Characters / MCU: Moon Knight

Main Character Index > Heroic Individuals and Organizations > Other Superheroes (Jane Foster | Robbie Reyes | Xu Shang-Chi | Kate Bishop | Moon Knight | Kamala Khan | Wade Wilson | James "Logan" Howlett)

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Marc Spector / Steven Grant / Jake Lockley / Moon Knight / Mr. Knight

"I'm really jazzed about showing you these new skillsets we have."

^{Click here to see Marc as Moon Knight} 
"Steven, I can save us. But I can't have you fighting me this time. You need to give me control. You understand?"

^{Click here to see Steven as Mr. Knight} 
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, my name is Steven with a V!"

^{Click here to see Jake Lockley} 
"Hoy te toca perder." ("Today is your turn to lose.")

Birth Name: Marc Spector

Known Aliases: Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, "Rufino Estrada"

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American, British

Affiliation(s): U.S. Military (formerly [Marc]), National Art Gallery (formerly [Steven]), Khonshu

Portrayed By: Oscar Isaac, Mike Hernandez (body double), David Jake Rodriguez (teen), Carlos Sanchez (young)

Voiced By: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese dub), Fernando Mendonça (Brazilian dub), Héctor Emmanuel Gómez (Latin Spanish dub)

Appearances: Moon Knight

"I serve Khonshu. I'm his Avatar. Which means you are, too. Sort of. We protect the vulnerable and deliver Khonshu's justice to those who hurt them."

A former mercenary suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder who was empowered by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. One of his alters, a British museum employee named Steven Grant, finds himself dragged into a worldwide adventure along with Marc when they come into conflict with Arthur Harrow.

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Tropes that apply across the identities

• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • Played with. Marc's origins generally match the comics, but some contexts have been altered, mainly the situation of his Dissociative Identity Disorder. Even in Jeff Lemire's run where the illness is treated more realistically than in previous runs, there are heavy implications that Khonshu broke Marc's mind at a young age to prepare him for the role of Moon Knight years in advance. Here, Khonshu only entered Marc's life when he was dying under his statue, and he had already been host to a system for years. Thus, the ambiguity of Khonshu's involvement in Marc's mental instability is Adapted Out, aside from a small nod in the form of a Khonshu-esque bird skeleton being present on the day when Marc's younger brother Randall died.
  • The origin behind his DID itself has been altered after years of retcon after retcon throughout his existence in the comics. Originally, he developed it due to Becoming the Mask and spending unhealthy amounts of time as either Steven Grant or Jake Lockley. Eventually, Warren Ellis retconned it so it was brain damage caused by Khonshu's invasion of his consciousness which created multiple identities while trying to reconcile with Khonshu's many aspects. Then Jeff Lemire suggested that Marc developed it as a child in response to an unknown traumatic trigger, heavily implied to still be Khonshu's work. Then Max Bemis retconned it to be his way of dealing with walking in on his father's friend torturing a child to death in his basement. In the show, Steven Grant developed as a means of coping with Marc's mother's abuse, to be someone that was allowed to live a normal, mundane life where he wasn't beaten or hated by his mother.
  • His becoming Moon Knight is itself played with. Sometimes, the comics enjoy playing up the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane aspects of it; Marc was either truly resurrected by the Egyptian God Khonshu to use his mercenary skills to protect travelers of the night, or Marc had a very intense near-death experience and came back extremely delusional about how he seemingly returned to life. Here, Khonshu's existence is rather unambiguous, meaning Marc really was chosen by an ancient deity to become a superhero under his command, but otherwise, the circumstances are still the same. Plus, his MCU costume is very supernatural, while in the comics he appropriates a ceremonial hood and cape used by Khonshu's worshippers which he later added to his regular (self-made) suit.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Steven and Marc have a moment in the asylum, when they share a big hug in relief upon finding each other.
• Bait-and-Switch: For a while, you might have expected Marc to be something Steven invented to handle whatever childhood trauma it was he couldn't handle, but in episode 5, it's revealed that the birth name was Marc Spector, and the system split into the somber identity of Marc, who retains the original name and remembers what happened, and the light-hearted and optimistic identity of Steven, so that at least someone in the system could have a normal, happy childhood.
  Steven: All this time I thought that I was the original.
• Bash Brothers: Marc and Steven take turns fighting Arthur Harrow and his mooks in "Gods and Monsters".
• Big Brother Instinct: All of the alters display traits of this for one another:
  • Despite Marc's brusque attitude towards Steven, he's very protective of him, trying to push him away from his own dealings with Harrow's men, and assuring and comforting him through his distress at having to deal with the difficulties of his other life. During his childhood, Marc attempted to rescue his little brother Randall from a flooded cave, only to fail. It's possible that part of Steven's personality is meant to be a replacement for Randall.
  • While Steven's enthusiasm for certain topics and tendency to cry easily can occasionally come off as childlike, he is anything but childish, being a lot more emotionally mature and strong-willed than Marc. When Steven learns about Randall's existence through Marc's memories, he attempts to rescue his younger self and his little brother from the flooding cave where Randall drowned. Later on, when Marc has an emotional breakdown over his mother's death and regresses to a childlike mentality, Steven calmly extends a firm hand and comforts him through his trauma the way an older brother or parent would.
  • Jake only emerges in the presence of the other two when they are trapped in particularly perilous situations.
• Casting Gag: This is not the first time Oscar Isaac has played a Marvel character whose origin story is deeply connected with the foundation of Ancient Egyptian mythology.
• Celebrity Paradox: Star Wars is established to exist in the MCU, and Oscar Isaac plays Poe Dameron in the sequel trilogy.
• Color Motif: Marc is primarily associated with white and gray, and Steven with black or blue, as befitting of the moon in the night sky. They frequently wear varying combinations of both colors at once to emphasize their coexistent nature, but for one to wear outfits predominantly featuring the other's color usually suggests that the other is due to take control.
• Composite Character: The roles of each of Marc's alters have switched around a bit for the MCU's take on the character.
  • In the comics, Steven Grant was a Millionaire Playboy and businessman who used his wealth and influence to rake in money Marc could use while operating as Moon Knight. Here, Steven Grant works as poor museum employee who interacts with other working-class citizens, making him similar to Jake Lockley from the comics, as he was primarily the street-smart alter in the source material.
  • Relatedly, Lockley in the comics was a cab driver who would interact with people on the street with connections to the criminal underworld that neither Spector nor Grant could talk to without raising suspicion. Here, while Lockley still drives people around as part of his job, he drives a limousine instead, and wears much more dapper clothing that would be more in line with what comics Steven Grant would wear, though he still keeps his cabbie hat.
