Will Moon Knight Join the Avengers?
Also, are the Avengers even returning at all?
Marvel’s latest Disney+ limited series Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac, is premiering on March 30! Fans are already wondering: is this new series part of Marvel’s effort to set up the next big team-up event in the MCU? When the new cohort of the Avengers eventually assembles, will Moon Knight be one of them?
Moon Knight, slated to run for 6 episodes, will tell the story of Marc Spector (Isaac), a former CIA agent and mercenary who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The series will follow hapless museum gift shop employee Steven Grant as he starts to remember a previous life, eventually discovering that he shares a body and a past with Marc. Together, Steven and Marc will take on the mantle of Moon Knight, a superhero and priest of the Egyptian god Khonshu, as he battles wayward scientist Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke).
In the original comics, Moon Knight is a darker, more violent superhero than many other Marvel characters, and is often thought of as Marvel’s version of Batman. It looks like the series will stay true to this characterization, with one brief shot in the trailer showing Moon Knight brutally beating someone up in a dimly lit room.
When you look at the other heroes who seem likely to join the next iteration of the Avengers (if there is one—more on that below), Moon Knight looks like he would add some interesting flavor to the mix. So far, we’ve got Shang-Chi, Sam Wilson as Captain America, the remaining Eternals (provided they can get back to Earth in time), Monica Rambeau, and heroes we’ll meet soon, like She-Hulk. There are also some returning heroes, like Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, and Ant-Man. The MCU could even throw a curveball, like having the newly reformed Loki join the team.
While the original Avengers were very terrestrial and science-oriented, with Thor being the only magical/cosmic hero in the mix, the next big team-up promises to be much more mystical. A warrior priest of an Egyptian god would fit right in, while Moon Knight’s violent nature would also have a grittier edge than most of the other heroes.
But will it actually happen? Let’s take a look at what we know so far.
Is Moon Knight an Avenger in the Comics?
Sort of.
In 1984, Marvel Comics introduced a new team called the West Coast Avengers, initially consisting of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra, and Iron Man. Over the next few years, various other heroes came and went, including Moon Knight, who officially joined up in 1987.
In 2010, Marvel Comics unveiled another team called the Secret Avengers, which was a subset of the Avengers dedicated to stealth missions, espionage, and black ops work. Moon Knight was part of the starting lineup, along with Captain Steve Rogers (no longer Captain America), Valkyrie, Black Widow, Sharon Carter, Ant-Man, War Machine, Nova, and Beast.
Moon Knight did have a brief stint working with the Avengers proper in 2012’s Avengers vs. X-Men event, in which he’s sent by the Avengers to battle the mutants. Other than these stints, though, Moon Knight doesn’t have a history of working with the version of the Avengers that MCU fans would recognize from the movies. So if he does officially join up with the Avengers in the MCU, it’ll be a new direction for his character.
That’s assuming, of course, that the Avengers return in the MCU at all.
Are the Avengers Even Coming Back?
The Infinity Saga ends with a literal bang. After the Avengers build the new Infinity Gauntlet and un-dust half of all life, Thanos travels forward in time to steal the Infinity Stones. In doing so, he blitzes the Avengers compound and reduces it to rubble. With three of the original six Avengers gone for good, the ending feels pretty final.
Although fans have been assuming that it’s only a matter of time before the Avengers assemble again, Kevin Feige has been cagey about the idea. In a 2021 interview with Collider, he responded to a question about a possible Avengers 5 by saying that the MCU’s new saga “has already started,” noticeably not mentioning the Avengers by name. Then, in Eternals: Assembled, he referred to Endgame as “the final Avengers movie.” With such a sprawling cast of characters already in place, and so many crossovers already happening (think of Doctor Strange in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Wanda and America Chavez in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, etc.), it’s possible that the MCU is shifting its focus from the Avengers to other flavors of team-ups.
Not only that, but the MCU is already setting up alternative teams, which could shift the focus away from the Avengers as one unified super team. Speed, Wiccan, Kid Loki, Kate Bishop, and America Chavez have already been introduced, which makes it seem like the Young Avengers are all but inevitable. Plus, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine has already recruited John Walker and Yelena Belova, which may mean that she’s secretly putting together the Thunderbolts.
However, the MCU does still seem to be teasing the return of the Avengers. In Eternals, as the group is sitting at the dinner table in Gilgamesh and Thena’s home, Sprite asks, “Now that Captain Rogers and Iron Man are both gone, who do you think is going to lead the Avengers?” When Ikaris says he could, everyone laughs. The moment is significant enough to make it into the trailer, and it would seem odd to highlight it so much if Marvel has no plans whatsoever to bring the Avengers back.
Plus, Jeremy Slater, head writer for Moon Knight, said something interesting in a recent interview with Total Film Magazine. When asked about Moon Knight’s place within the wider MCU, Slater said that “if it was up to me, [Moon Knight] would be part of the Avengers. It’s absolutely not up to me, but I think that is the goal!”
So, will we see Marc Spector on a new Avengers roster anytime soon? It’s impossible to say. But with all the multiversal chaos that Marvel is building up to, we may see plenty more of Marc Spector after Moon Knight ends.
For now, we can look forward to Moon Knight‘s premiere on Disney+ on March 30!
(image: Marvel)
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