In the latest issue of Daredevil, Knull revealed two traits present in all who have been able to resist his control, pointing to a future MCU hero.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil #27, by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Mike Hawthorne, Adriano Di Benedetto, Marcio Menyz & VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Two separate storylines have tested the mettle of Marvel’s greatest heroes in different ways recently. In Avengers, the Phoenix Force is looking for a new host and has her sights set on Black Panther as a worthy avatar. Meanwhile, the major Marvel crossover, King in Black has seen Knull attack Earth, while looking for the best host to help him finally conquer the planet.
Interestingly, the one hero that refused to help fight Phoenix in Avengers might be the man most capable of conquering Knull if the symbiote god tried to come after him. Moon Knight already helped bring down Khonshu before refusing to fight Phoenix, but Daredevil #27 hints that he might be uniquely qualified to stop Knull and save the Earth.
The hints to this came in Knull’s battle to try to take over Daredevil. While Matt was fighting with all his might, Knull kept up an inner monologue, taunting Matt and letting him know that there was little chance he could stop the symbiote god from taking control. Knull mentioned that beings from across the universe tried to resist Knull, and they all failed. Knull mentioned the few that almost beat him, fighting his control, used “madness or false faith.”
One Marvel hero fits the description of a man with both madness and faith perfectly: Moon Knight. When Marc Spector first became Moon Knight, he was a mercenary who was at death’s door and found the moon god, Khonshu, who saved him. All Spector had to do was give himself over to Khonshu. He gained powers from the moon and become an avatar to the moon god. With the “false faith” and worship to a god only Spector saw for many years, he suffered a loss of sanity and a descent into madness.
With his personality split between Marc Spector and Moon Knight, he soon developed other personalities. While they seemed perfect for him to slip into whatever realm of society he needed to get things done, it also caused him to suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. With identities like the mercenary Marc Spector, millionaire Steven Grant, and cab driver Jake Lockley, as well as the almost psychotic Moon Knight, his slip into madness almost killed him more than once.
This was best shown in the recent Avengers arc “The Age of Khonshu” by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, Jason Keith & VC’s Cory Petit, which ran from Avengers #33-37 and demonstrated how powerful the real Khonshu is. Moon Knight stole the powers of several Avengers to use against Mephisto, and succeeded in defeating the demon using Thor’s hammer. The fact that Moon Knight, and Khonshu, took the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to the limit, thanks largely to Moon Knight’s faith and madness, showed how powerful the Fist of Khonshu can be. When he took over the Phoenix Force and used it to defeat Khonshu in battle, he proved what he was truly capable of achieving. If the key to stopping Knull really is madness and fath, then Moon Knight may very well be Marvel’s best symbiote fighter.
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