Worried that Marvel’s lineup of Disney+ TV shows was too heavily focused on leaning on characters you already knew about from the MCU movies? Well, fear not, true believer, because there’s a Moon Knight TV series coming to Disney+. No details are currently available other than the fact that the series is in development. The Moon Knight TV series was revealed by Kevin Feige at the D23 Expo.
Moon Knight was created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin and first appeared, appropriately enough, in the pages of Marvel’s Werewolf by Night series in 1975. Moon Knight is Marc Spector, a former mercenary and adventurer who becomes the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu after some archaeological misadventure. Think of Spector at that point in his life as kind of an even more morally questionable Indiana Jones.
With the wealth he accrued through questionable means, Spector turns to crimefighting (as one does), designs a ridiculously cool costume, and then spends most of his publishing career being compared to a half-assed Batman. Despite that, the character has endured for over 40 years, supporting his own ongoing series numerous times, and counting comics luminaries like Bill Sienkiewicz, Warren Ellis, Alex Maleev, and Brian Michael Bendis among the many who have told his stories.
Back in the old days when Marvel Netflix shows were still a thing (doesn’t that seem like a very long time ago?), the darker elements of Moon Knight (and the brutal violence he sometimes unleashes) would have seemed like a perfect fit for that corner of Marvel’s multimedia empire.
But these days the prestige Marvel shows are all headed to Disney+, and Moon Knight is one of only two currently announced series that doesn’t have direct ties to the MCU movies (the other is the recently unveiled Ms. Marvel). But unlike with ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the sadly departed Marvel Netflix shows or current Hulu offerings, Marvel characters that appear on the Disney+ shows are more likely to make the jump to the big screen.
Moon Knight is one of the few superheroes who has struggled with mental illness during his career, as well, at one point believing that his entire superheroic life had been a hallucination. That would be quite an angle for a series to open on, if Marvel Studios and Disney were to go that way. We’ll keep you updated as we hear more…
