*Layla-related spoilers.*
Still on Moon Knight characters, although we’re going outside the main system today. Layla is a new character created for the show, and while there’s a lot of love about her relationships with both Marc and Steven, she’s also just fantastic in her own right.
When Steven discovers a phone hidden in his flat, he’s perplexed when a woman named Layla answers, one who seems to know him but thinks his British accent is fake. When she points out that they’re married, he goes from perplexed to gobsmacked. But of course, Layla is married to Marc, not Steven, and she isn’t even aware of Steven’s existence until the events of the series. When she comes to London looking for Marc and finds Steven instead, she’s in for quite an eye-opener.
That right there is a point in Layla’s favor, that she can learn such a remarkable thing about her husband, without warning, at a time when a ton of shit is going down, and she basically rolls with it and learns as she goes. Granted, at this point, Layla already knows about the Moon Knight suit and Marc being Khonshu’s avatar, so she’s no stranger to the unexpected, but it takes her some time to wrap her head around the fact that her husband is part of a DID system and she never knew about it.
But enough about Steven and Marc. Although I love them, this post is about Layla, who comes all in with these righteous Egyptian Indiana Jones vibes. Her passion is stealing Egyptian antiquities out under from the imperialists and collectors who stole them in the first place, returning artifacts to where they belong. She’s smart, tough, and swashbuckling as hell, and it’s no wonder both Marc and Steven wind up in love with her. When she learns about Marc’s Moon Knight mission to Egypt, her connections and knowhow prove invaluable and she saves Marc and Steven’s ass more than once.
In short, she’s amazing and I love her, but what I especially love about her is that she’s not some kind of superwoman. She makes mistakes, she’s vulnerable, and she’s not perpetually unflappable. When she and Steven get separated in Ammit’s tomb, there’s a fantastic scene where she’s attacked by a mummified sentry. They scuffle at the edge of a steep drop-off and it’s genuinely touch and go, with Layla fighting with all she’s got to stay alive. She finally manages to knock it into the ravine, calling on a last reserve of strength to keep herself from falling in too. Dragging herself back up onto the ledge, she flops onto the ground and just screams, releasing her pent-up terror and adrenaline. I adore that moment so much, that after being such a badass she needs to take a moment to gather herself and vocalize how very not-okay she is.
I also appreciate that, by end of the season, Steven and Marc aren’t the only ones imbued with power by an Egyptian god. In the finale, Layla semi-reluctantly accepts the offer to become Taweret’s avatar, though she’s careful not to sign her freedom away. She enters the climactic fight as the Scarlet Scarab, a fierce heroine whose suit features a wicked pair of burnished wings.
Layla didn’t need to become Taweret’s avatar. She was already crucial to the story without powers, and she held her own just fine. I know that not every Marvel character needs to be “super.” But I do love that Layla gets to be the Scarlet Scarab. When she shields civilians during the fighting and a young Egyptian girl sees her in action, I teared up at the sheer beauty of her strength and power. When, a few seconds later, the girl asks in amazement if Layla is “an Egyptian superhero,” it’s almost unnecessary—the look in the girl’s eyes already told me everything I needed to know about how Layla being a hero matters.
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