10 Most Powerful Moon Knight Villains
Moon Knight is an epic Marvel superhero who got his powers after an ancient Egyptian deity, Khonshu, saved him from imminent death. After becoming Moon Knight, Marc Spector started working as a street-level vigilante, fighting criminals and other threats across the US.
Over the years, we’ve seen some epic enemies and villains facing off against Moon Knight, many of which I hope will appear in the Moon Knight TV series that premieres on March 30, 2022. Here’s a ranked list of the ten most powerful Moon Knight villains.
10. Bullseye
Bullseye is one of the best mercenaries/assassins in Marvel history. He crossed paths with Moon Knight numerous times, who was, as you might know, a mercenary himself before becoming Moon Knight.
Bullseye is probably the best shot on Earth, capable of hitting any target with any weapon with laser precision – without even having to look at it. The best part about Bullseye is that he doesn’t need classic weapons to display his incredible powers/skills.
He can use any object as a projectile to deliver a deadly blow, making him an incredibly dangerous enemy not just for Moon Knight but for any superhero out there.
What makes Bullseye even more dangerous is his motifs. He always does his best, not just for the money – but to prove to everybody that he is the best.
9. Raoul Bushman
Raoul Bushman is a well-known Moon Knight villain, who many fans consider Marc Spector’s true arch-nemesis. Bushman is the one responsible for Spector ever becoming Moon Knight.
They were once partners, working as mercenaries. They were an incredible duo until a certain job in Egypt caused a rift between them, dividing them forever.
During their mission, they stumbled upon a dig site where Dr. Alraune and his daughter found huge amounts of gold. Driven with greed, Bushman cold-bloodedly kills the professor while an appalled Spector tries to defend the girl. Bushman beats him to death and escapes, but Spector falls underneath the feet of a statue – the statue of Khonshu, an ancient Egyptian deity.
Khonshu saves Marc Spector, turning him into Moon Knight, and Marc swears to cast vengeance upon his former partner and friend. He manages to do so in a brutal way much later in the comics, but Bushman gets resurrected and remains an arch-nemesis of Moon Knight.
While Bushman has no superpowers, he’s incredibly skilled in all kinds of combat and has no morals. I mean, he almost killed Spector despite being his partner. If it weren’t for that altercation, though, Marc would’ve never become Moon Knight, so Bushman definitely deserves a spot on this list.
8. Seth Phalkon
Seth Phalkon might not be the most popular villain out there, but he’s incredibly powerful. He belongs to a Scottish sect of the Knights Templar and has several amazing powers. Phalkon first appeared in Marc Spector: Moon Knight #43.
Seth Phalkon is immortal has superhuman strength and stamina, but his strongest power – is his touch. Using his clawed fingers, Phalkon can drain the life force out of any living being, aging them in the process. If he holds his grip for long enough, Seth can drain all life out of somebody, turning them into a rotted skeleton.
However, there’s a catch. Due to bio-feedback, the draining process backfires if Seth uses it on anybody who shares his DNA code, even partially. Simply put, he can’t drain his relatives because it causes a massive explosion that hurts and weakens his powers.
You guessed it – Moon Knight turns out to be his long-lost relative, so Phalkon has to rely on his superhuman strength and stamina to outlast Marc Spector in any mutual fight.
7. The Human Fly
You can’t be a menacing villain if your name is the Human Fly, right? Well, the guy makes me giggle every time, but still, the Human Fly has some strong powers in his arsenal. The character first appeared in the Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10 but later fought Moon Knight and even severely hurt him.
Moon Knight is often considered to be the Marvel version of Batman. And, just like Bane broke Bruce Wayne’s back on one occasion, Marc Spector’s back was broken as well – by the Human Fly. Yeah, the guy is as tough as Bane (no, he’s not).
Spector recovered and has wanted to cast vengeance upon the Fly ever since. Apart from being a backbreaker, the Human Fly has the powers of a regular fly – flying, crawling up walls and ceilings, being able to lift enormous weights compared to his size, and just being annoying overall.
6. Bora
I believe that Bora’s story was supposed to make you feel somewhat sympathetic, but to me, it just made her an annoying spoiled brat. Bora was born a mutant, with the power of summoning incredibly powerful, freezing arctic winds at will.
Ever since she was a kid, Bora wanted to become a ballerina. Her powers grew as Bora grew older, but so did the side-effect of the powers – they made Bora over seven feet tall (over 213 cm), which forever ruined her dreams of being a ballerina.
That made Bora resentful and hateful towards the world, turning her to crime and using her powers to harm others. Moon Knight tried stopping her rampage but instead got defeated and crippled, so he sought help from other mutants, the X-Men, who eventually helped Spector defeat Borea once and for all.
5. Werewolf By Night
The first time we’ve seen Moon Knight in the comics wasn’t in his own series, but rather Werewolf by Night #32. He faced off against Jack Russoff, aka Werewolf by Night, making Russoff his enemy. Interestingly, though, Moon Knight was the villain during their encounter, and Jack was the hero.
