Moon Knight has, thus far, been another great entry into the “oh no, we have to save them” era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Phase 4 is just trauma central in the sense that every character is clearly going through it and no one seems to be checking on them. When it comes to Marc Spector, he does keep so many things bottled up, so it isn’t entirely anyone else’s fault, but in episode 5, titled “Asylum,” we were shown just how much Marc’s past runs his life.
It took us five episodes to get to Marc’s origin story, and with it came a look into how his dissociative identity disorder formed and the confirmation that Steven Grant is his alter, even though Steven believed he was the “original.” In fact, they both were, given that it is a fracturing of Marc’s mind, but the show does a pretty incredible job of changing Marc’s origin with DID to be more focused on how DID actually forms versus how it worked in the comics.
While the change was a topic of conversation on Twitter, given how it changed from the comics and did erase some of Marc’s struggle with his own connection to Judaism, the show did try to focus more on his pain with what happened to his brother and his struggle there. The question now is: Are we going to be in pain again, as an audience, with the season finale of Moon Knight?
Marvel’s trauma era
From WandaVision on, Marvel has been exploring the pain that these characters go through in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—meaning that the characters we know and love are actually unpacking their pain instead of having to push it aside to keep fighting the bad guys.
We’ve seen Wanda explore her own grief and coping mechanisms, we’ve watched both Sam and Bucky look into the pain of Steve leaving them behind and everything that happened to them since fighting with the Avengers, we’ve watched as Loki learned about all that he did and what it lead to, and Clint had to come to terms with his past as Ronin and how that hurt the very core of who he wanted to be. All of that isn’t easy to unpack. It’s hard for not only the characters, but those of us who find comfort in their stories.
The reason Marc Spector is so special is because we’re thrown into his pain and anguish without really knowing what’s happening prior to the first episode. He wasn’t there with Thanos, and we didn’t see him fighting the villains that the other Avengers have, so we’re relying on Marc telling Steven (and us) what’s going on with him, and eventually, he reluctantly does.
But all this exploration of grief and trauma is a lot for us as fans because we’re seeing it with each character. So how prepared should we be for tomorrow? Is it something that is going to derail our entire day? Probably, and sadly, I cannot wait. Bring it on.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