  • Meanwhile, Marc gets Jake's tendency to keep secrets and live an entire other life that the other identities (or Steven in this case) don't know about. The series also ties each alter to a suit, Marc to Moon Knight and Steven to Mr. Knight.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Khonshu recruited Marc when he was on the edge of death, and there is a suggestion Marc was involved with the deaths of a group of archeologists in Egypt, though it's later revealed that he tried to prevent his partner from committing the massacre, only to be gunned down himself. Moreover, he has Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is revealed in episode 5 to be the result of childhood trauma and abuse. Marc Spector (who is indeed the original alter/host of the system) was a young boy from a good Jewish family, but one stormy evening, he and his little brother Randall got trapped in a cave they were exploring during a rainstorm and a flood caused Randall's death. In her grief, his mother Wendy turned to drinking, blamed Marc for Randall's death, and physically and emotionally abused him for years, causing him to create Steven as a means of escaping the trauma. He eventually left home and joined the army, but an incident linked to his DID caused him to be discharged, which led to him being on the dig where he met Layla's father before it all went to hell. Then, of course, Khonshu showed up...
• Decomposite Character:
  • Played with regarding Moon Knight and Mr. Knight. In the comics, Mr. Knight is one of the personas Marc takes while acting as a police informant. In this series, it's the form Steven takes when he summons the Moon Knight suit, much to Marc's initial dismay.
  • Also played with regarding Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. In the comics, Steven was a wealthy Millionaire Playboy and ladies' man, while Jake was a poor, street-smart character who drives a cab as part of his day job. In the MCU, the two alters swap around some of their traits, with Jake being a wealthy limo driver who likes to act charming with women, and Steven being a poor Socially Awkward Hero who works at a gift shop.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three identities have this sort of dynamic with how they accomplish their missions:
  • Marc is the Fighter, as he is a trained soldier who is quick to suggest solving problems with violence and does most of the fighting as Moon Knight.
  • Steven is the Mage, who gets by with his extensive knowledge of Egyptian mythology.
  • The third alter, Jake Lockley is the Thief, as his existence is secretive enough that even his alternates don't know he exists, and the one time we see him in full has him sneakily infiltrate a mental hospital to assassinate Arthur Harrow with no one the wiser.
• Foil:
  • Marc and Steven to each other. Marc is an emotionally damaged, confident ex-mercenary and superhero, a man of action who will do ugly, violent things if he has to, even at a great personal cost. Steven, on the other hand, is a meek and sweet-natured pacifist, abhorring violence and only taking part in it to save himself or others.
  • Steven and the third alter. Steven is a nebbish, introverted, but polite pacifist, while the third alter is brutal (even compared to Marc) and seems filled with rage. Even their voices contrast: Steven speaks in a higher-pitched British accent, while the third alter has a Brooklyn accent with a deeper and gruffer voice than either Marc or Steven. Also, while Steven is known to Marc and, after some rough going, manages to form a friendship with him, Jake Lockley stays hidden from both of them, and continues doing Khonshu's dirty work after Steven and Marc have cut ties with the moon god.
  • Marc and the third alter. Marc is deeply troubled by his actions, despite justifying them with I Did What I Had to Do, as well as resenting his ties to Khonshu, treating him as a necessary evil at best. Jake, on the other hand, shows no qualms with violence, even seeming to revel in it, and is totally willing to do Khonshu's bidding. Khonshu even considers him a "friend", unlike Marc, who is more of an employee.
• Freudian Trio: The three alters. Steven is the restrained superego, Jake is the unrestrained and violent id, and Marc is the ego reconciling the two.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When in his Moon Knight and Mr. Knight personas, his eyes are pearly white.
• Good Wears White: Marc and Steven wear a pure white outfit when they're powered up to invoke the moon: depending on who's currently fronting, it's either Khonshu's ceremonial armour (Marc) or a white suit with a face mask (Steven).
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: The Moon Knight armor and the Mr. Knight suit can materialize around the wearer within seconds.
• Healing Factor: As Moon Knight, they can withstand severe injury when in costume, to the point of almost instantly recovering from being speared multiple times. Steven is able to quickly recover from a dislocated jaw and two-story fall even without awareness of having powers. Khonshu's domain is associated with healing, so it makes sense that his avatar would possess such a power.
• Helpless Good Side: Steven pleads through mirrors to prevent Marc from killing his opponents in fights, and both react in horror to Jake's slaughter of their opponents.
• Henshin Hero: Although they retain a Healing Factor even without it, all the alters rely on the suit for to access their powers, including their weapons, flight, and Super-Strength.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Marc and Steven's relationship evolves from initial dislike into this as the show goes on. By the end, they literally can't bear to live without the other, and Marc reneges on his initial desire to experience Death Of Identity to instead share a peaceful coexistence with Steven.
• Horrifying the Horror: Harrow is calm and detached when passing judgment on his followers or siccing a bestial monster on Steven, but he becomes noticeably unsettled when his tattoo doesn't judge Steven as good or evil and notes that there is "chaos" in him.
