Is MOON KNIGHT Marvel's BATMAN? || Comic Misconceptions || NerdSync

Scott gives some history of the craziness that is the hero, Moon Knight and leaves you on the question "Is he the Marvel equivalent of Batman?"

Every Wednesday, Comic Misconceptions explores fascinating trivia, crazy stories, and mind-blowing theories about the comic book universe from Marvel, DC, and beyond!

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[danielvine]

You forgot to mention his fighting style.. Moon knight fights really rough. He rather take a punch than block or dodge it. Taskmaster himself mentioned that he would rather not mimic his fighting style as they seem way too crazy. Yes. Moon knight is defiantly crazy.

[MrHitmancheg]

Moonknight would be Marvel's Batman... If Batman practiced wearing other people's faces and had hallucinations about being visited by egyptian gods.

[publican]

To bad moon knight is so underrated. A marvel movie universe with moon knights would be awesome

[Defx]

The best thing about Moon Knight is that he is basically hated by all of the other heroes. They all look down on him because he has no powers, and his main skill is at taking punches, and he is completely insane.  They all treat him with disdain and expect him to fail, and it pisses them off when he gets the best of them, which is often.

[bloodysteel]

I'd say Moon Knight is Batman's... more mentally unstable cousin...

[thesentientsponge]

Now that Disney+ is bringing Moonknight (finally) I had to come back here to the very video that introduced him to me! Thank you NerdSync because of you he became one of my absolute favorite characters!! ❤

[DMR-SK]

People always seem to forget that batman adopted the shadows, he uses stealth, wears black. Moon Knight wears white so you can see him coming, he doesn't give a singular fuck. seriously, that is written into his character that he wears white so you can see him it's another "red suit/brown pants situation" lol.

I love both heroes, but MK is way cooler than batman, when batman isn't being written by frank miller or something.... joker is the best thing to come out of the batman mythos in my opinion anyway... how he still doesn't have an origin story, the mystery gives him an edge I feel!

[ryanhill]

Way way better than Batman. Favorite Moon Knight moment - while with the West Coast Avengers a mind controlling space alien takes over the minds of the avengers and freezes them in place. Moon Knight saves the day because the villain is unable to control his mind because of the many split personalities....

[jimslav]

I'd say Batman is Batman's Batman.

[MrMichaeljay]

Batman?  Moon Knight?  Do some research on the Shadow.  While not a comic book, it certainly gives you the origin of both of these characters (please note, I'm talking about the original Shadow written by Walter B. Gibson and not the later incarnations where the Shadow was given supernatural powers).

[iceplanet]

I would say either Black Panther or Ironman would be a closer comparison. Ironman because of the fact he is rich and develops his own weapons, but he doesn't hide his identity like Batman so not too too close. BP is super intelligent like Bruce and has a similar arsenal and fighting style.

[NerdSyncProductions]

That is a really good point! Red Hood is similar to Batman but he doesn't mind killing and he's crazier. This is exactly how I described Moon Knight! The only thing I would say is that Red Hood isn't rich and doesn't use "Red Hood" themed weapons I guess. So maybe Moon Knight is an amalgamation of Batman and Red Hood? Either way, really good observations!

[chubbubdreamer]

I'm guessing Moon Knight is more akin to Azreal than Batman?

[scottbaseler]

If anyone has read The Shadow magazine stories you would realize that Moon Knight can be best compared to The Shadow, not Batman.
You have a former soldier of fortune who dies and is reborn using an assumed identity of a millionaire playbky. Both travel incognito in a taxi, both have a series of agents and informants and both utilize a non-standard aircraft (autogyro and Moon Copter).
Also, Moon Knight had the Moon Copter and glider cape in the 1970's. More than ten years before Batman got his Batwing and glider cape.
I highly recommend getting the Moon Knight Epic Collections or the out-of-print Essential Moon Knight Vols.1-3

[classicsteam]

I watched this even though you told me not to. I'm a rebel like that.

[GroinFaceGroin]

I'm wondering if Moon Knight can out crazy Deadpool. There, I said it!

[BasicYutuber]

I barely know anything about comics nor the heroes and story that reside within them, but I get so interested to hear about them and learn. Usually, I'll find pretty bland and long videos. But this one was different, engaging and fun. 

