After debuting their first official trailer for Moon Knight last month, Marvel Studios has given us another look at the trippy series at the Super Bowl last night, making it clearer that Moon Knight will be unlike anything we’ve seen before from Marvel.
We get a few more interesting glimpses here. It’s clear that Khonshu, one of the Ancient Egyptian Gods of the Moon, will have a pronounced presence here in the series as he does in the comics. The history of Orientalism and appropriation of Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) cultural aspects has been a longtime occurrence in comics, but hopefully, with Egyptian director Mohamed Diab as the lead director of the series, a more constructive and significantly less problematic take on the character can thrive.
We also get a look at Ethan Hawke’s cult-leader character Arthur Darrow, who seems to know of Spector’s voices in his head and/or his connection to Khonshu (“Voices in your head”). Moon Knight seems to be taking the MCU into deeper and more mature subject matter, like the (now formerly) Netflix series. Not only will there (presumably) be more intense violence than other MCU series, but there will likely be a deeper exploration of mental health as well. Hopefully, it’s done in a way that audiences will genuinely resonate with, and without the stigmatization that’s so often the case in superhero media. We’ll see how much they’re able to do on Disney+, and hopefully, they break the limited boundaries of their existing films and tv. And of course, hopefully we get to see Spector’s Jewish identity explored in the series.
But we don’t get a look at Egyptian-Palestinian-Bahraini actress May Calamawy’s (one of the stars of Hulu’s Ramy) character yet. Hopefully, her character is only being held currently for a large reveal, and she is indeed a significant part of the series.
Marvel Studios also gave us an eerie poster to go along with the spot, conveying further the duality of Marc Spector/Steve Grant/Moon Knight, which you can view here below:
We’ll have the answers to these questions and so much more when Moon Knight will start streaming on Disney+ on March 30.