No, Moon Knight Is Not The MCU Batman: He's Better | Screen Rant
The Marvel character Moon Knight has often been compared to DC's Batman, the iconic caped crusader, but Marvel's superhero is significantly better. Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac in the titular role, will introduce another masked vigilante to the MCU. Far from being just another man in a mask, Moon Knight's intriguing origin story is complicated by the hero's dissociative identity disorder and the mysteries of ancient Egyptian gods. Marc Spector starts off his journey as a mercenary, a hitman for hire, in stark contrast to the DC hero.
It's well known to comic book fans that Bruce Wayne's Batman is a billionaire on a crusade to rid Gotham of corruption and crime. He does this using his sizeable financial resources and extensive combat training. Batman's origin story remains largely unchanged in its multiple iterations with Bruce seeking vengeance for the murder of his parents. Conversely, Moon Knight's messy origin story is far more interesting.
The MCU's Moon Knight has visual similarities to Batman, but that's where the similarities mostly stop. The origin of the Moon Knight persona involves a heroic sacrifice and his death and resurrection by the spirit of the moon god Khonshu. As seen in the Moon Knight trailer, Marc Spector is also a more troubled character suffering from major depressive disorder and dissociative-identity disorder, with two additional personalities sharing his body along with his superhero persona. The new Disney+ show will first introduce Moon Knight's character as Steve Grant, one of Marc Spector's personalities. The official show synopsis calls Steve “a mild-mannered gift-shop employee,” a significant change from Steve Grant's role in the comics.
What's more, Moon Knight has supernatural powers like visions of the future and increased strength under a full moon thanks to the Egyptian god Khonshu. After suffering fatal injuries at the hands of fellow mercenary Raoul Bushman, Marc Spector was killed and resurrected by Khonshu, effectively becoming the Egyptian god's human avatar. This event is made even more astonishing given the fact that Khonshu may not actually exist. Regardless, Moon Knight's supernatural abilities set him apart from other violent superheroes like Punisher. Marc Spector may even be immortal given the multiple resurrections that take place in his comic arc. These strange god-powers also clearly set him apart from DC's Batman, who only has his wealth and skilled fighting abilities to overcome obstacles and defeat villains.
There are many different directions that Marvel could take this new show, and the true extent of Moon Knight's powers in the MCU remains to be seen. Given Marvel's proven track record of success with intertwining storylines, matched by Moon Knight's involvement with other heroes in the comics, audiences have very high expectations for the show. Many fan theories are already circulating about Ethan Hawke's mysterious role as a new villain. Not to mention that the violence of Moon Knight may also offer Marvel the chance to reintroduce other street-level heroes back into their official MCU canon.
Both Moon Knight and Batman take justice into their own hands by fighting crime at night, but only one of them is willing to kill his enemies. Batman famously does not use guns and has a "no killing" rule. This is a character-defining value and one that's often been challenged in the DC comics. Moon Knight, on the other hand, has no such rule. In fact, Moon Knight commits some of the most brutal and gruesome kills in the comics, and his darkest kill still scares Marvel villains. The new Disney+ show Moon Knight will be MCU's take on the most violent Marvel superhero yet, featuring a multifaceted hero with abilities that very clearly make him better than Batman.