[DavidBerck]

I just happened across this video and think it's very well done, covering a lot of ground. BUT (you knew that was coming, right?), I have one major issue. There's no mention of Werewolf by Night.

Early in the history of Moon Knight as hero, he was bitten by Jack Russel who was wolfed out, which is where they explained his enhanced strength and how it ebbed and flowed with the moon's cycle. Early on in the original Moon Knight series, Marc Spector even mentions that it feels like he's not as strong as he used to be and there was speculation that the bite was, in essence, wearing off.

In a way, it's too bad the video was done before the newest series began. Warren Ellis is doing an awesome job, especially in bringing back a sort of detective element to the series.It's too bad he's already leaving the series, but he's set up some interesting plot points as to Marc Spector's "mental illness". I can't wait to see what Brian Wood does with this as he picks up in issue #7. Hopefully, he doesn't just let that part drop.

****AvX SPOILER COMING***

All that being said, I think my favorite Moon Knight moment, so far, happened during Avengers vs. X-Men when he purposefully exposed himself to a beat down so his costume would rip and he could trick Rogue into touching his skin, causing his psychosis to transfer. Obviously, I'm leaving out what ended up happening, but it was so cool!

[sobr]

Great video, glad I found it

The "is Moon Knight Marvel's copy of Batman" questions are very complicated when you get into the history of the books. The two definitely share not only obvious similarities but also overall tones and often times looks ... it kind of gets into 'the Chicken or the Egg' territory when you start lining up the comics though

A ton of what most people probably think of regarding Batman now comes from the 80s-90s stuff; the stuff largely written by Doug Moench (who was writing Batman and Detective Comics between 1983–1986 & again from 1992–1998) - that is already a gigantic chunk of what people likely think of when they think back to their historical images of the non-Campy Batman comics

Some of you might already know that Moench just happens to be the guy who created Moon Knight in 1975 while writing Werewolf by Night. He didn't just create him either though, he also wrote most all of the Moon Knight (solo, at least) appearances until 1983 (including the fantastic Hulk Mag stuff, Marvel Spotlight, the 1st Series up til issue 26 when it became a revolving job, etc)

Now the second Moon Knight series was from Chuck Dixon, who would continue on that title from its 1989 start until issue 24 in 1991. After that he went off to do... you guessed it, Batman books. (For those of you following, yes, that means the two main Moon Knight writers were working on Batman Comics in the 1990s when Batman was becoming what we recognize today.)

Moon Knight really does resemble Batman, but more a combination of the very dark, Pulp-like original Batman from 1940 and the very odd, sci-fi like detective Batman of the mid-late 1950s. Most all of that Batman was gone by the 1960s when the character became very Campy both in comics and the TV show. After the Batman show ended, sales of the book were bad enough they started to bounce around many style ideas but it wasn't really until the late 80s/early 90s when the character would more become the Batman we all know today. Moench and artist Bill Sienkiewicz came in during the 1970s and made Moon Knight what Batman should have become; a Batman that would kind of eventually show up but not for many more years.

Meanwhile, the very young Sienkiewicz was heavily influenced by the work of Neal Adams who, of course, was the Batman artist of the early 1970s when they were attempting to figure out what to do with the comic after the Campy 60s run. This who copied who game between the two characters is quite complex!

I see it as Moon Knight is a copy of what Batman once started down the path to be, but never got there. At the same time, the Batman we know today is largely a copy of the Moon Knight who came along to do properly what Batman didn't (and DC went as far as to bring in the two main Moon Knight writers to eventually help pull it off)

All of that said, a good chunk of Moon Knight comes from both The Shadow and the Spectre (and I dont say that just because they named him Marc Spector... or because they wear the same hood/cape... or because they both died only to be brought back by a spirit who tells them to seek vengeance...) In fact, if a person were to combine Shadow and the first roughly 15 years of both Batman and the Spectre into one hero, you would have MK (...Moon Knight is so nuts, would be kind of cool if eventually it was revealed that he was such a big fan of those comics when he was young that he was destined to introduce their traits into his life somehow.)

[TheBlackCube]

Though I love both Batman and Moon Knight, MK is a big kick to the balls to Bats. MK wears all white so his foes can see him coming while Batman hides in the shadows like a little bitch. It's hilarious to me!