Moon Knight: Most Powerful Abilities Ranked

the mcu is working hard to set up a whole new darker side of the mcu but you know just not the defenders and front and center of this new push will be moon knight although he's often times called marvel's version of batman there's so much more to the character than that i'm calling it right now that moon knight will be one of the most complex lead heroes the mcu has ever seen but what exactly can moon knight do and how will that translate to the mcu well that's what i wanted to discuss today so let's praise konshu and let's get started right now before we get into everything that moon knight is capable of i think it's important to understand his backstory yes there have been a lot of tweaks in the moon night mythos especially with his mental illness but overall the core has remained the same though i think it's funny that originally moon knight was introduced in the comics more as a villain in the comic series werewolf by night back in the 70s in that arc moon knight was hired as a mercenary to capture jack russell the titular werewolf by night and bring him in it should tell you a lot about where in the marvel universe moon knight places when his first appearance is fighting a werewolf right anyway fast forward a bit and moon knight suddenly starts to rise in popularity having guest appearances in the defenders series and a spider-man story before finally getting his own solo series in 1980. it's here the essence of the character is born mark spector is the name of the man behind the mask and his story is the prime example of why you should never be a mercenary and why you should never go poking around the egyptian desert anyways at a young ish age mark discovered that his close friend was actually a horrible villain who did terrible things to certain jewish people this traumatic event basically kick-started his disassociative identity disorder something that saw mark could develop a few separate personalities in his life including the taxi driver jake lockley and the millionaire steven grant later he joined the marines but was dishonorably discharged eventually leading him to join the cia that didn't last long either and soon mark was out on his own boxing illegally and joining his friend frenchie duchamp and becoming a soldier for hire this led him to work for the mercenary raul bushman in egypt but while protecting a woman from bushman's wrath bushman mortally wounded mark and left him to rot in the desert fatally injured mark made it to the secret tomb that had the idol of the egyptian god konshu in it and the two actually ended up having a nice chat konshu offered to save mark's life if marca basically became a conscious living weapon mark agreed and thus moon knight was born so now that you got the general gist let's talk some of moon knight's best and worst abilities i already mentioned how moon knight's first appearance came from him fighting a werewolf and because of his battles with supernatural creatures there are many who are hoping that oscar isaac's moon knight tangles with a werewolf in the first season of his show i mean why not at this point right we're already getting blade teases in eternals and the morbius movie is trying to shove its way into the mcu so if vampires are around then why wouldn't there be werewolves is that really any stranger than a talking raccoon no but there's also another reason i want to see moon knight fight a werewolf and that's because i think there's parallels that could be drawn between the two we all know that werewolves emerge on a full moon and for a time in the comics this was also when moon knight was the strongest because of his connection with the moon god konchu mark found his strength and reflexes would grow whenever there was a full moon moonlight essentially made him stronger so the more moon there was the stronger moon knight was he since lost this ability but imagine if this was adapted in the tv show if there's a werewolf lurking around mark would have a powerful enemy that he is not so different from the werewolf turns into a raging beast in the full moon while mark attempts to be overcome with strength during this time that's the sort of fun parallel i want to see from the series sure the mcu has been blasted in the past by having their heroes fight villains with the exact same powers as them but this would be a way to adapt that in a different way because it wouldn't be that their powers are the same but rather both the hero and the villain get their powers from the same source and do different things with it that sounds pretty cool right you know what power i would hate to have prophetic visions like imagine you're sitting there and you get a vision of the future of hitting that like button and subscribing to cbr now when the vision is done what do you do do you try to fight it or accept it by fighting it does it lead you down a path of liking the video and subscribing to cbr and are you now only liking the video and subscribing because you had the vision about liking and subscribing it's all so complicated and it sounds like the easiest thing to do would be just to like and subscribe to not worry about it anyways moon knight also on occasion has prophetic visions that severely affect his life and sometimes they're not even his visions like during the age of konshu storyline khan shu himself started becoming plagued by visions about the end of the world thanks to mephisto's army and thanks to mark being connected to khon shu he also experienced these horrific premonitions that's unfortunate that's like prophecies by proxy and not even good ones this set moon knight on a really epic path that i'll talk about a bit later but it's just an example of the type of mystical visions moon knight can