Over Moon Knight‘s history, there’s never been a more constant character than the very God that empowers him, Khonshu, but after the God’s true evil was revealed, he never should have returned to his classic status quo.
In Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood’s Moon Knight Vol. 8, Marc Spector and his other personas have to fight against Khonshu after the God traps Marc in a mental hospital within his own mind, planning to steal Marc’s body for himself. However, by accepting the reality of his mental illness, Marc is able to begin to work in unison with his personas to banish Khonshu from his mind, destroying the control of the god who’s revealed to have manipulated him since childhood. Or so it seemed. In Max Bemis and Jacen Burrows’ subsequent run, the Khonshu in the prior story is retconned as simply another facet of Marc’s mind – something he had to work through to be able to reconcile his personas. This has the effect of essentially resetting Khonshu to square one and absolving him of his villainy, with Marc still serving him.
Moon Knight Retconned One of Its Best Runs Ever
Khonshu should never have returned as Marc’s master since the retcon both erases so much of the Lemire run’s importance, but also feels pointless considering what came next for the God. Lemire’s run concluded in 2017 and by 2020, Khonshu has already become a villain once again in Jason Aaron and Javier Garrón’s Avengers Vol. 8 #33-37, ‘The Age of Khonshu.’ In this story, Khonshu becomes bent on world domination after prophetic visions, and Moon Knight is forced to once again turn against his God. While obviously not identical to Lemire’s plot, Khonshu being evil again rang hollow so soon after Lemire and Smallwood’s story, creating a situation where a visually gorgeous, thematically significant run was lessened, only for Marc’s story to quickly end up in the same place anyway.
Moon Knight Must Avoid Repeating Its Mistakes
Luckily, the most recent Moon Knight run has so far managed to balance the relationship between Marc and Khonshu perfectly. Moon Knight Vol. 9 by Jed Mackay and Alessandro Cappuccio works because it finds a place for Khonshu in the narrative without having to erase any of what came before. In this volume, Moon Knight is estranged from Khonshu after Aaron’s story, but still carries on the heroic legacy of the God’s stated purpose, protecting all ‘travellers by night.’ Khonshu is still present as a force in the story, and the tension between the god and Marc fits neatly with both the prior comics and the public perception of Moon Knight based on the Disney+ show, which also set the two at odds.
While Khonshu has historically held a place as Moon Knight’s mentor, Marc’s story is richer when the god is written as his greatest enemy. Hopefully, future stories will allow this detail to solidify as the new status quo, rather than repeating the mistake of bringing Khonshu and Moon Knight back together, only to once again tear them apart.