Avengers: Endgame Was Secretly Moon Knight's Origin Story

Avengers: Endgame could have secretly told Moon Knight's origin story. The first wave of MCU Disney+ TV shows were a hit, with WandaVision serving as a particular standout - a superhero sitcom unlike anything that Marvel Studios has made before. All signs are that Moon Knight will deliver on WandaVision's promise, because the first trailer suggests it will be a dark and brutal psychological thriller. But the trailer may also hint at an actual alien invasion too - straight from the comics.

In creative terms, it's easy to see why this is the right moment for Moon Knight; WandaVision was the big risk of Marvel's first wave of Disney+ TV shows, with the others already in various stages of production when it proved so successful. There's a sense, then, in which the Moon Knight trailer serves to suggest Marvel has learned the right lessons from WandaVision; that viewers will respond to something bold and experimental, something that breaks the formulas rather than follows them. But the interesting question is how Moon Knight fits into the overarching narrative of the MCU.

The first Moon Knight trailer is surprisingly short of answers to this question. Where most Marvel marketing stresses the relationship between the latest film or TV series and the narrative to date, Moon Knight is standalone; there isn't even a reference to the Blip, which would surely have caused serious disruption for those with mental health issues. But that doesn't necessarily mean Moon Knight will have no connections at all; in fact, it's entirely possible Avengers: Endgame was the show's secret origin.

The Moon Knight Trailer Offers A Subtle Clue

Moon Knight is often compared to Batman, in that he's a street-level vigilante - a wealthy man who suits up to become a force of vengeance against crime, stalking the night. But there's one crucial difference; Moon Knight has a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder, with multiple "alters" - distinctive alternate personalities created by his own psyche. It doesn't help, though, that in addition to DID Marc Spector has also been in what the comics refer to as "brain-to-brain contact with a god." He was chosen by the Moon God Khonshu, becoming his avatar - his champion. Thus Moon Knight struggles to understand and interpret the world around him.

This built to a head in Jeff Lemire's Moon Knight run, when fantasy lives built themselves around each of the alters, and he found himself drowning in them. For a while Marc Spector came to believe he was actually being treated at a brutal asylum, but in occasional flashes his mind would translate the orderlies and the psychiatrist treating him as creatures, Egyptian gods made manifest. The trailer contains deliberate nods to this classic Moon Knight story, with hints of a jackal-headed being a flash in which Moon Knight's mind translates an elderly woman as an Egyptian monster stalking towards him, possibly a mummy.

Jeff Lemire's Moon Knight Run Could Explain What's Going On

In the comics, Moon Knight has always been associated with Khonshu, the Egyptian moon god who rules the night. Lemire's run revealed the true reason Khonshu had chosen Marc Spector as his latest agent; apparently the ancient Egyptian gods were mystical beings who originated from a realm called the Othervoid. "The Egyptians were our playthings," Khonshu explained to Moon Knight. But someone sealed the passage between Earth and the Othervoid, leaving the Egyptian gods trapped in what had been their palace and temple. They had learned to project their thoughts across the barriers between the dimensions, though, meaning they could still choose avatars and possess individuals. Moon Knight had been chosen by Khonshu, and because of his mystical encounter with the moon god he had flashes of clarity in which he could see the entities inhabiting human bodies. It wasn't innocently done; Khonshu turned out to be the true villain, orchestrator of the current invasion of Earth, and he had chosen Marc Spector precisely because he believed he would be easier to break.

It's worth noting that Lemire's story was deliberately told from Spector's own perspective, which meant it was up to readers to decide what - if anything - of what they'd read was actually real. Although the arc ended with Moon Knight triumphant, it closed with an admission that even now Marc Spector had no idea what was real or not. "Is this real," he asked himself. "All I know for sure is that the rain feels real as it hits our face. Real enough, anyway." The best Moon Knight runs have always ended with readers unsure what reality was even in terms of the comic book story, and Lemire's was one of the best.

Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame Could Explain How Khonshu & The Egyptians Have Invaded

Assuming the Moon Knight trailer's nods towards the Lemire run aren't simply a red herring, it's quite possible that in the MCU Khonshu and the Egyptian gods were banished long ago - and are attempting to return. What's more, they could be attempting to do so precisely because of the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. When Thanos snapped his fingers, he erased half the living creatures in the universe; the Avengers brought them back five years later, but did everyone return unchanged? At this stage, it's impossible to give an accurate answer to that question, simply because it's unclear what exactly happened when Thanos snapped his fingers. According to Doctor Strange, a sorcerer cannot use the Time Stone to look beyond the moment of their death, and yet in Avengers: Infinity War Stephen Strange was able to see beyond Thanos' snap - suggesting it didn't kill anyone. A common theory is that instead, Thanos' snap converted people to dust and their souls to energy that was stored in another dimension - something akin to the memory buffers in Star Trek's transporters. When the Hulk snapped his fingers five years later, people were restored from that dimensional buffer.

If that theory is accurate, then it's entirely possible the experience could have exposed some people to other-dimensional beings - allowing the Egyptian gods to become a covert invasion of Earth. It's true there's been no sign of them to date, but that's not a problem with the theory, because there were only 2,000 deities in the Egyptian religion, and Thanos snapped out 3.5 billion human beings alone. There's frankly no reason viewers should have seen any hint of them - until now.

This theory would help position Marvel's Moon Knight Disney+ TV show in the MCU, explaining how it fits into the overarching narrative of the MCU; after all, to date every single MCU Disney+ TV series has actually spun out of the events of Avengers: Endgame in some way. It would also make the timing of Moon Knight's release seem opportune, because it matches rather well with the big-screen release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which promises to introduce other extradimensional invaders like Shuma-Gorath (renamed Gargantos for the MCU). It's perhaps significant that Moon Knight launches on March 30, and - assuming Marvel release only one episode each week - its finale would come out just days before Doctor Strange 2; Marvel's already notably trying to time their releases, with Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin making his official MCU debut in Hawkeye just days before Charlie Cox's Daredevil appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and this narrative would have a similar kind of synergy to it. It will be interesting to see whether Marvel do indeed take this approach with Moon Knight.