Moon Knight Vs. Taskmaster: Who Would Win and Why?
Moon Knight is one of the darkest Marvel characters. He has a unique skill set, and mindset, making him a formidable opponent to anyone. That includes Taskmaster, another Marvel character with a recent appearance in the MCU (at least a version) in the Black Widow. The question is: who would win – Moon Knight or Taskmaster?
They fought in the comics, and Moon Knight not only defeated Taskmaster but also scared him to death. It would be a close fight, as both rely on their unique hand-to-hand combat skills, but in the end, Moon Knight has the edge over Taskmaster, and even he knows it.
Still, Taskmaster did incredibly well in the first half of the fight. He wanted to complete an additional task making him slow down: he was tasked to show a video to Moon Knight to teach him a lesson before killing him. It was enough for his opponent to take control and win. Also, both have several versions, so let’s compare the strongest versions to see who’d win.
Moon Knight (The Fist of Khonshu) and His Powers
Moon Knight is a character first appearing in Werewolf by Night #32 in 1975. His real name is Marc Spector, a former marine, CIA agent, and boxer who became a mercenary. His phenomenal fighting skills come not only from his Moon Knight abilities but from his intensive training before he became the masked vigilante.
So, what’s his story? Well, during one mercenary mission, Spector got defeated and left to die in a recently discovered tomb. He got a second chance from Khonshu, an Egyptian God of the Moon, who saved him and gave him additional powers affected by the moon’s phases, ultimately making Marc Spector become Moon Knight.
He possessed superhuman strength, speed, and other abilities, but the writers later abandoned that idea, and he was only a street-level vigilante with a clear mental illness. He displayed at least ten different personalities through the years, lacks any sense of pain, and loves when his enemies know that he’s coming.
All those facts led many to question whether Khonshu was ever a real entity or just another part of Spector’s mental state. However, the speculations about The Fist of Khonshu being a figment of his imagination have been proven wrong several times. Khonshu resurrected Spector several times after he had died and repaired his body from injuries etc.
For this analysis and comparison, I will focus on The Fist of Khonshu Moon Knight, that is, Moon Knight, with all of his remarkable capabilities revolving around the lunar cycles and the night, instead of the versions where his superpowers were abandoned.
The Fist of Khonshu
The Fist of Khonshu is another name for Moon Knight, but I’ll also use it to describe all the superhuman powers that Moon Knight has due to being saved by Khonshu and manifesting his will in the world.
Marc Spector was always a highly skilled, highly-trained hand-to-hand combatant, but The Fist of Khonshu gave him superhuman powers. Those powers included superhuman strength, speed, and durability, depending on the lunar cycle phase – hence, the name Moon Knight.
Other powers Khonshu granted him were occasional visions giving him insights into the future in mystical ways, resurrecting him on numerous occasions, etc.
Although Moon Knight can go head to head against virtually anybody, the powers of Khonshu just take him to a whole new level.
Expert Martial Artist and Weapon Combatant
As I mentioned, Marc Spector was a CIA agent, a boxer, a soldier, and in the end, a mercenary. Years and years of training gave him spectacular fighting skills, both hand-to-hand, and armed.
He could go at it with the very best of them, but what separated him from everybody else is his unique, almost psychotic fighting style.
Moon Knight is known to eat a punch. I mean, not accidentally – he deliberately turns every fight into a game of endurance, simply taking punches instead of blocking them, as it opens a whole new window of opportunity for him to counterattack.
His extreme durability, along with his mental state, allow him to either ignore the pain or not feel it at all. His lack of fear also plays a crucial part in his fighting skills. We don’t know if he doesn’t get scared at all, or he just knows that Khonshu will revive him if he dies.
Either way, he thrives on outlasting his opponents, which ultimately makes him incredibly intimidated.
High-tech Equipment and Detective Skills
It’s easy to draw parallels between Moon Knight and DC’s Batman. They’re both street vigilantes, rich, using excellent technology, and having incredible intelligence and detective skills.
Just like our beloved bat, the guy has all kinds of phenomenal weapons and vehicles. Some of his weapons also have mystical powers, too.
