Does Moon Knight Kill? (& All Terrible Things He Did)
The Disney+ TV series, Moon Knight, is the newest upcoming addition to the MCU Phase 4. It’ll premiere on March 30th, and immediately, the comparisons with Batman started. While Marc Spector and Bruce Wayne have much in common, Moon Knight and Batman differ in many things. So, does Moon Knight kill his enemies, or does he have a no-kill policy like Batman?
Moon Knight is a violent, dark vigilante, who isn’t as trigger-happy as, for example, the Punisher, but he won’t shy away from killing if he thinks the person deserves it. Not only that; he frequently tortures his foes before delivering the final blow.
So, yeah. They both have money, intelligence, and a whole lot of combat skills. But, when it comes to dealing with their enemies, Batman and Moon Knight are two different worlds. And, we’ve only scratched the surface. Let’s dig deep to see all the most horrible things Moon Knight has done, for the right reasons, as he likes to believe.
Does Moon Knight Have A ‘No Killing’ Rule?
Throughout superhero comics, many superheroes have strict no-kill policies when dealing with their enemies. Some do it because they believe the law is there to serve justice, like Daredevil, while some don’t kill because they value every life, like Batman. However, Moon Knight isn’t one of those superheroes. Moon Knight doesn’t have a ‘no killing’ rule.
Before becoming the infamous vigilante, Marc Spector worked as a US Marine and then a mercenary. You can see how those jobs could prevent one from having a no-kill policy. Not that Spector wanted one, though.
In his final job as a mercenary, his job partner, Bushman, killed Marc in Egypt to run away with gold. That’s when the ancient God of Moon and Vengeance, Khonshu, resurrected Spector and gave him superpowers. Marc became Moon Knight or the Fist of Khonshu.
It gave Spector superpowers, which he used to work as a night-time vigilante, hunting down criminals and wrongdoers, giving them what they deserve. However, along with the superpowers, Marc lost his marbles in the process, too. He developed a severe dissociative identity disorder and became much, much more violent than ever before.
As many people as he hurt as a mercenary, it’s nothing compared to what the guy does as Moon Knight. And, it seems that the TV show will be darker and more violent than anything MCU-related so far on Disney+. According to a recent statement from Kevin Feige, Moon Knight will be brutal. Let’s see what we can expect.
Who Has Moon Knight Killed?
Moon Knight appeared in hundreds of comics and killed many people throughout. Marc Spector killed long before he ever became Moon Knight but only amplified that as a vigilante. The guy wears an all-white costume because he wants his opponents to see him coming when he’s out to get them. It’s safe to say Moon Knight’s kill count is quite impressive.
As a mercenary, and a Marine, who knows how many people Marc has killed? However, as Moon Knight, he tends not to kill but strike fear into criminals. Still, he has more than a few lives ending at his hands.
1. Raul Bushman
The guy who left him for dead in Egypt, ultimately leading to Spector becoming Moon Knight, was Raul Bushman. Well, Marc got his revenge – in one of the most brutal kills we’ve ever seen in Marvel comics.
In Moon Knight Vol. 5 #2, Bushman and Moon Knight battle on a rooftop, where the fight eventually ends in Spector using his Crescent Dart to literally slice Bushman’s face off while screaming “IS THAT ENOUGH?!” to Khonshu, who wanted vengeance. But that wasn’t the end of Bushman against Moon Knight.
Raul was later resurrected by the Red Hood and faced Marc again in Vengeance of the Moon Knight #5. This time, the fight was much close, but eventually resulted in Moon Knight impaling Bushman onto a machine gun. It was sick, but what was even sicker was that Spector moved in again to peel off Raul’s face once more.
The villain pleaded and begged for him not to do it, and even Khonshu spoke to Marc, yelling at him to obey and stop. Eventually, Marc let Bushman live.
2. Midnight
Another brutal Moon Knight kill came against his former sidekick, Jeffrey Wilde, aka Midnight. They worked together in a battle against the Secret Empire, where Wilde was seemingly killed – at least Moon Knight believed so. However, he survived and was then cybernetically modified and brainwashed to have a grudge against Spector, believing he “left him for dead.”
Midnight started killing people randomly to get Marc’s attention – but he got more than he bargained for. He had Moon Knight in a tough situation – even tried to pull out his vertebrae with pliers. However, Spector retaliated, took a metal clock hand and pierced it through Midnight’s skull. It was sick but effective. This happened in Moon Knight Vol. 5 #12.
3. Randall Spector
One of the hardest things Moon Knight ever had to do was kill his own brother, Randall Spector. Randall was formerly known as the Hatchet-man, a serial killer who killed Spector’s love interest in the past. However, in Shadowland: Moon Knight #3, he appeared as a superpowered, dark version of Moon Knight.
Their fight was hard and brutal, and in the end, Randall strapped a bomb onto himself, threatening to pull the trigger and kill dozens of innocent people. To prevent that, Marc threw a Sapphire Crescent Dart right into his brother’s throat, which led to Randall quickly bleeding out and dying on the spot.
