Favorite Characters: Marc Spector (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers.*

The other main side of the Moon Knight equation. I’ll confess that Steven is definitely my guy, but I do like Marc quite a bit as well, and both characters only grow more interesting in comparison with one another.

It takes until the end of the pilot before we get our first real look at Marc, and a good way into the second episode before we properly meet him. That’s because, at the start of the series, Steven is the main driver of the body for their DID system, although he doesn’t know about it at that time. Marc mostly just fronts after Steven goes to bed, and Steven, none the wiser, chalks any weirdness up to his “sleepwalking.”

But even though it takes a while for us to see him, Marc isn’t sitting idle. A former mercenary, Marc was in a bad way after a job gone very wrong and received an offer of help from an unexpected source. Bleeding out at an archeological site in Egypt, he met the god Khonshu, who saved his life in exchange for Marc becoming the god’s avatar on Earth. Now, Marc serves as Khonshu’s Moon Knight, protecting the travelers of the night and exacting Khonshu’s vengeance on the wicked. Marc’s nighttime activities, involving international travel, dangerous individuals, and a bit of the old ultraviolence, are why Steven sometimes wakes up with muddy feet, or in the wrong country, or on the wrong day.

Because we meet Steven first, it’s natural to view Marc in contrast to him. Where Steven is alternately excitable and jittery, Marc is stoic and wary. Where Steven is a bit guileless, Marc is suspicious (some might say paranoid, but since people actually are out to get him, that doesn’t really apply.) Where Steven gets frightened or nervous, Marc charges ahead, headfirst into danger with the confidence that his considerable abilities will get him out of it. And where Steven is openhearted, Marc is guarded, keeping his baggage bottled up until it’s impossible to hide it anymore.

But Marc isn’t just a foil for Steven. Like his fellow alter, Marc is a complete person. He’s very decisive, about his own life as well as others’—he left his wife Layla in a misguided effort to protect her, and he agreed to become Moon Knight without really taking Steven into consideration, even though they share the body that gets pummeled by baddies on the regular.

These decisions are often taken to be selfish or bullheaded, even if Marc doesn’t think of them that way. Despite what his tough exterior might suggest, he has a strong caring streak. He genuinely thinks that disappearing on Layla is in her best interest, and he tries to keep Steven sheltered and naïve so Steven won’t have to deal with the demons in their head, the regrets and the trauma he’s been running from for a long time.

Unfortunately, he just handles a lot of big issues badly. In his effort to protect others, he keeps them in the dark “for their own good,” which just disrespects their own autonomy. He’s lethally capable and can easily hold his own in the wild superhero life Khonshu’s pulled them into, but his story over the course of the season is about learning that he doesn’t always have to go it alone. By letting in Steven and Layla, by trusting them and believing in their ability to handle themselves in these situations, he’s able to let himself be a little more vulnerable as he allows them to share the load.