As the name suggests, Jacob Russoff is a werewolf, but unlike his dad, also a werewolf, Jack could control when and where he would transform – not just under the full moon. He had much more control of his powers in werewolf form – except when a full moon shone. That’s when Jack is the strongest but completely out of control.
His superpowers include werewolf physiology, along with superhuman strength, speed, durability, agility, stamina, a healing factor, and of course – a hairy body packed with a nasty set of teeth and killer claws.
4. Taskmaster
Taskmaster is one of those characters usually used as a plot device to establish other superheroes’ power levels. Well, if that was the case against Moon Knight, then Marc Spector is one of the strongest, scariest hand-to-hand combatants we’ve ever seen.
Taskmaster has a unique ability called photographic reflexes. He can learn and perfectly replicate anybody’s moves and skills up to two times faster by observing how they do it once. That gave Taskmaster the skillset of Captain America, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Shang-Chi, and countless others.
However, when he faced off against Moon Knight, things didn’t go as planned. You see, Marc Spector is kind of crazy if you didn’t know. The kind of crazy that deliberately eats punches, arrows, or even bullets because it opens opportunities for him to counter-attack even more violently.
Taskmaster didn’t want to replicate his moves because, obviously, no one in their right mind would want to get hit like Spector. As a result, Moon Knight beat him up so badly that Taskmaster was left absolutely terrified, begging for mercy on his life.
Nobody ever humiliated Taskmaster like that, and probably never will again, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s actually quite a powerful character – especially when it comes to combat skills.
3. Morpheus
Morpheus first appeared in Moon Knight #12 back in the early 80s, and he’s one of the rare horrifying characters I actually felt sympathy for. Despite his vampiric appearance, he ought not to be mistaken for Morbius – the character who’s getting a stand-alone movie very soon. Morbius is indeed a pseudo-vampire, while Morpheus is something else entirely.
His real name is Robert Markham, and he got sick from an odd virus that caused segments of his DNA to be inhibited by the virus. He sought medical help and dr. Peter Alraune advised him to take an experimental, untested drug, virtually using him as a test subject.
It backfired, causing Markham to change dramatically appearance-wise while also taking away Markham’s need for sleep and giving him unfathomable psionic powers. However, the lack of sleep rendered him crazy, after which he had taken the alias Morpheus after the Olympian god of dreams.
With his newfound powers, Morpheus sought revenge upon Alraune, only to encounter Moon Knight in the process. He would later become a recurring enemy for Spector.
2. Shadow Knight
I’m not sure if Shadow Knight is one of the most powerful villains Moon Knight ever faced, but he’s certainly one of the hardest that Mark Spector ever had to deal with. Shadow Knight’s real name is Randall Spector – Marc’s younger brother.
He was envious of Marc his entire life, which turned him into a horrible criminal. There was a murderer on the streets killing nurses, called the Hatchet Man, so Moon Knight used his girlfriend, Marlene, as bait to catch the serial killer. The plan “worked,” but Marlene perished. To make matters worse, the Hatchet Man was revealed to be Randall.
Randall later joined the Cult of Khonshu, which ultimately resulted in him receiving the same powers as his brother, Marc. Only, he chose to use them for evil, donning the pseudonym Shadow Knight.
It was devastating for Marc to fight his brother and ultimately kill him by slitting his throat with a throwing crescent. It doesn’t get much worse than that – especially when you learn that Marc tried protecting Randall their entire lives.
1. Count Nefaria
While Count Nefaria wasn’t purely evil at first, his desire for more wealth and power was ultimately his downfall. He has been around for years and years, fighting almost every Avenger you can think of. He also encountered Moon Knight after Marc Spector moved to LA and joined the West Coast Avengers, becoming primarily his villain.
If you take the earlier versions of Nefaria, you’d laugh at him being at the top of this list. You see, Nefaria was just a human at first – a criminal, but a human nevertheless. However, after he combined the powers of the Whirlwind, Power Man, and Living Laser, he became one of the most formidable opponents Moon Knight ever faced.
Count Nefaria is immortal and has an unfathomably strong healing factor. He received energy projection from the Living Laser, strength from Power Man, and speed from Whirlwind, all amplified a hundred times.
He can lift well over 100 tons, fly over 5000 mph, teleport, leech other’s energy, and so much more. Currently, he’s an ionic being like Wonder Man, making him insanely powerful and worthy of the number one spot on this list.
Honorable Mention: Lilith & Mephisto
Lilith and Mephisto are arguably the two most powerful villains on this list. However, Moon Knight only fought them indirectly as a member of the Midnight Sons. It was a group of heroes with occult powers or dark backgrounds, formed by Doctor Strange to help him fight Lilith, the Mother of Demons, and Lilin, her demon children.
Lilith is an insanely powerful entity, and Doctor Strange couldn’t defeat her on his own, so he sought help from other heroes such as Moon Knight, Blade, Ghost Rider, and others. They disbanded after beating Lilith but got back together to fight Mephisto later – probably an even more powerful entity known as the Hell-Lord.
