Relationship Spotlight: Marc Spector, Layla El-Faouly & Steven Grant (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers.*

For me, Moon Knight is all about characters and relationships. Now, plenty of that happens within the DID system of the protagonist, and I’ve already talked at length about Steven, Marc, and their relationship. But when you add Layla into the mix, the whole thing levels up even further. These three, separately and together, are why I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll get a season 2, or some other continuation of Moon Knight’s story.

Even though Layla is Marc’s wife, we’re actually introduced to her when she’s meeting Steven for the first time. She doesn’t know that Marc has DID—she’s confused by the British accent her husband is “putting on” and is first annoyed, then alarmed, when he insists that he doesn’t know her. Their early scenes together are marked by Layla’s conviction that Marc is working undercover and refusing to drop the act even in front of her. It’s not until they have a dangerous run-in with Harrow and she sees Steven flounder that she realizes she’s dealing with something much deeper than she thought.

Steven, meanwhile, is instantly taken with Layla. They share a love of Egyptian history and antiquities, and they even have the same favorite poet. Much of what’s going on in his life is massively confusing at present—he’s only barely started to grasp the fact that he has DID—and this woman who’s come along calling him Marc and saying that they’re married confuses him too, but rather than being frightened, this is a confusion that Steven will gladly put up with to be around her.

As they get more involved in their mission against Harrow and Layla gains a greater understanding of what’s going on with Marc and Steven, she adjusts really well to this very unexpected turn of events. She and Marc do the undercover/more dangerous stuff, while she urges Marc to let Steven front during the brainy Egyptology-related stuff. It doesn’t take long before she’s treating them like separate people.

An additional complicating factor is that Marc and Layla were estranged at the start of the series. Marc has disappeared on her—unbeknownst to her, he left because he thinks Khonshu wants her for his new avatar and wants to keep him away from her—and when Layla initially comes across Steven, it’s because she has divorce papers for Marc. But Marc never stopped loving her, he just has a really clumsy/kind of paternalistic way of trying to protect her, and so it angers him to see her getting friendly with Steven. At different times when Steven is fronting, Marc warns him not to close too cozy with Layla, and after Layla and Steven share a kiss, Marc manages to take control of their hand so he can sucker-punch Steven.

But for all that Steven is falling for Layla, he’s also kind of advocating for Marc? As the more emotionally-open of the two, he’s able to bridge the communication gap between Marc and Layla. He tells Layla things that Marc has kept from her, and even though Layla is angry at Marc’s “I kept secrets for your own good” attitude, it does give her more insight into his actions and where his head is at.

I get that it’s the MCU and Disney is pretty vanilla, but honestly, the best resolution for me is for Layla to date both of them. They both like her and she likes them, and they have the same body. This seems to be the least messy way to go about it, though there’s no evidence yet on what Jake thinks of Layla, or how she’ll react when she meets him. All of this is just further proof of why we need a season 2.

Relationship Spotlight: Steven Grant & Marc Spector (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers aplenty.*

Okay, so now that we’ve laid the groundwork discussing the heroes of Moon Knight, it’s high time we start talking about them together. And at the top of the list is absolutely Marc and Steven. These two are so interesting to watch together that I sometimes get distracted from how great other things about the show are because I’m just focused on these two.

Quick note before we get started: while I have some thoughts about Jake that I’ll discuss later, this post is just going to be about Steven and Marc, for the simple reason that they don’t appear to have a relationship with Jake yet. It seems neither of them know about him, and from what little we’ve seen of him, we don’t have much context about his feelings towards either of them.

Steven’s introduction to the Moon Knight activities of his headmate, along with the fact that he even has headmates, is rough. He wakes up in a foreign country with his jaw dislocated, soon finds himself knee-deep in a crowd of cultists, and proceeds to black out several times, continuing to wake up in increasingly-frantic situations. And all the while, he has Khonshu in his head, grumbling that Steven is “an idiot” and ordering him to “surrender the body.”

It’s notable then, that when he officially meets Marc (in the middle of another incredibly-dangerous situation,) Marc is actually really gentle and patient with Steven. There’s a jackal beast trying to bust the door down and the only way for them to survive is for Marc to front and don the Moon Knight suit, so time is decidedly of the essence. But Marc doesn’t insult Steven or yell at him. He explains, as calmly and succinctly as he can, that he can protect them both.

That’s because, between the two of them, Steven’s always been the innocent one, the naïve one. While it seems Marc took their mother’s abuse when they were children, Steven got to have a happy, unfearful childhood. Many of Marc’s actions are to shield Steven, both physically and emotionally, and he doesn’t realize that that’s actually kind of patronizing.

Once Steven starts to learn about Marc, however, he’s not content to go back to ignorance. He wants to be involved. He and Marc jockey over control of the body, with Marc arguing that he has the skills and the temperament to get them through the fight with Harrow and Steven protesting that he doesn’t want Marc using the body to hurt people. They bicker and snipe at each other, and whenever one is in control of the body, he doesn’t relinquish it easily. Even though Layla is an invaluable ally in Egypt, her presence also complicates things between them further, because Steven is immediately taken with Layla and Marc doesn’t want him having anything to do with his ex-wife (shout-out to the moment in episode 4 where Marc takes control of their hand while Steven is fronting and sucker punches them, hee!)