• I Have Many Names: Enforced and justified, given the character being a system. Not only do Marc Spector and Steven Grant exist as two separate people in one body, but they also have two separate superhero identities in the form of Moon and Mr. Knight (though only the former name has been uttered within the show itself). The Stinger reveals that Jake Lockley is another alter with a unique identity.
• Improvised Weapon: Marc has used a cupcake, a gun, a restroom sink, and a car wheel as melee weapons against his enemies.
• Insane Equals Violent: Averted. Marc is only shown as being violent in life-or-death situations and, based on what we know of other people's interactions with him, is perfectly stable otherwise. Meanwhile, Steven Grant is very much a Non-Action Guy, and usually tries to run away from confrontations rather than engaging in them. Zigzagged as of "The Friendly Type", which implies that there's a more brutal third alter that neither Steven nor Marc knows about — and which we finally get to see, briefly, at the very end of the last episode. It's not that insanity equals violence, it's that Marc's "insanity" involves splitting off the violent side of himself into a separate person.
• Instant Costume Change: Marc can instantly transform into Moon Knight with bandages sprouting from thin air to envelop him in the Moon Knight outfit within seconds, complete with weapons. Steven can also transform into Mr. Knight in an instant.
• Legacy Character: "Summon the Suit" reveals that they are the latest of Khonshu's avatars, with Arthur Harrow being their predecessor.
• Light Is Good: Marc is a vigilante and an anti-hero with a pure white costume.
• Lightning Bruiser: The series shows that Moon Knight and Mr. Knight are faster, stronger, and can take more punishment than an average human.
• Looks Like Cesare: Their shared body has deep bags under the eyes and messy hair due to the fact that while Steven "sleeps", Marc is out using the body to conduct his own affairs, so they get very little sleep between them.
• Lunacy: He received his powers from Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon, and the strength of his powers is affected by certain phases of the lunar cycle. He may also be a lunatic; it's probably not a coincidence that a superhero empowered by an Egyptian moon god going by the alias "Moon Knight" has mental health issues (specifically, Dissociative Identity Disorder).
• Macguffin: Steven possesses a golden scarab stolen from Arthur Harrow, which functions as a compass to Ammit the Devourer's tomb, and Harrow needs it to find and resurrect her, which makes things a lot more unnerving when Harrow manages to claim the scarab at the end of "Summon the Suit".
• The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: At the end of "The Goldfish Problem", Steven ends up talking to his reflection, Marc, about what the hell is going on. Marc responds that he can only help Steven if he takes control of their body, which Steven ends up doing. Marc even does this earlier, warning Steven to "stop looking". Later on in "Summon the Suit", Steven calls Marc the "man in the mirror" when they meet again in Central London Storage. At the end of the episode, the situation is reversed, with Steven in the mirror talking to Marc, who is in control. As of "The Friendly Type", however, both Steven and Marc manage to reach an understanding and use reflections to their advantage to switch who's fronting if they both agree.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Unlike the comics, Marc's empowerment by Khonshu is rather unambiguously real right from the get-go, but the matter of the origins of the system of alters still remains. Arthur Harrow brings up the question of whether or not Steven and Marc's Dissociative Identity Disorder was caused by Khonshu, or if it was preexisting and merely taken advantage of to turn Marc into his avatar. It was pre-existing.
• Mentally Unwell, Special Senses: Steven/Marc is able to see the invisible jackal monsters that Arthur Harrow summons. It's not made explicit if that's one of Moon Knight's powers or if it's because of his schizophrenia and DID, however he can still see them without the suit on, which his other powers require.
• Mirror Character: Moon Knight serves as a mirror to the MCU's other resident DID sufferer — Typhoid Mary of Iron Fist. Both of them suffered extreme abuse in their childhoods that caused their condition, resulting in very similar systems (Steven/Mary, Marc/Walker, and Jake/Bloody Mary), and they both have backgrounds in military service. Mary, however, never had any experiences with the supernatural until she met Danny Rand, has a more antagonistic relationship with her alters, and has a far more mercenary outlook on life — she was ultimately on her own side and only helped Danny when he promised her more money than Joy Meachum. Meanwhile, Marc ultimately couldn't put basic morality over his own wants or personal safety and chose to fight his CO to save lives. While Marc's relationship with Steven was initially very hostile and combative, they managed to work through their differences and find a balance. Until Jake comes into the picture.
• Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: It's ambiguously suggested early on that the gulf between Steven and Marc was caused or worsened by Marc's contract with Khonshu to become Moon Knight, and Arthur Harrow, who has also had experience serving under Khonshu, heavily hints to Steven that this is the case. It's ultimately subverted when the fifth episode reveals Marc's DID to have been the result of real childhood trauma that long preceded Marc encountering Khonshu, and that Steven and Marc bleeding into each other is the result of something completely mundane, that being his abusive mother's death.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Out of the three alters, Steven is the nice one thanks to him being a genuine Nice Guy, Jake is the mean one as he is shown to be the most violent one of the three, and Marc, being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, is the in-between.
