Marc Spector/Moon Knight

Subject Facts

Full Name: Marc Spector
Codename: Moon Knight
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Archetype: Neutral
Aliases: Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, Cowled Avenger, Crescent Crusader, Fist of Vengeance, Fist of Khonshu, Mr. Knight
Marital Status: Married
Affiliation: Khonshu, Secret Avengers, Marvel Knights, Heroes for Hire

Subject Attributes

Superhuman Abilities: N/A

Standard Abilities:
    Hand to Hand Combat: Spector is a former heavyweight boxing champion who underwent intense training as a commando, intelligence operative and mercenary. He is skilled in armed and unarmed combat with training in Boxing, Judo, Krav Maga, Silat, Dambe, Savate, Escrima, Karate, Muay Thai and Kung Fu; his knowledge is extensive enough that it has been shown that he can use pressure points against his opponents, striking nerve clusters to stun or even instantly incapacitate. On more than one occasion without powers he has fought the Punisher to a stand still.

    Acrobat: Marc is an Olympic-level acrobat and gymnast.

    Strategist: As a U.S. Marine Marc had not only his body turned into a weapon, but his mind as well. His thought process was sharpened and focused so that he can stay several steps ahead of a target.

    Expert Pilot: He is an excellent pilot and aviator due to his years as a U.S. Marine and a mercenary. He has thousands of hours of flight time and is a master at defensive maneuvers.

    Expert Detective: Spector is a good detective/private investigator with broad skills, knowledge and understanding of the criminal underworld. He also has a well catered knowledge of  the streets of New York due to being a cab driver in the alias of Jake Lockley.

    Interrogation Expert: Both his time serving in the military and as a mercenary Spector has learned a host of enhanced interrogation techniques that he expertly deploys when necessary.

    Master Marksman: Marc is capable of hurling all types of projectiles with great aim and pin point accuracy as well as an excellent sharpshooter/marksman. He is able to slice a bullet in half with a crescent disc.

    Weapons Master: Spector is adept with nearly every weapon ever invented ranging from many types swords, combat knives, batons, chains, brass knuckles, thrown projectiles such as shuriken, longbows, bolos, boomerangs to use of all types of firearms such as pistols, sniper rifles, automatic assault rifles, submachine guns, machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank bazooka, and even electronic remote firing stations such as 20/30mm anti-aircraft full auto chain guns, Gatling cannons, mechanized mortars, missile launchers etc.

    Multilingual: In addition to English, Spector is fluent in Arabic and has demonstrated his proficiency in both the Egyptian and Sudanese dialects of it.

    Pain Resistance: Insanity, torture, spiritually gifted, or simply numb from all the years of damage to his body, Moon Knight has an incredibly strong, nigh inhuman, threshold for pain.

    Telepathic Resistance: Spector's fractured mind from Dissociative Identity Disorder, Schizophrenia, and other mental illness have afforded Moon Knight a sort of shield against some telepathic assaults like mind control or possession.

Paraphernalia:
Moon Knight Suit: The white suit and cowl Marv wears are all lined with Adamantium making the suit highly durable and nearly indestructible. 
Glider Cloak: To aid in his daring descents Moon Knight can spread his cloak and help steer and slow his falls. Being that the cape must be flexible to do this it is not armored like the rest of his costume.
Crescent Dart Launchers: The wrist gauntlets have a built in launcher to fire crescent darts farther than Moon Knight can otherwise throw.
Flashlight: Also built into the wrist gauntlets, helps with seeing at (k)night.
Crescent Cable: A line/grapple.


Subject Weaknesses:
Fractured Psyche: It is anyone's bet whether the god that Moon Knight claims to serve really exists. Throughout his career as a costumed vigilante Marc has exhibited a number of different personalities and they are known to pop up randomly or otherwise birthed through some trauma. While he at one time seemed to be cured of this dissociative identity disorder, Marc has relapsed into slipping in and out of different personalities and once again believes he serves under the Egyptian god of vengeance, Khonshu.

Unstable: Along with his mentality, Marc's actions are highly unstable as well. He can be a calm and collected individual or one quick to anger and even quicker to respond in violence. His patience runs short often with his mouth quick to throw insults and his arms quicker to throw punches.

