Warning! This article contains spoilers for Moon Knight #7
Marvel readers know that Marc Spector aka Moon Knight is a brutal vigilante who doesn’t have a problem with beating criminals to a bloody pulp to protect those who need saving, but Moon Knight is way more sadistic than fans realize. Before becoming Moon Knight, Marc Spector was a mercenary who was left for dead in the desert where he was saved by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Spector was then tasked with being the moon god’s personal warrior, protecting those who travel at night. Given his previous profession and his god-sponsored vigilantism, it is no surprise that Moon Knight would be a vigilante who is tough on villains, but in his latest outing Moon Knight proves to be incredibly sadistic.
In Moon Knight #7 by Jed MacKay and Federico Sabbatini, Moon Knight is looking for a killer calling himself Zodiac. On his mission, Moon Knight encounters a low-level (and fairly ridiculous) villain named 8-Ball who literally has a giant billiards 8-Ball as a head. Moon Knight interrogates the known criminal and eventually gets the information he needs to continue on with his investigation.
Moon Knight revealed his sadistic nature when interrogating 8-Ball, not so much in what he did, but in what he said he would be prepared to do. During the questioning, Moon Knight held 8-Ball over an industrial car shredder and threatened to drop him in it if 8-Ball didn’t tell him what he needed to know. 8-Ball told him everything he knew about Zodiac and who might know where he is, so Moon Knight let him go. Afterward, Moon Knight is asked, “You wouldn’t have really… shredded him, would you?” to which Moon Knight replies, “If I was really going to drop him in the shredder… I’d have put him in feet first”. It is one thing to say he would have killed him, if only just to maintain his intimidating persona, but the level of torturous agony he said he would put 8-Ball through proves Moon Knight’s sadism.
Putting 8-Ball into a shredder feet first means he would suffer excruciatingly before he finally died, a truly horrific thing to say or even consider as a possibility if the situation called for 8-Ball to be killed. Not only does Moon Knight prove to be sadistic with this comment, but he also expresses his masochism in the very same issue. 8-Ball’s information leads Moon Knight to a known criminal named Manslaughter Marsdale, a villain who can’t feel pain. When he tells Moon Knight he can’t feel pain in an attempt to intimidate him during their fight, Moon Knight replies by saying, “You’re missing out”, implying that Moon Knight likes the pain he feels when enacting his brutal form of justice upon the violent criminals of the city.
Moon Knight has always been more violent than most other heroes in the Marvel Universe, save for the Punisher, but this issue really goes into the root of that violence. Basically, Moon Knight enjoys both delivering pain and receiving it at its highest level. With these characteristics that have long been known but are highlighted in this latest issue, Moon Knight shows why he is the perfect vigilante to take on the gritty underworld that other heroes wouldn’t be able to handle as he has proven himself to be way more sadistic than fans realize.