4. Black Spectre
Black Spectre, known as Carson Knowles, was a veteran who returned to his homeland – to nothing. No accolades, no respect, living poorly. It led him to become the Black Spectre, a villain who crossed paths with Moon Knight.
In Moon Knight Vol. 5 #19, they fought on top of a roof (flashback Bushman vibes, am I right?), where he ultimately threw Knowles down from the building. Carson seemingly died the second he hit the floor. However, Moon Knight was also severely, brutally injured in the conflict.
5. Mephisto
Believe it or not, there’s a storyline where Moon Knight killed the demon overlord. In a storyline called The Age of Khonshu (Avengers Vol. 8 #33-35), Khonshu told Marc that he had a vision of Mephisto attacking and conquering Earth. He urged Moon Knight to steal the primordial powers of the Avengers using magical ankhs and use their powers to defeat the demon.
He beat Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, and even Thor, leading to him becoming incredibly powerful, killing Mephisto. After that, he surrendered his newfound powers to Khonshu, who took control over Manhattan and wanted to change the world to his liking.
6. Boat Crew
In Conan: Serpent War #2, Moon Knight joined forces with Solomon Kane to battle against the Cult of Set, who had done horrible things. They’ve possessed an entire crew of a boat and made them attack Spector and Kane, resulting in their brutal deaths.
I’ve decided to include them on this list because I really felt bad for them. The crew wasn’t villains, per se – they were possessed, but nevertheless, it resulted in their deaths.
7. Ernst
I deliberately left this one for the last because this guy was responsible for the first big trauma in Marc’s life and the reason he even developed the dissociative identity disorder. Rabbi Yitz Perlman was a family friend of the Spectors when Marc was a kid.
However, Marc discovered a secret room in Yitz’s synagogue, where the guy tortured and killed Jews. Spector caught him in the act, and the fake Rabbi threatened to kill him if he ever told anybody, after which he disappeared, promising he’ll return one day to kill Marc.
As it turns out, his real name was Ernst, a former Nazi who stole Rabbi Perlman’s identity after killing him in Germany. He killed Jews in a ritualistic manner to prolong his life. In the end, Ernst kept his promise and returned in Moon Knight #199 to fight the Fist of Khonshu.
Long story short, he tried to kill Marc, but Spector managed to move away from him just enough to let the apparition of Khonshu kill Ernst once and for all.
How Violent Is Moon Knight? (His Worst Deeds Explained)
Now, it’s obvious that Moon Knight doesn’t shy away from being violent and brutal, just to prove a point. Some of his worst actions were already mentioned – like carving a guy’s face off or stabbing somebody through the skull with a clock hand. However, he had done other horrible things without killing. Here are some of his worst non-kill deeds ever.
Slicing Deadpool Into Pieces
In Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8, Marc Spector tries to move away from Khonshu’s killing mentality. He wants to spare the life of a mobster, Goncharenko, who was in a comatose state in a hospital. However, Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, was hired by a girl (whose entire family was slain by the mobster) to kill Goncharenko.
That led to an encounter in the hospital, where Spector wanted to save the mobster, and Deadpool taunted him for going soft and being a hypocrite, pretending to have a no-kill policy when we all know how violent he really is.
Later in the issue, they battle again inside a funhouse at a carnival, where Deadpool’s big mouth costs him. He reveals to Moon Knight that he has a super-powerful healing factor, rendering him practically immortal. That was all Spector needed because now, he doesn’t have to worry about killing Wade – Moon Knight was left completely unhinged.
He carved up Deadpool in literal pieces, so bad that it took Wilson two IV bags to recover. As soon as Moon Knight learned that Deadpool wouldn’t die, his violent side reemerged, and he made Deadpool regret his words – probably the first time ever.
Going Unhinged
This is something that has followed Moon Knight throughout his history. The guy falls off the deep end quite often, and when he does – Moon Knight is completely unhinged. If he deems his enemies deserve punishment, the violence he displays is unmatched.
Almost every time he leaves a criminal alive, he carves out a moon on their face, just to remind them, and others, what happens when you get on his bad side. He went a step further in some instances, chopping off limbs to make a point. He can get as violent as they come.
Just look at Moon Knight #5 from the 2014 run. There was a girl trapped in an abandoned hotel, held hostage by 20 brutal mobsters. Well, Moon Knight felt they deserved punishment, so he brutalized them all through a violent scene spanning over a dozen pages.
One guy got his back broken over a staircase railing. The other was hit in the face with a Crescent Dart, almost slicing his jaw off. The third guy had his face bashed in with a bat. That all happened during the same encounter against Marc Spector.
The comics’ version of Moon Knight is simply too violent and too brutal to be on Disney+ because half of these things couldn’t be presented in a PG-13 series. Surely, Moon Knight will be the darkest, most violent, brutal MCU installment to date, but it will still be a mellow version of what the character can be.