However, the thing that makes them different is that Batman wears all black to blend in with the shadows and defeat his opponents using stealth. Moon Knight wants the exact opposite – he wants his enemies to see him coming, as he loves taking hits to deliver hits. That’s why he always wears all-white suits, making himself quite visible – completely opposite of being stealthy.
Taskmaster and His Powers
Tony Masters, as known as Taskmaster, first appeared in The Avengers #195 in 1980, and he quickly gained a reputation among fans as one of the deadliest hand-to-hand fighters among all Marvel characters. The nickname Tasky had been given to him by Deadpool, a guy he had numerous fights with and one of the few guys he couldn’t quite read.
For those who don’t know, Taskmaster’s background is quite interesting. He was once S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that injected himself with a Nazi version of the super serum, causing him to develop incredible abilities to go along with his pre-existing skills, but they came at a cost. Let’s dive deep and see what made him such a formidable anti-hero.
Photographic Reflexes
Tony had this unique skill called photographic reflexes since birth, but it was further enhanced with the injection he took. He could mimic anybody’s fight style and moves to perfection, using them to duplicate their attacks, predicting their moves, and defeating them in combat.
So, just by looking at you, he would have the same skills as you. Often, he could even mimic super strength and superspeed. For instance, he could do the same move as, for instance, Captain America, only twice as fast.
It does come with a big price, though. To store all that information in his brain, he forgets other things, like his memories, conversations, and basically a part of his personality. He completely forgot he ever worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., his wife, and a whole lot of things other than that.
However, it did make him a spectacular, unmatched assassin and fighter, learning all the fighting skills from Captain America, Ant-man, Black Widow, Daredevil, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Spider-man, and many, many more.
Apart from copying moves and skills, he can also adjust his vocal chords to imitate other people’s voices, allowing him to disguise himself as them.
Master Assassin
Taskmaster might lose parts of his memories, but when it comes to being a lethal assassin, he’s unmatched, as he can learn how to fight like anybody, and do it even better. He is still just a human though, barring the Nazi super serum ripoff injection.
However, he has all the skills of anybody he ever fought, meaning he’s an assassin like no other. That includes hand-to-hand combat as well as weaponry.
However, he still feels fear, as you’ll learn further in the article. Also, he doesn’t fight himself that often as much as he trains others. He taught many villains how to fight and defeat the Avengers, but later, he also trained John Walker, the replacement for Captain America, later known as US Agent.
For instance, he learned something from everybody; archery from Hawkeye, swordsmanship from Black Knight, etc.
Moon Knight Vs. Taskmaster: Who Wins?
Ultimately, we have two unmatched hand-to-hand fighters that have unique skill sets, but the question is, who would win?
Well, we kind of got the answer in Moon Knight #6, where the two fought head-to-head – and Moon Knight won decisively. He scared Taskmaster so much he begged for his life before he fled the scene.
We have to take the fight with a grain of salt, though. Although Moon Knight did win, Taskmaster had the first half of the fight decisively. However, his contract stated that he had to show Marc a video before he killed him. Had he not wanted to complete his contract, we can speculate he would’ve won.
That being said, Moon Knight didn’t have his high-tech at disposal at the moment, nor did he have The Fist of Khonshu powers, so it’s safe to say the outcome would probably be the same if they all played to their fullest capabilities – that is, Moon Knight would’ve won.
And, there’s another reason why I believe so. After their encounter, Taskmaster never copied (or even intended to copy) Moon Knight’s fighting skills. He hated fighting and copying him because of his insane fighting style.
As I mentioned, Marc never blocks a single shot. He eats every strike, even lets arrows and bullets hit him as he just keeps on fighting, ultimately outlasting his foes.
Taskmaster isn’t about that “taking damage to deal damage “game, so apart from Moon Knight having Khonshu’s superpowers, Tasky hates fighting against him, as he cannot use his biggest, strongest skill in that fight.
That being said, although Taskmaster’s fighting skills are unmatched, Moon Knight’s skills paired with his insanity would probably be too much nine out of ten times.