Ultimately, though, they’re clearly better together. Marc is handier in a fight and a better strategist, but Steven’s knowledge of ancient Egypt is critical, as is his knack for solving puzzles. The both learn, albeit with Layla’s urging, that neither of them can accomplish their mission without the other, and they need to take turns with the body as the ever-evolving situation demands.

Their relationship makes its biggest leap forward when they’re shot by Harrow and wind up in the afterlife. Through their perspective, it looks like an asylum, and they’re forced to relive/witness a number of traumatic memories to get through it. I love that both of them have a body in the asylum and that the first thing they do when they find each other is hug. As painful as it is, I understand why Marc doesn’t want Steven to see all the horrors he’s suffered, and it’s beautiful when Steven gently insists to Marc that his little brother’s death wasn’t Marc’s fault. I like how they try to protect each other sailing across the Duat, and when Steven is knocked overboard and taken by the sands, I love that Marc goes back for him, saying, “You’re the only real superpower I ever had.” When they make it back to Earth and the body, they’re so much more at peace with themselves and in-sync with each other. Whereas before, Marc would walk a little apart from Layla before ceding the front to Steven, not wanting her to see, they now switch with abandon, helping each other out and having each other’s back in the final fight.

The overall plot of the show can get a little jumbled at times, but when it comes to the throughline of Marc and Steven’s relationship with each other, the series consistently knocks it right out of the park.

Favorite Characters: Steven Grant (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers.*

I often like to alternate Marvelous Wednesday posts about various MCU franchises, and while Multiverse of Madness wasn’t a winner for me, there are aspects of it, both good and not-so-good, that I want to talk about. But not right now. After posting my initial Moon Knight review a couple weeks ago, I have so many more thoughts on the show and may or may not ride this wave until it’s time to talk about Ms. Marvel and Thor: Love and Thunder. And as we settle into some Moon Knight posts, who better to start with than one Steven Grant?

Steven is our window into the wildness of Moon Knight, which I love. I’m very much a novice on the subject of DID, but I know that it’s not cool in DID circles to think of a system in terms of “the original” and “the alter(s).” Rather, everyone in the system is an alter, everyone is valid, and everyone is a whole person. And after the time we spend with Steven in the first couple of episodes before seeing Marc take the reins for more of episode 3, it’s clear that the show in no way views Steven as lesser than Marc.

Day-to-day, ordinary-life Steven has a hard time of it. He languishes in the gift shop of the National Gallery when he has the knowhow and heart of an Egyptologist. He’s excited for a date he doesn’t remember making with a coworker, but then he inadvertently stands her up when he loses time. He doesn’t realize that his “sleepwalking”-prevention measures are useless because he’s not actually sleepwalking—the body is instead being used by another identity he doesn’t know about after he goes to bed.

Realizing that he’s not the only person in his head is a rude enough awakening. Sweet, slightly-awkward, mild-mannered Steven, with a somewhat wonky but very earnest British accent, occupies the same body as a close-to-the-vest American mercenary named Marc. Steven doesn’t even eat meat; how’s he supposed to deal with the fact that his hands are the same ones Marc has used to kill people?

But that’s not all. Those freaky “hallucinations” he’s been having? That’s actually the Egyptian god Khonshu. Unbeknownst to Steven, Marc offered up their body to the god of the moon as recompense for Khonshu saving his life. As part of their service to Khonshu, they can summon a special suit that grants them enhanced abilities.

This is all a lot, and it’s understandable that Steven is freaked out by it. But even though he finds out that he’s sharing his head with a mercenary indebted to an Egyptian god who keeps calling Steven an idiot, Steven still manages to assert himself amid all that upheaval. In combatting Harrow’s plan to pass judgment across the human race by resurrecting the goddess Ammit, Steven’s knowledge of ancient Egypt is invaluable. More than once, Steven refuses to surrender the body to Marc in a dangerous situation because he’s afraid Marc will hurt someone.

I like that, on the superhero actiony side of things, Steven is just so Joe Ordinary. Marvel has had other heroes who tend more towards regular-guy personas, like Scott Lang or Xu Shang-Chi, but Steven sometimes feels more like that hero’s best friend who’s astounded/freaked by everything that’s going on. This guy doesn’t know how to belay down into a hidden tomb, and his first instinct is to hide rather than fight. And yet, he’s there. He stays in it, and when things get hairy, his immediate thought is usually to help. Steven has an enormous heart that wants things to be better for people, and he puts himself into all manner of dangerous situations to try to help Marc and Layla stop Harrow.

There’s a moment late in the series when Marc is in dire straits and Steven realizes that the way to step up and help him is channel his “inner Marc,” so to speak. At this point, he’s recently learned that he’s not the “original,” as unhelpful as that term is, and that he in fact appears to be a fictive (an alter who shares some or all traits/history with a fictional character.) But even when Steven unleashes his inner Marc and fights the unbalanced souls trying to claim them, he remains undeniably Steven, giving Marc a thumbs-up and making silly asides about cricket as he fights. When, at the end of that episode, it looks like he may be lost forever (spoiler alert: it turns out okay! Marc saves him!), I defy anyone to say that Steven isn’t “real” in the same way Marc is.