experience so what does this mean well i'm trying to say that mephisto is one hundred percent going to be in moon night so keep an eye out i'm kidding maybe anyways the problem with having prophetic visions on top of disassociative identity disorder is that it's hard to sometimes distinguish facts from fiction you might say pain tolerance isn't a special ability but then i would say to you you obviously haven't met moon knight i think superheroes in general have to have a higher than average pain tolerance it's a rough business they're in but while some superheroes seem to have a higher pain tolerance than others while they really shouldn't the scene of black widow's solo film where she smacks into everything while following three stories comes immediately to mind it actually makes sense for mark spectre's character and what comes to mind when i think of moon knight's pain tolerance is his fight with taskmaster in his 2006 comic run taskmaster was sent to eliminate moon knight and while getting the upper hand at first moon knight came back with a vengeance and actually truly scared taskmaster how did he do that well you know how taskmaster's whole thing is copying other people's moves turns out taskmaster learned the hard way that moon knight is not someone to be copied you know why it's because moon knight's fighting style really is just allowing himself to be hit moon knight makes no effort to block whatsoever if there's a punch in coming he would rather just take it and hit the person back harder than try to dodge it this totally disoriented taskmaster and led moon knight to a decisive victory that's so hardcore and absolutely showcases an incredible pain tolerance and since i just mentioned mark's unique fighting style because of his pain tolerance i should probably mention his ability to actually fight the thing with moon knight is that he's actually both a brawler and a martial arts master he's actually the former heavyweight boxing champion which shouldn't be overlooked because that doesn't really apply to any other hero i mean sure there was that one time in the old adam west batman show where he boxed the riddler but i'm not sure if that's really on the same level anyways after the whole boxing career that's when mark underwent his intensive training to become a commando a cia agent and a mercenary seriously you do not want to fight this guy on top of boxing he's also an expert in judo krav maga karate kung fu and muay thai just to name a few that's an amazing combination and given his tendency to just charge you and fight it's not necessarily a challenge you want to take like maybe i was a little worried about the fight scenes in the upcoming marvel show because how could they really compare to the comics right but then i saw oscar isaac's training video for the show and had complete faith oh oh no no not that one yeah that one i think just looking at moon knight move and fight is exhausting but what if he had the ability to take that to the next level let me explain for a short time moon knight had the ability to drain a people's life force just by touching them this happened after battling the villainous group known as hellbent which is an ancient hybrid species that resulted from the ancient race of beings co-mingling with earth's primitive humans it's weird but long story short through this storyline moon knight desperate and on the brink of being wiped out unwittingly unleashed his own hell-bent power and drained the life force of an enemy this isn't a common ability by moon knight but if the disney plus show leaned into the more mystical aspects of the character then i could see them incorporating this ability a lot of superhero shows and narratives don't have their characters be good detectives i mean think of all the batman movies we've gotten and even though he's labeled the world's greatest detective how much detecting have we actually seen him do exactly and it makes sense being a detective type of character works in a comic but in a movie or a tv show you kind of have to drive the action quickly meaning there isn't a lot of time for a superhero to investigate properly which is why i'm a little worried about the moon knight tv show i mean i'm sure it's gonna be awesome but the moon night in the comics is a great detective and i just hope the show is able to highlight that at least a little bit the reason why mark spector is so good as a detective is really because of his split personalities that have connections all over the place his millionaire stephen grant is a successful businessman who knows all the rich folk and upper class dynamics while his cab driver jake lockley has a lot of underworld connections and contacts if the show was smart it would make use of all of mark's different identities to really amp up his detective skills fingers crossed a lot of what i've mentioned so far paints moon knight as a bit of a brute right i mean yes he's super talented but he has a very forceful way of fighting that any villain would be unlucky to go up against but just on top of all that i want to mention that he's also an expert marksman with a keen sense of accuracy i mean you would expect with his commando and mercenary training that he'd be able to hit a target but the level of detail would make the villain bullseye a bit jealous like there was one specific instance where moon knight was able to cut a bullet in half using one of his crescent darts you know what type of eye you need for that especially given the circumstances this was after moon knight was just shot in the side and was diving out of the way i mean if you can cut a bullet in half after that then yeah i would say accuracy is a definite strong suit for you oh and speaking of suits i really have to mention moon knight suit in this