What Are Moon Knight’s Powers in the Marvel Series?
Moon Knight features a new type of hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and after only two episodes, fans are hooked. The audience has only seen brief teases of Moon Knight in action, and while the scenes are epic, many wonder what the superhero’s powers truly are.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Moon Knight Episode 2, “Summon the Suit.”]
Oscar Isaac stars as Marc Spector and Steven Grant in ‘Moon Knight’
Moon Knight first introduces the world to Steven Grant, played by Oscar Isaac. Steven appears to be a mild-mannered English man, but not everything is as it seems. He experiences sleep problems as he often wakes up somewhere and has no recollection of how he got there. And that’s where Marc Spector comes in.
Marc is a mercenary who is the Egyptian moon god Khonshu’s avatar, and he also shares a body with Steven. Marc and Steven have dissociative identity disorder, or DID. And while Marc is well aware of their condition, Steven learns about Marc and his dark past in real-time.
In Moon Knight Episode 2, fans didn’t learn much about the superhero’s powers, but they did discover more about Marc. He is married to Layla, who tracked him down in London only to find a confused Steven. Marc dedicates his life to serving Khonshu but mostly does so because if he doesn’t, the god will target Layla to be his avatar. The whole situation baffles Steven, but he will learn more about Moon Knight as the series goes on.
Moon Knight’s powers, explained
The first two episodes do little to explain Moon Knight’s powers. All the audience knows is that when Marc/Steven put on the suit, they gain some form of advanced strength. But thanks to the comic books, we know what the superhero’s powers entail.
Marc’s background as a mercenary gives him many skills, including endurance, strength, hand-to-hand combat, high tolerance for pain, and weapons expertise. So just as Marc, Oscar Isaac’s character is quite lethal. Unfortunately, as we saw with Steven, that’s not the case for the English man. But thanks to Khonshu, Marc and Steven can draw upon the god’s powers while wearing the suit.
Moon Knight’s supernatural powers coincide with the moon’s phases, and they include durability, strength, and the ability to drain his opponents’ life energies. And given the fact that Khonshu can bring him back from the dead, Moon Knight is technically immortal.
Oscar Isaac explains the challenges of filming the Marvel show
During an interview with Digital Spy, Oscar Isaac revealed that it was complicated for him to play two different characters who have powers in Moon Knight. He said it was “incredibly challenging” to play Marc and Steven at first.
“There’s a lot of fun in it as well, you know, figuring it out,” Isaac shared. “But one of the things I did is, because I wasn’t totally comfortable yet with switching between the two, I asked if we could start with Steven. And could we just film for a couple of scenes with Steven first? Or at least, one week, we’ll do all Steven, and then come in the next week and do Marc, just to give me a chance to really wrap my mind around it.”
He explained that he didn’t want his performance to “feel like a party trick” but for people to “really feel like these were really fully formed individuals.”
“So they thankfully gave me the space to do that,” Isaac concluded. “And as the shoot went on, and I got more comfortable or secure in what I was doing, I became more flexible between being able to switch between the two. And by the end, I could do it in the same take, in the same moment. I could switch between the two. And it could just be something as simple as, you know, the shoulders drop, or it’s in the eyes. That was a real journey, to get to that place.”
Moon Knight airs Wednesdays on Disney+.
