joined the West Coast Avengers, though at Khonshu's request. The god slowly waxed his influence over Spector until Marc's personality was completely submerged and Khonshu was dominantly in control of Moon Knight's body. When Khonshu ultimately gave his Knight control over himself again, Marc rejected the new weapons and powers given to him, returning to his previous modus operandi.

Years later, Moon Knight reverted to using his crescent darts and nunchaku. This lasted for a few years until he reached a turning point and began completely revising his approach to crime fighting. Spector used the resources he had developed as Steven Grant to buy out roughly a city block's worth of old real estate, which he retrofitted on the inside into a massive complex called his Shadow Keep. He also recruited a network of informants called his Shadow Cabinet, most of whom didn't know they were working for Moon Knight. This included a doctor, psychologist, TV reporter, gang banger, mobster, historian, etc. who reported to Spector through special rings which created holographic images of them sitting around a meeting table at the Keep. Moon Knight also revamped his weaponry, discarding his spandex for a suit of flexible battle armor. His new wrist launchers were capable of firing various kinds of crescent darts at high velocity, including explosive, gas-filled, Adamantium, and silver (for werewolves). His all-purpose truncheon rod had:

-a retractable grappling hook in the tip.

-could extend into nunchaku, a bo staff, or vaulting pole.

-was magnetized so he could summon it back to his glove.

-generated an electrical charge.

-and produced a disruptive vibratory pulse.

Moon Knight himself temporarily regained superhuman strength after the demonic Hobgoblin accidentally infected him with a virus that caused his strength to increase over time while making his body decompose. He eventually removed all traces of the virus, with the only long-term change being an odd, crescent moon-like design etched into his eyes. Around this point, Moon Knight became involved in a complicated series of events connected the Hellbent, a subspecies of humanity living in secret. The leader of the Hellbent and Moon Knight's main rival was apparently his own ancestor and an exact twin of Spector, and Marc even developed the power to drain the life-energy from other living beings for a time. Moon Knight died in an explosion at the end of the Hellbent event, and when he was resurrected a few years later with no life-draining ability. Since his resurrection, Spector later returned to his classic set of weapons, and possesses no special powers.

Marc Spector was later diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder which actually manifested during childhood, with Steven Grant and Jack Lockley actually being aspects of his fractured psyche. This diagnosis also poses the question of whether he actually communes with the God of the Moon Khonshu, or if its the result of his mental illness. It appears to be both as Spector frequently converses with a version of Khonshu who may be the actual God or merely Marc's mental representation of the God at any given time. It has been intimated that Khonshu deliberately chose Marc as his Knight because the moon has many aspects, and only a man with Spector's diagnosed mental illness could successfully represent all those aspects together. Marc's "weaponized madness" is reportedly responsible for his feats of mania and near superhuman tolerance for pain over the years.

For a time in Los Angeles after working for the Avengers, his personalities manifested as versions of Captain America, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. Spector either believed he was talking to his "fellow Avengers" or allowed them to control his body, leading him to fight like the different heroes he thought he was. During this period, he employed facsimile versions of these Avengers' traditional weapons to go with his personas.

In his more recent adventures, Marc has stylized himself as a traditional adventurer Moon Knight, the mask and suit wearing detective Mr. Knight, and a more ceremonial Knight of the Moon.