• No-Sell: Arthur Harrow's tattoo apparently allows him to judge if somebody is good or evil (by some criteria), with those who are good being spared and praised for it, and those who are "evil" getting the life sucked out of them. When he tries to use it on Steven, it fails to work at all due to his particular issues, something which greatly unsettles Harrow.
• Omniglot: Between them, Marc, Steven, and Jake speak English, French, Arabic, and Spanish. Additionally, they have a grasp of Ancient Macedonian, Ancient Coptic, Ancient Egyptian and its hieroglyphic writing system, and Mandarin.
• Polar Opposite Twins: While the two are a case of Split Personality rather than proper siblings, and only Steven agrees with Taweret's assessment of the two as being like twins, they couldn't be more different if you tried.
• Race Lift: Marc is a Czechoslovakian-American Ashkenazi Jewish man in the comics. Oscar Isaac is of Cuban and Guatemalan descent, and so his version of Marc comes from a Latino-American Jewish family.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: When Harrow tries judging Steven's life with his tattoo, the scales of the tattoo shift wildly, and Harrow simply remarks that Steven has "chaos" in him.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Steven's pet goldfish, Gus, has one fin. After Steven wakes up from his chase scene with the cupcake van in the Alps, he has been replaced by one two fins. This is presumably reflecting how Steven felt there was something "off" about himself. In the last scene of episode 6, Marc and Steven live together in Steven's flat and own two goldfish, showing that they've learned to co-exist.
  • Marc appears as Steven's reflection throughout the first episode, and fully appears in the mirrors of the restroom Steven gets cornered in. When Steven surrenders control over to Marc and they transform into Moon Knight, the mirrors are all now shattered, displaying how Marc/Moon Knight has finally managed to wrest conscious control from Steven to beat the tar out of the jackal creature.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Played with:
  • Initially, Steven and Marc seem like straightforward examples of this trope. Steven is the Sensitive Guy, being a nebbish and slightly hysterical vegan Momma's Boy who loves French poetry and comes off as a doormat. Marc is the Manly Man since he is a seemingly callous hardened mercenary with an international reputation for cruelty who Steven mocks as a Dumb Jock.
  • As the show goes on they begin to subvert these roles. Marc's coldness turns out to be a facade, as he's extremely emotional and conscientious but highly repressed, and his sentimentality makes him easy to exploit. Meanwhile, because of Steven's origin as a protector alter, he can be surprisingly steely and calm in the face of dangers that would frighten Marc. Likewise, the two alters express their concern for one another in ways that run counter to the expectations of this trope. Marc acts in a more stereotypically maternal fashion towards Steven, being nurturing and tender in a way their biological mother wasn't, whereas Steven acts as a firm and resolute figure for Marc to rely on when upset, providing him the support their father was too weak to.
• Split Personality: Steven, Marc, and the third alter are all part of a system with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Steven is initially horrified when someone addresses him as Marc. Then there's also the fact that we have both the Moon Knight and Mr. Knight persona.
• Split-Personality Takeover: As of "The Friendly Type", Steven and Marc give each other permission to take control whenever a certain problem needs to be solved with skills the other doesn't have.
• Stellar Name: Moon Knight.
• Super-Reflexes: The suit allows Moon Knight and Mr. Knight to swiftly react to incoming attacks, as well as catch things that are thrown at them in mid-air.
• Super-Strength: The suit grants Moon Knight and Mr. Knight incredibly enhanced strength. Moon Knight can effortlessly beat the jackal monster that attacked him in the restroom to death with a few punches, while Mr. Knight accidentally crushes the bumper of a car while gripping it to stand up.
• Taken for Granite: Both Marc and Steven slowly transform into statues of sand when they remain in the Duat, but the light from the opening Gates of Osiris turns them back to normal.
• Tempting Fate: In "Asylum", Marc and Steven believe that neither of them is going to end up in the Duat or the Field of Reeds. Marc ends up in the Field of Reeds, and Steven ends up as a statue of sand in the Duat.
• True Sight: Steven and Marc can see the jackal monsters, which are Invisible Monsters to everyone else. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a good case for either of their sanity to onlookers.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Marc and Steven end up in one with Layla; she and Marc were married before he left her, which dumbfounds Steven, who is entirely smitten with Layla's beauty and intelligence. Layla herself still has feelings for Marc despite his abrupt departure, but after spending some time with Steven, becomes attracted to him as well, much to Marc's annoyance. The first season ends without settling the matter, leaving it unclear whether either Marc or Steven, now seemingly free of Khonshu and more or less sympatico with each other, pursue a relationship with her going forward.
• Twofer Token Minority: Marc is a Jewish Latino, and the first headlining MCU superhero to be indicated as either. There's no indication about the other two's faith and ethnicity or whether it differs from Marc, however.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child:
  • In "Summon the Suit", the otherwise-meek Steven begins to take a bolder stance against Harrow when he realizes that his plan would also encompass killing children.
  • In "The Friendly Type", Marc shows reluctance on hurting the teenager that is fighting for Harrow's side, just going for a slap to knock him down, and is left very unsettled and shaken when the teen chooses a Spiteful Suicide during his High-Altitude Interrogation. This definitely stems from his rather traumatic childhood.
  • In the same episode, when Jake Lockley fronts, although he shows no mercy with killing the other cultists, he notably leaves the teen alive.