Subject History

Marc grew up on the poor side of Chicago where his father Elias, a rabbi who as a child had managed to escape Nazi persecution, was the target of discrimination; Marc couldn't understand why his father would never fight back against his attackers. His father believed that character was stronger and meant more than one's ability to give in to the hate of others, though that was not something Marc could quite grasp and even as an adult while he commends those like his father he knows it isn't the way he works.

By pure chance Marc discovered that a family friend was in reality a Nazi deserter and secretly a serial killer of Jews named Ernst. The young boy's fighting instinct kicked off for the first time when he fended off against Perlman to escape his grasp. It was this event that triggered Marc's DID and led to his father admitting him to the Putnam Psychiatric Hospital, and thus it was here that Marc had his first brush with the Egyptian deity Khonshu.

Marc Spector would later join the Marines, running away from the death of his father and the call of Khonshu alike, hoping to find some sort of stability that he badly needed. After three years and two tours of Iraq, Marc's psychiatric past was discovered and he was discharged. Rebounding to the CIA Marc would meet his brother Randall Spector, who ultimately proved to be crooked and murdered Marc's girlfriend at the time, further cementing Marc's backstory as tragic. Marc retaliated against his own brother by blowing him up with a grenade.

Returning to a more normal life Marc soon got himself involved in illegal fights where he would meet close friend "Frenchie" Duchamp, a friendship that would put the two on path to become mercenaries.

Spector and Frenchie took on a job in Egypt for Raul Bushman. Whereas Spector worked for the money, Bushman seemed to simply revel in plunder and killing.  When Bushman killed an archaeologist to find a secret pharaoh's tomb, Spector tried fighting him off for the sake of protect the archaeologist's daughter, Marlene. Furious, Bushman left Marc for dead, killing everyone in the place except for Marlene, Frenchie and a villager willing to tell him the secrets of the tomb. Marc gathered and dragged himself after Bushman, reaching the tomb right before suddenly collapsing. His dying bodied laid in the shadow of an idol of Khonshu, his spirit encountering the god as a deal for saving his life in exchange for service to the Egyptian god was made. Marc survived and no long being at the brink of death he wrote the encounter off as a hallucination, Bushman however had escaped by then.

Having finally found a purpose in life, Spector applied himself fully. He, Frenchie, and Marlene (now his lover) moved to New York, taking the idol along. With their help he developed the costume, equipment, and persona of Moon Knight. Spector's first major job as Moon Knight came when the Committee hired him to capture a werewolf named Jack Russell. He succeeded, in large part thanks to the silver cesti (essentially ancient boxing gloves) he was equipped with. However, he learned that the Committee planned to turn Russell's sister into another werewolf and use them both as weapons. He did the honorable thing and switched sides; Spector and Russell shut down the Committee.

Spector joined the West Coast Avengers for a time after rescuing some of their members who had been time-shifted to Pharaonic Egypt. Hawkeye got help from Khonshu, in exchange for designing Moon Knight's new weaponry. Khonshu alerted Spector in the present day, who helped the Avengers return home safely. While an Avenger, Spector for a time became romantically involved with Tigra, but he never became a true team player. After a while, there was a controversy amongst the team upon the discovery that Hawkeye's wife Mockingbird had allowed the Phantom Rider to die while cast away in time. Spector, Tigra, and Mockingbird left the team as a splinter group.

Back in New York, Marc went back to working on his own as well as reuniting with Marlene. Marc also found out his brother Randall had survived and was attempting to become Khonshu's new servant. Randall (as Shadowknight) succeeded in usurping Spector's powers temporarily. With the Punisher's help, Spector was able to defeat Shadowknight.With the power levels of his foes steadily increasing, Spector continually upgraded his own equipment. He retooled his Kevlar armor and steel crescent darts with Adamantium, and his public persona was overhauled with a firm named Spectorcorp.

The Civil War mostly passed him by, although Captain America warned him to stay out of the entire ordeal because he thought Spector belonged in a straitjacket, and Tony Stark approached him shortly before the final battle in the Superhuman Registration Act conflict, knowing that Captain America had contacted him and requested that Spector tell him if he heard from Steve again.