list sure it's not exactly an ability he has but the suit he wears comes with some pretty extraordinary upgrades that help moon knight fight crime effectively so i think it's worth a bullet point don't you first things first you know why he wears all white right it's not just because it's visually appealing on a comic page but rather it's a legitimate way for moon knight to strike fear into his enemies sure he could have gone the batman route and dressed in all black to sneak around in the shadows waiting to strike but that's totally not moon knight's mo he wears white because he wants his enemies to know he's coming how cool is that he chooses to be a bright white target because he believes in tackling his issues head on and wants to attract all the attention to himself but that wouldn't be very effective if the suit wasn't up to the task right well originally his suit was just kevlar and that worked just fine for the time but like a lot of superheroes over time mark upgraded to stronger stuff he wore adamantium for a bit but then switched it to carbonadium which mark claims is practically as strong as adamantium but is more flexible and given how much moon knight darts and jumps around flexibility is key on top of that the suit also comes with a glider cloak that doesn't necessarily allow moon knight to fly but he can at least glide around and slow down his descent if he falls from a cliff or a building or something this overall is a suit i'm incredibly excited to see in live action do you think it can crack the list of top 10 mcu costumes i certainly hope so yeah mystical abilities are cool and all but i'd be remiss if i didn't mention the mastery of weapons ability mark spectre possesses given his long history you basically don't want to put any type of weapon in his hands swords knives batons chains brass knuckles boomerangs you name it moon knight can kick your butt with it he's also proficient in just about every type of firearm which goes back to the pinpoint accuracy skill i already mentioned but you know how it is with heroes sure you can be proficient in just about anything but you're not really cool until you have something signature to fight with i mean captain america can basically fight with anything too but we all know him as that one shield guy so what does moon knight use that defines him well a few things probably his most iconic are his crescent darts if we compare moon knight to batman again then these would be moon knight's batarangs but i think these are actually more effective than batarangs for a few reasons one these crescent darts are commonly made from adamantium so you know they pack a serious punch and two while they're great for throwing they're also perfect handheld weapons as well that moon knight likes to use in close combat situations like in one comic series he uses it to cut his enemy bushmen's face off in the comic that we probably can't show you on top of that moon knight also can be seen with a truncheon which is a multi-purpose weapon i'm surprised not more heroes use i mean it functions as a bow staff a grappling hook a baton and even a cane when he wants to feel fancy you know i think it might also have a secret snack container but i might just be getting that mixed up with aang's staff from the last airbender i want to end this list by talking about an ability where 99.9 percent probably not gonna see any time in the mcu but it would still be amazing to see in some capacities someday i'm talking about the time mark briefly became the host for the all-powerful phoenix force yeah you know the phoenix force right that's the one fox somehow screwed up the first time in x-men the last stand and then when given the chance to redeem themselves in dark phoenix they messed up a second time yeah even though mutants are coming to the mcu sooner rather than later i don't see marvel trying a third time to get the phoenix force right for a long time do you but let's pretend we're in a different universe hey you gotta get used to different universes now in superhero movies so this shouldn't be too much of a stretch let's pretend the phoenix force was wildly successful the first time around in x-men 3 and it was so popular that the x-men crossed over with the mcu much sooner and now we're entering an era where moon knight needs to use the phoenix force to stop the rampaging khan shu from taking over everything yeah sounds pretty cool right it was basically the storyline got to the point where the moon god took over manhattan called it new thieves a city which admittedly is a better name and made the avengers fugitives mark spector realized that konshu was getting paranoid and delusional and needed to be stopped he started basically praying to the phoenix force and eventually became its host where mark was able to overpower konshu and defeat him mark then allowed thor to knock him out so he would be free of the phoenix force probably the safe bet since that much power is dangerous again we'll never see this in live action which is why i wanted to end with this all-powerful ability but it's cool to think of moon knight as so integral to the main plots that the phoenix force had to get involved that bodes well for moon knight's future in the mcu look i know dracula isn't really moon knight's biggest foe but ever since that doctored image of moon knight calling dracula a nerd and demanding money exploded online there's been a push to make the two meet in live action i mean i wouldn't be mad at that would you

Channel: CBR

Views: 789,767

Keywords: moon knight, moon knight abilities, moon knight mcu, moon knight powers, marc spector, cbr, disney+ series, new marvel series, new disney+ show, mcu phase 4

Id: CVcQvXyWpbc

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 03 2021