Moon Knight's Gods Support Huge Doctor Strange 2 Villain Theories
This article contains spoilers for Moon Knight episode 1.
Moon Knight's Egyptian pantheon supports some major theories about the villains of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Starring Oscar Isaac, Marvel's Moon Knight is unique among Marvel Studios' Disney+ TV shows. Until now, all these TV series had explicitly tied into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe; they'd featured characters already established on the big screen, and they'd all spun out of the events of Avengers: Endgame. This is different, because at first glance it seems to be self-contained, with no obvious connections to the rest of the MCU at all. Indeed, Moon Knight's place in the MCU timeline is only indicated by a poster on the side of a bus.
For all that's the case, though, Moon Knight does indeed have significant implications for the rest of the MCU. It's not just that it introduces a new Marvel superhero, who may well one day cross paths with the Avengers, it's also that it introduces a major new element into the MCU's lore: a new pantheon of Egyptian gods. Back in 2011, when Marvel introduced the Norse pantheon, the studio was a lot less sure-footed and they worried focusing on the supernatural would disrupt their science-based universe. Moon Knight shows how much things have changed. There's no pseudo-science to the show's mysticism, because now Marvel know viewers are willing - even eager - to suspend their disbelief.
Moon Knight's Egyptian gods may have bigger ramifications than most viewers believe, though. Marvel has recently begun to try to tie their latest film and TV releases together on a thematic level, with Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin appearing in Hawkeye just days before Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock returned in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Surprisingly, it's quite possible there's a deliberate tie between Moon Knight's Egyptian pantheon and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' villains.
In Moon Knight, the most powerful beings in the Egyptian pantheon are collectively known as the Ennead - a group of nine ancient gods whose power was infinitely beyond the rest of their kind. In Egyptian lore, the nine gods of the sacred city of Heliopolis are Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys, but it's likely Marvel will switch these up a little, presumably making Moon Knight's own god Khonshu one of the Ennead. According to Moon Knight, episode 1, in the MCU the Egyptian gods are extradimensional entities who can work on Earth through their "avatars," men and women chosen to embody a god's specific powers. At one point, Steven Grant flicks past a page referring to the "Great Rift," when the gods turned away from human beings for unknown reasons; the episode may hint at the truth, that at some point some of the avatars chose to act against their gods, creating a gulf that has now somehow been bridged.
Assuming both Khonshu and Ammit - the god driving Arthur Harrow, Moon Knight's villain (played by Ethan Hawke) - are members of Marvel's Ennead, then the MCU's confirmed members to date are Osiris, Horus, Tefnut, Shu, Atum, Hathor, Isis, Khonshum and Ammit (assuming Marvel hasn't merged Shu and Khonshu, which is possible). It's interesting to note the Ennead do exist in Marvel Comics lore, where Atum is a particularly notable character. He's one of a race of Elder Gods who ruled Earth before humankind evolved, and he played a key role in banishing others of his kind when they grew malevolent and power-hungry. More recent Marvel comic books have taken things even further, as retcons have revealed Moon Knight's Khonshu is also an Elder God, potentially making this significant given the retcon appears to have been timed shortly before the Disney+ TV show began to air.
There's been intense speculation that the Elder Gods could in fact be the true villains of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. WandaVision set up the most dangerous of all these Elder Gods, Chthon, when it introduced the Darkhold - a book of dark magic left behind by Chthon, containing spells that damage the fabric of reality itself. It further set up a potential connection between Scarlet Witch and Chthon when Agatha Harkness recognized the power Wanda Maximoff wields as Chaos Magic, greater than the Sorcerer Supreme's powers. Again, in the comics Chthon is the wellspring of Chaos Magic; there, Wanda was born at a place where the fabric of reality is thin, allowing Chthon to bless her with his power so she would unwittingly help him cause chaos and break through to this plane of existence. Wanda's origin as the Scarlet Witch is different in the MCU, but her Chaos Magic could still quite easily be linked to the Elder Gods.
Chthon isn't the only one of the Elder Gods to have been teased for Doctor Strange 2. Trailers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has shown another of his kind, Shuma-Gorath, wreaking havoc on the streets of New York; according to merchandise Shuma-Gorath has been renamed Gargantos, presumably because Marvel don't possess the rights to the name "Shuma-Gorath." It's certainly striking, then, that Moon Knight is dealing with a concept clearly related to the Elder Gods in the comics - just before a supernatural film that seems to have several ties to them as well.
Marvel Studios has always loved to establish a sense of synergy between their properties. They pulled it off with the simultaneous Kingpin and Hawkeye cameos at the tail end of 2021, but it's quite possible Moon Knight's Ennead go one step further, simply because the little known about the Ennead fits rather well with some of the biggest theories about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If this is indeed the case, then there may well be a good reason Marvel didn't give press screeners of the final two episodes to review Moon Knight; not simply because it hides a major twist in Moon Knight, but also because it continues to conceal the real villains of Doctor Strange 2. Hopefully later episodes of Moon Knight will reveal a lot more about the Ennead, clarifying whether there really is such a strong link between these two Marvel releases.
New episodes of Moon Knight release every Wednesday on Disney+.