Moon Knight had to fake his own death when Osborn sent his Thunderbolts to kill him. After that, he fled to Mexico using the name Jake Lockley for a while. He eventually met up with the Punisher and the Zapata Brothers to help save Carmen Alcantara from her father's drug cartel.

It was some time after this that Moon Knight would make yet another return to New York. However, this time he was dedicated to being a hero and putting his ultra-violent past behind him; that was easier said than done with the tiny Khonshu following him around and nudging him to kill again. While trying to walk the path of good, he made a bold return by stopping a bank robbery without killing any of the robbers. Much to Norman Osborn's disdain, Moon Knight was now a hero and not a murderous vigilante, so he summoned the Hood and Profile to take care of him. The Hood supernaturally revived Bushman and recruited him as part of his force to combat Moon Knight. When investigating a warehouse at the docks, Moon Knight was ambushed and shot by Bushman. The two engaged in a violent fight and Bushman ended up impaled by a machine gun. As Moon Knight was about to carve off Bushman's face once more, a vision of Khonshu appeared, yelling at Moon Knight to obey him. Bushman then pleaded for Moon Knight not to take his face off and Moon Knight reluctantly did not.

After Norman Osborn's defeat in the Siege of Asgard, Steve Rogers was appointed as his replacement. He reorganized the Avengers, recruiting Moon Knight to be on his team of Secret Avengers. Their first mission sent the team to Mars. Later on,  Moon Knight was part of a team that infiltrated a Secret Empire undercity beneath Cincinnati. Some of his teammates, such as Beast, unfairly did not trust Spector due to his mental illness.

Spector moved to Los Angeles to work as a television producer. Marc Spector was at a party celebrating the success of his new show, "the Legend of Khonshu", which he based on his own past when his celebration was interrupted by a call. He went outside to meet Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America. Cap informed Spector that criminals had been migrating to Los Angeles, and as Marc now operated there he wanted Spector to figure out why. He reminded Marc that as an Avenger he never had to work alone.

Tracking criminals  at the behest of Cap, Wolverine, and Spider-Man, Marc spied on the henchmen at the docks where they were to make their pick up. Marc learned the mysterious deal is headed by Mr. Hyde and attacked when the two henchmen are murdered for not paying Hyde. He discovered the villain is selling an Ultron head and fled the area with the dangerous and valuable piece of hardware. Later, Moon Knight took the Ultron head back to Captain America, Wolverine, and Spider-Man to discuss the situation. However, he was in fact completely alone, and the three Avengers were mere hallucinations.

Dressed as Spider-Man, and thinking that he was in fact Spider-Man, Marc confronted the criminal Snapdragon at a strip club she operated. Partway through the fight, his Wolverine personality took over. He was defeated, but saved by Echo, who was undercover there. She explained that she had briefly been an Avenger and they had mutual friends. He later asked her out on a date at Pink's Hotdogs to make up for blowing her cover. Spector had hired Buck Lime, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, to assist him, having tested him by pretending to be Bullseye.  Buck confirmed the authenticity of the Ultron's head and encouraged him to give it to the Avengers; at the same time, the new kingpin of L.A. ordered Snapdragon to kill Moon Knight. For that, Snapdragon hired the team Night Shift.

Night Shift attacked Moon Knight and Echo on their date. The police tried to arrest them, and at the suggestion of his Cap persona he initially surrendered. When a handful of officers tried to unmask him he fought back and escaped.

Whilst out defeating criminals, Moon Knight and Echo were ambushed by Nefaria. They tried to flee with little success. Nefaria asked his daughter, Madame Masque, for assistance. She traced the Vibranium in Echo's staff and found Buck and Moon Knight's hideout. She retrieved the Ultron head. Together, Buck and Moon Knight defeated Masque and reclaimed the head. During the fight, Moon Knight manifested another personality, this one based on Echo. When L.A.P.D. showed up to arrest Count Nefaria, he attacked their station. Moon Knight followed him but was defeated. This lead Nefaria into a trap, as Spector had called the Avengers. Thor knocked out Nefaria and he was taken into custody. The Ultron head was given to Tony Stark, who made quite an impression on Marc. Moon Knight manifested a new Iron Man personality. Three months later, "Legend of Khonshu" was cancelled, and Moon Knight abandoned L.A. for New York.

