21 "Moon Knight" Details From Episode 1 That Are Small, Smart, And You Might've Missed Them The First Time Around
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🚨 Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Moon Knight Episode 1 on Disney+! 🚨
Hi, hello, and welcome back to these chaotic Marvel posts where I try to break down every detail or cool Easter egg. So, here are all the details I noticed in Moon Knight Episode 1, "The Goldfish Problem":
If you're new to these posts, welcome, and I apologize for all of my nerdy yelling! If you're returning after WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, What If...?, AND Hawkeye, thanks so much for coming back!
1.First, Moon Knight kicks off with Bob Dylan's song "Every Grain of Sand." This is one of Dylan's most spiritual songs from 1981, and it came out after he became a born again Christian. The lyrics allude to faith and spirituality, so it makes perfect sense that it would play when we first meet Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), who is very faithful.
2.Also, in the comics, Marc Spector dies in the desert and is resurrected by the moon god Khonshu (more on him later), so Bob Dylan's faithful lyrics also relate to Marc's Marvel comics journey and how he became Moon Knight, aka a devout servant of Khonshu.
3.When we first meet Gus (Steven's one-fin wonder goldfish), you can see that Steven's decorated the tank with a bunch of Egyptian artifacts. You can spot a pyramid, a boat, and more. A lot of these artifacts relate to the afterlife, which connects to Marc Spector and how he died before being resurrected by Khonshu.
4.There are a lot of details that allude to Marc Spector's death in literally the first five minutes of this show. When Steven is talking to a young girl at the museum and mentions how Egyptians believed in being judged in the underworld, the girl asks Steven if it bothered him that he didn't pass the underworld's test. At this point, Steven also has no idea he's living alongside Marc.
5.Steven's boss at the museum is likely named after the comic book character Donna Kraft. First appearing in Mark Spector: Moon Knight Issue #39 from 1992, Donna was Marc's publicist at SpectorCorp, which is a company that was formed by Steven Grant to fund his Moon Knight operations.
6.When Steven leaves the museum after work, you can spot a rack of postcards that look similar to the postcard Steven says he got from his mom. My theory is that Marc is actually sending these cards to Steven and just saying they're from his mom.
7.Steven's best friend appears to be a guy who is a human statue. While he doesn't talk back to Steven, he seemingly resembles Bertrand Crawley from the Moon Knight comics. In the comics, Crawley is a homeless man who lives on the streets of NYC and often acts as an informant for Marc Spector.
8.Also, Steven's BFF being a "statue" is a subtle nod to the Moon Knight comics, where Marc Spector communicates with Khonshu through a statue. Also, Marc originally dies and then awakens at the foot of Khonshu's statue.
9.Moon Knight uses beautiful cinematography to depict and allude to Marc and Steven's dissociative identity disorder, aka DID. A lot of mirror imagery is used to showcase Marc's two personalities, like when Steven first walks up to the museum and when he walks away from the human statue. The mirror imagery shows that there are "two sides" to Marc's life.
10.When Steven wakes up and is super confused about where he is and what is happening, he officially meets Arthur Harrow. In the comics, Arthur is a doctor who was up for a Nobel Prize for his work with pain theory, but it turned out Arthur was actually involved with horrible experiments at Auschwitz, and he attempted to continue them. He made his first appearance in Moon Knight Issue #2 in 1985.
11.In fact, Arthur's comic book history connects back to the opening scene of Moon Knight. In the comics, Dr. Harrow works with pain theory, so it makes sense that in the show Arthur walks with glass in his shoes and tries not to feel any pain.
12.As Steven is observing Arthur's ritual, Arthur mentions the Egyptian goddess Ammit, who he is serving. Ammit was also called "Devourer of the Dead," "Eater of Hearts," and "Great of Death" and was linked to the scales of justice, an afterlife belief, hence Arthur's tattoo. If a person's heart was found not to be pure, they were said to be devoured by Ammit, essentially dying a second time.
13.Knowing about Ammit now makes Steven's fact about Egyptian afterlife and embalming more relevant because he talks about how Egyptians took every major organ out of a body, except the heart.
14.When Steven is getting ready for his date, you can see that he goes from looking into a single mirror to three mirrors, which I'm assuming is a great nod to Steven, Marc, and Khonshu all inhabiting Marc's subconscious. I'll probably be yelling about how brilliant the cinematography is in Moon Knight all season, so just a fair warning.
15.When Steven is going through Marc's phone, you can see a ton of missed calls from Layla (May Calamawy) and one from "Duchamp." In the comics, Jean-Paul Duchamp is a French soldier who befriends Marc, and the two become inseparable. Duchamp is also on the mission in Egypt that ultimately got Marc killed.
16.When Steven flees his apartment, this is another time where mirrors are used to symbolize Steven, Marc, and Khonshu cohabitating. We can see three images of Steven before the camera zooms in and we see only two. While Marc serves Khonshu, he and Steven are obviously much closer.
17.Our first glimpse at Khonshu is honestly so perfect, and he looks exactly like he does in the Moon Knight comics. Khonshu is the Egyptian "God of the Moon," and in the comics he resurrects Marc after he dies. Then, Marc becomes his "avatar" on Earth as Moon Knight protects the people of the night. He made his first Marvel comics appearance in Moon Knight Issue #1 in 1980.
18.Okay, I swear this is the last cool mirror reference I'll point out in this episode, but when Steven enters the museum here, you can see that his reflection in the glass is likely a nod to Steven and Marc sharing one body.
19.When Arthur confronts Steven at the museum, you can see that he's near an Ammit hieroglyph. Ammit was said to have the head of a crocodile and her body was half lion and hippo. Ammit also played a big role in the 2016 Moon Knight comics by Jeff Lemire, Greg Smallwood, and Jordie Bellaire.
20.When Arthur tells Steven that Ammit was betrayed by her own "avatars," Steven cracks a joke about James Cameron's Avatar from 2009. Avatar and Avengers: Endgame kept trading back and forth which film had the biggest global box office film of all time.
21.And finally, when Steven comes face-to-face with Marc, you can see hieroglyphs on the walls in the bathroom. If you look closely, the one over Steven's shoulder appears to resemble Khonshu.
