Moon Knight is a unique superhero with many awesome powers – but also with many odd problems and setbacks that make him such a layered, controversial character. One of those problems is Marc Spector’s mental issues. Namely, his personality disorder. So, how many personalities does Moon Knight have in the MCU and the comics?
Moon Knight had over ten different personalities in the comics, most of them appearing rarely. He has four personalities that appear fairly regularly: Marc Spector (his real name), Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, and the Fist of Khonshu, aka Moon Knight.
Every personality of Moon Knight is very different from the other. While one is focused on heroism, and another is very violent, the third is highly religious or even female. Let’s dig deep to understand what caused Marc’s dissociative identity disorder and list all the different personalities he has presented so far.
Why Does Moon Knight Have Different Personalities?
Marc Spector was a mercenary before becoming Moon Knight. After a job went wrong, Marc had been resurrected by Khonshu, an Egyptian lunar god under whose statue Spector had fallen.
Khonshu saved Marc, giving him some of his powers and using his body as a host for his spirit. Known as the Fist of Khonshu, it was the first step towards Spector’s personality disorder.
Having two voices inside his head and having superpowers after being resurrected caused Marc to start dissociating even more, developing two more personalities first – Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. Every personality would emerge in a specific situation, and later, more personas emerged.
Long story short, Marc Spector didn’t have the personality disorder before the Fist of Khonshu came into his life. Pairing that with previous trauma caused Spector to lose sanity, developing the disorder.
What Disorder Does Moon Knight Have?
Moon Knight has dissociative identity disorder or DID. It is a serious mental health condition where a person develops multiple personalities, often completely unaware that they exist.
Every personality emerges in distinct situations, taking control of the person’s actions and behavior, after which delusions and memory loss usually occur – the person doesn’t remember what they’ve done while the other personality was in control. DID can also cause serious depression and anxiety, which is why it should be treated carefully.
People with DID can even experience chemical reactions within their bodies as their identities switch. For instance, if one of the personalities is a bodybuilder, the person can feel an overwhelming surge of adrenaline while that particular personality is in control, allowing them to feel stronger and achieve more difficult physical traits.
The most famous character with DID was Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchco*ck’s classic movie, Psycho. Bates developed the “Mother” personality after his real mother died – well, after he killed her and her lover due to unhealthy jealousy of their relationship.
Moon Knight suffers from the same disorder but seems as if he’s aware of his personality changing, and he has more control of his actions while they change because Moon Knight doesn’t suffer from memory loss after.
Now that we know the what’s and why’s, let’s see all the different personalities Moon Knight had developed.
List Of Moon Knight’s Personalities In Comics
As I mentioned, Moon Knight most commonly switches between four main personalities – more recently, five, as the Mr. Knight personality emerged. However, there have been over ten different identities he had presented. Here’s a list of every personality he ever presented.
Marc Spector
Moon knight’s real name is Marc Spector. Before becoming Moon Knight, Spector was a mercenary with a background as a professional boxer, US marine, and CIA operative. Despite being a mercenary, he was never evil or amoral – he had ethics and conscience, doing what he does for the money but never going over the top and hurting innocent people.
That conscience ultimately led to a feud with his partner mercenary, Raoul Bushman, who wanted to kill a doctor and his young daughter to steal large amounts of gold. Spector fought him and ended up dead, which led to Khonshu resurrecting Marc and giving him the superpowers, turning him into Moon Knight.
Steven Grant
Steven Grant was one of the first identities we saw Marc develop after returning to the United States as Moon Knight. As Grant, Moon Knight was an incredibly intelligent businessman who turned Spector’s small life savings into a huge fortune on Wall Street.
The newfound wealth funds Moon Knight’s vigilante work, be it for gathering intel, or developing high-tech equipment to help him fight crime. Unlike Spector, Steven Grant is often seen in suits and hanging out with the elite.
Jake Lockley
The third identity Moon Knight uses is Jake Lockley. If Marc Spector is combat-smart, and Steven Grant is business-smart, Jake Lockley is the street-smart personality of Moon Knight.
Lockley is a cab driver who hangs out with the “underground,” having informants all over the city to gather valuable intel for Moon Knight about crimes, gangs, underground jobs and deals, and much more.
Grant has the resources and influence with his connections among the elite, but sometimes, the most valuable intel comes from those near the bottom of the crime chain – where Jake Lockley steps in.
Moon Knight (Fist of Khonshu)
Yes, Moon Knight is a completely separate identity from Spector, Grant, or Lockley. He uses their skills, influence, and intel but operates as his own personality. Moon Knight wears an all-white suit and packs a mighty punch. He also has tons of weaponry and equipment, using it to be a superhero/vigilante operating at night.