With laundered old money, Marc paid himself his return to New York and new technological equipment. He developed a new "Mister Knight" persona with which he started working along with NYPD Detective Flint in numerous different cases, while with his Moon Knight persona he continued his normal vigilante activities. He was also told by a psychologist that he didn't suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder, but his mind had been "colonized" by Khonshu, with each of Khonshu's four aspects taking on one of the three personalities he has at a time or his more psychotic moments. The apparent multiple personalities were his brain's way of making sense of what was happening to him.

After this series of events, Khonshu seemingly sent Marc and his allies to an illusory mental hospital designed to wear away the last of Marc's mind, this way freeing his body for Khonshu to inhabit and use to enter our world. But in reality, it was all an imaginary scenario used to cure Marc of his insanity. In it, Marc had a confrontation with his alternate personas and realized that, to become whole again, he couldn't just ignore them, but had to embrace them instead. After returning to the hospital, he crushed an illusory Khonshu's head and thus reconciled his illness, gaining control over his his other personalities once and for all.

Marc reappropriated Khonshu and resumed his normal life as well as his Moon Knight persona, but, unbeknownst to him, Sun King (the avatar of Amon Ra) and Bushman had joined efforts and were planning to kill him. To accomplish this, they went to Marlene's house to use her as leverage, but ended up discovering she and Marc had a daughter together named Diatrice. They forced Marlene to get Marc to her house, where they revealed Diatrice's existence. After a fight, the villains escaped with Marlene. After taking Diatrice to safety, Marc was contacted by the villains and forced to follow them to their base of operations, Isla Ra.

Once welcomed to Isla Ra, Marc engaged Sun King in a spiritual battle during which Sun King successfully made Marc doubt everything he knew, and consider that Khonshu was wrong. However, during ritual combat against Sun King, Marc caught a second wind by believing in Diatrice. Marc's strength manifested in a berserker rage he used to defeat Sun King and break his spirit. Following Sun King's admission of defeat, Moon Knight took his followers for himself.

Subject Interview

Marc crashed through a two pane window and landed with a sickening thud into the cement of a grime slicked alley. For almost a solid minute he didn't move, it was nearly impossible to tell if he was even breathing. But at long last the man draped in all white began to groan and shift his body so that he was on his back at a least a shy degree more comfortable. In the movies people jumped through glass windows like it was nothing, it didn't even slow them down for a fraction of a second. In real life it was so much different. The force your body exerted against the glass was thrown right back at you but when the glass reached its breaking point and gave way, those smashed shards created by your own flesh cut, slashed, and tore like a mother.

Adamantium was great but slicing actions were its one weakness, and probably magnetism, Marc hazard a guess. But right now he couldn't focus on the short comings of his Moon Knight attire or the burn that was his nerves being exposed by jagged glass. There remained ass to be kicked!

Marc planted his knuckles in the stone beneath him, his arms pushing his body away from the stench of the alley floor as his jaws clenched tight. A knee assisted the action to drag himself up, and then a boot, until finally both of the man's feet were planted firm.

Darkness swallowed everything around him. The walls of the alley, the dumpster behind him, the sky, the interior of the building he'd just been thrown through, were all inky black forms all around him. High above hanged the pale white moon, its bright light shining down on Moon Knight as he braced himself against the brick wall at his back. Another figure in white stood just at the precipice of Marc's vision.

"Khonshu."

The bird-faced deity stood silent and unmoving. Marc had been ignoring him for a while now but in recent days that had become a harder trick to pull off. The ghost of the god possessing him was tormenting his very soul, no doubt goading the Moon Knight to be his agent of vengeance and murder once again.

Marc chose not to focus on the tailored god and instead use the sound of the blaring alarm of the building he'd just been thrown out of to anchor him to reality. 

"I'm doing this my way."

Which was going to be violent, oh so very violent, but Marc wasn't going to take lives any more. The fact that his refusal to kill drove Khonshu insane was reason enough for him at this point. He rolled up his sleeves, metaphorically speaking, and dove right back into the bank. There were bones to break and teeth to kick in. But not lives to take. 

Author's Notes

Player Alias: Shade

Other Characters: Nada

How did you find MFT?: Returning