Thursday, June 2, 2022

Nights with the Moon Knight.


Yes, this is late, and Doctor Strange will be later. My wife really got in to the Universal Horror Films, transitioning them from sporadic appearances to "every other Thursday."  
I'm so proud.

I'm really liking the fact that Marvel Studios continues to select deep cut characters, allowing me to experience these stories almost like a normal person.

I know Moon Knight from his brief stint hanging out with the West Coast Avengers in the late Eighties from issue 21 to 37.  Sadly, the new series did not include my favorite part about  him in that time travelling epic where we learned it was a lost in time Hawkeye (back when there was only one) who created the fancy Egyptian weapons that Marc Spector used as his alter ego.

In other words I know the character well enough to know his power set and other elements were changed significantly for the TV show, but not well enough to care all that much.

Steve at the comic book store and I were pointing out that our younger selves wouldn't believe a Moon Knight show would ever get made, never mind that other family members would be calling us to excitedly say how cool it was.

And it was very cool. 

Oscar Isaac did an outstanding job playing all of the different roles of the character's Dissociative Identity Disorder. 
While Ethan Hawke had an air of calm menace about him as both the real Harrow, and the imagined psychiatrist.
May Calamway went beyond the standard sidekick and love interest role usually seen in these stories to play a capable and intelligent adventurer, and eventual super hero in her own right.

Then there was all the cool Egyptian Mythology stuff.  Their system has always been one of my (many) mythological favorites for multiple reasons.

1) The animal human hybrids all look really cool.
2) Ancient Egypt lasted over FOUR THOUSAND years, and the mythology evolved over that time, allowing a lot of interpretation room to fool around with.
3) With multiple souls for each individual, bizarre story telling, and high levels of ritual in both real and imagined situations, it's completely insane in a good way.

Making them a source of a super heroic conflict on earth combined the comic book and mythological pantheons in a way that was highly entertaining.

Mixing in all that with making it my favorite kind of story (not a "Who done it?" but a "What is it?) in my favorite genre (comedy horror...with a few others tossed in) and then finishing it all in six episodes with no fluff or padding assuring rapid pacing?

Woo hoo!  Bring on the next season.
Or at least a guest appearance?

5 comments:

Dina Roberts said...

We are watching this soon!! After the new Chip and Dale movie...

I look forward to reading your brilliant thoughts on it.

Dina Roberts said...

In case I wasn't clear (because I don't think I was)...I meant your thoughts on Moon Knight...not the Chip and Dale movie.

Jeff McGinley said...

Oh, thank you. Yeah... we all found the Chip and Dale movie kinda disturbing on many different levels, honestly.

anabelle said...

i am shocked and disturbed that the word "hippopotamus" did not appear once in this review...0/5 stars would not eat here again


just kidding hehehe :)

i love this show especially because i knew absolutely nothing about moon knight. it was very interesting.

Jeff McGinley said...

Thank you for sharing it with me. I was trying to avoid spoilers.

But I believe, even separated by a state border, we both yelled "HIPPOPOTOMUS!!!!!!" the same way when she first appeared.