This identity is often considered Marvel’s equivalent to Batman, using wealth and combat skills to fight crime, even if it sometimes makes Moon Knight himself look like the bad guy.
That’s amplified even more because, unlike Batman, Moon Knight doesn’t hide in the shadows – he wants his enemies to see him coming, knowing there’s nothing they can do to avoid the vengeance coming their way. Another thing separating him from Batman is the Fist of Khonshu superpowers that depend on the lunar cycle.
One might say it’s the “craziest” personality that Marc Spector developed, but it’s also the one that does most of the dirty work.
Mr. Knight
Mr. Knight is the fifth identity of Moon Knight, but it wasn’t around until recently. Mr. Knight appeared in 2014 for the first time. I’d say Mr. Knight is somewhat of a combination between the Steven Grant and Moon Knight identities.
Again, his costume is all-white, but instead of a cloak, Mr. Knight wears a tailored white suit with white shoes, a white necktie, and a white shirt to go along with white gloves and mask. The gentleman-like appearance is probably why he got the prefix “Mr.”
Mr. Knight is aware of his disorder, and he’s the personality that talks to a psychiatrist while also doing superhero work. He doesn’t only work on things he finds relevant but also talks to civilians who ask for his protection.
Spider-Man/Wolverine/Captain America
In Moon Knight Vol. 6 #1, Moon Knight is enjoying a new TV show made about himself until a call disrupts him. It turns out, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America were calling him to have him check out some criminal activity happening at the dock in Los Angeles.
After their conversation with Moon Knight, he goes to the docks to find Mr. Hyde selling the body parts of a dead Ultron. A Fight ensues, and Moon Knight escapes with Ultron’s head, only to find out that the three heroes never contacted him – it was all in his head. He was actually talking to himself, interpreting Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America.
While these personalities aren’t recurring as the before-mentioned five, they still appear as Moon Knight’s separate identities.
Yitzak Topol
Yitzak Topol didn’t appear (yet) in the Earth-616 iteration of Moon Knight. However, on Earth-61615, Topol is a regular identity that Moon Knight has.
Marc Spector’s father was a strict but loving rabbi on this Earth. Yitzak Topol emerged as a very religious personality stemming from Spector’s memories of his childhood and his father.
Maya Burr
Maya Burr is also a Moon Knight personality from Earth-61615 and one of the only female personalities he had ever developed. She’s young, careful, attentive, and frequently serves as an inner voice for Marc that motivates him to do the right thing.
The source of this personality is the women from Marc’s life, including his mother, his lover Marlene Alraune, and deceased girlfriend Lisa Shaw. Maya Burr is the only identity that Marc never displays publicly – it remains a voice inside his head.
Earth-101 Personalities
Finally, Moon Knight versions from different universes sometimes portrayed completely different personalities or new personalities. The most interesting ones were displayed on Earth-101, where even the personalities we knew were completely different.
For instance, Steven Grant is not a millionaire, but an alcoholic, who has PTSD as a Navy veteran. Jake Lockley is a boxing practitioner, while John Hanson – a new identity – is an Uber driver personality.
Yitzak Topol appears, too, remaining a religious identity, while Ian Waller emerges as a junk food-lover who rarely does anything but watch movies and live like a couch potato.
There’s also Buddy Keene, an outgoing womanizer who enjoys the nightlife, while the Luna Rose personality replaces Maya Burr as Marc’s feminine personality. The difference is that Luna Rose expresses externally instead of remaining a voice inside Marc’s head.
Moon Knight’s Personalities In MCU
While we can’t know for certain what identities will appear in the MCU version of Moon Knight or how many of them will be presented, there are some things we already know.
First of all, the trailer revealed that we’d see Steven Grant – completely unaware of his real identity, Marc Spector. He’ll learn that his real name is Marc through a phone call.
Also, we’ve seen the spirit of Khonshu appearing and taking over Steven (or Marc), revealing the third identity – Moon Knight, the all-white vigilante hero himself.
To add to it, it seems that other personalities might appear as well, as the synopsis for the show clearly states, “multiple identities who live inside him.” Here’s what the synopsis says:
“Get a first look at “Moon Knight,” a new globetrotting action-adventure series featuring a complex vigilante who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. The multiple identities who live inside him find themselves thrust into a deadly war of the gods against the backdrop of modern and ancient Egypt. (…).”
Then again, “multiple” can also mean only two, being Steven Grant and Marc Spector, but I firmly believe we’ll at least get to see Jake Lockley as well, seeing that he’s an integral part of Moon Knight in the comics.
Only time will tell, as the series premieres on March 30, 2022, on Disney+.
