With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in theaters, all eyes are on the Multiverse (and how it could potentially affect the Avengers going forward). It’s been a successful avenue of storytelling, having also benefited the Disney+ series show Loki, and hit film Spider-Man: No Way Home. However, there’s another recent project that didn't actually go anywhere near the concept: Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight.
The story follows Steven Grant as he comes to realize that not only does he have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but he also happens to be possessed by an Egyptian Moon God thanks to his alter ego, Marc Spector. One of the most interesting aspects of Moon Knight for many is how the show is so disconnected from the wider MCU and anything to do with connective tissue like the Avengers.
But was it always like this? Did the story ever venture into alternate realities or consider bringing Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk in for a cameo? The Direct was able to sit down with the show’s head writer to find out.
Avoiding the Multiverse… and Avengers Too
In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Russ Milheim, Moon Knight head writer and executive producer Jeremy Slater talked about avoiding popular MCU storytelling tools like the Multiverse, Blip, or even the Avengers themselves.
Slater mentioned how “there were certain territories and topics where we were told early on” to steer clear of, including topics like “The Blip” and the “Multiverse:”
"There were certain territories and topics where we were told early on, ‘Let’s steer clear,’ because Marvel’s always very conscious about repeating themselves. They want to always be sort of stretching and finding new corners of the universe to explore. So it was like, let's stay away from The Blip, because The Blip is obviously being discussed in depth in WandaVision, in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in Hawkeye. Let's sort of avoid that aspect. Let’s stay away from [the] Multiverse because of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. There’s just those different areas where they were like... it feels like the MCU is going really heavy on certain ideas and concepts over here, so we need to keep our little corner very separate than that, so it doesn’t start to feel like everything is a Multiverse story."
No Multiverse for Moon Knight
It’s not all that surprising to hear how the Multiverse was never considered. After all, Marc’s story on the graphic page is often fairly contained around his own broken psyche and the talking bird skeleton residing there.
If the project had actually tried to touch on alternate realities, they could have maybe fused that together with the character’s inability to tell what’s real and what’s not—a storytelling note explored more heavily in the comics. Since dreams show people their Multiversal selves, Moon Knight would have had an easy jumping-off point.
One of the most organic MCU connections that Moon Knight could have had would have been to link itself to Thor: Love and Thunder, especially since the fourth Thor's main villain is on a crusade against all Gods. There could have even been a more overt reference to Kang and his Egyptian Pharaoh alias, Rama-Tut.
Sadly, while both of those were in the running at one point and time, they were ultimately cut. Maybe next time fans see Marc Spector, there might be a little more connective MCU tissue joining him.
Moon Knight is now streaming.
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