Tropes that apply to Marc Spector and Moon Knight

Marc Spector / Moon Knight

Known Aliases: Moon Knight

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): U.S. Marine Corps (formerly)

Originally with the U.S. Marine Corps, Marc Spector was dishonorably discharged as a Section 8 for going AWOL in a fugue state. Shortly after that, Marc signed on as a mercenary for various unscrupulous companies. One such unscrupulous expedition ended with what was very nearly his death. However, he made a deal with Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon, to live and to obtain power in exchange for enacting Khonshu's will as his avatar. Efficient and professional, Marc is nonetheless a deeply troubled man whom Khonshu endlessly exploits.

Upon donning the ceremonial armor of Khonshu, he becomes Moon Knight, granting him enchanced strength, agility, incredible healing, and an endless armament of throwing weapons.

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• Abusive Parents: His mother Wendy becomes this since she blames him for the death of his younger brother Randall. She abused her son physically, verbally, and emotionally, devastating Marc's mental health to the point that he created Steven to help himself cope.
• Adaptational Badass: Moon Knight in the comics is already an extremely fearsome foe with his expertise in combat, resilience, and intelligence. The show maintains those abilities and adds legitimate Super-Strength and an extremely powerful Healing Factor, making him even more formidable.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the comics, Marc Spector was never truly aware of what was happening whenever any of his other alters assumed control over the body. Here, he actively converses with Steven Grant while the latter is in control of the body, and even knows how Steven came into existence before the start of the show. That said, he does briefly lose consciousness when Steven takes control in Cairo, and is never aware of what happens when Jake Lockley is in the driver's seat.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the comics, Marc is notoriously unstable and dangerous in combat due to his past trauma making him a brutal fighter, making him hated and feared by pretty much everybody, other heroes included. Here, while Marc still has some very heavy emotional baggage and mental health problems, he's nowhere near as crazy as he's typically portrayed.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the comics, Moon Knight is usually a Badass Normal. There was a period where he had Super-Strength depending on the moon phases, and Khonshu's habit of resurrecting him did give him a form of immortality, while modern comics also gave him a pseudo-superpower in the sense that communion with a god had fundamentally altered the workings of Marc's brain. Even so, modern comics portray Marc as physically not having any powers. Here his Moon Knight outfit is outright magical, being able to generate around him out of thin air, granting him Super-Strength, agility, Healing Factor, and the ability to summon weapons.
• Arsenal Attire: Moon Knight's crescent darts form the symbol on his chest piece.
• Anti-Hero: Marc is on the side of the angels, but he's a deeply troubled man, suffering from both mental illness and unaddressed trauma. He's also quite brutal to his enemies, even if the emotional cost of having killed so many people weighs on his soul over time.
• Back from the Dead: This is implied to have been part of Marc's backstory if Khonshu's comments about owning his corpse are anything to go by. It seems that Marc may have been a mercenary who was killed, then struck a deal with Khonshu to be his avatar in exchange for his life. Episode 5 reveals that Marc was not dead yet, but was very close to death when he made the deal. Episode 6 has Marc and Steven embracing this trope literally after escaping the Duat.
• Badass Cape: Moon Knight wears a white hooded cloak. "The Friendly Type" reveals that the cloak takes the shape of a crescent moon when it is fully unfurled, is bulletproof, and can deflect projectiles. "Gods and Monsters" shows that it can also allow Moon Knight to fly.
• Battle Boomerang: During his battle against Anton Mogart and his mooks, Moon Knight utilizes his crescent darts as boomerangs.
• Battle Couple: Marc is implied to have been this in the past with his wife Layla. She is an excellent fighter, she references their "adventures", and she's seen him as Moon Knight in action before. "Gods and Monsters" has him and Layla kick the asses of multiple cultists.
• Beard of Sorrow: Episode 5 shows that he had one while trying to muster up the courage to attend his mother's shiva.
• Big "SHUT UP!": In "Summon the Suit", Steven berates Marc while the latter is in charge of the body, listing all the horrible things he's done. Marc gets exceedingly agitated until he finally yells at his reflection to "shut up" and kicks at the mirrored surface until it's too shattered to let Steven continue to interact.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: On Marc's 12th birthday his mother continued to blame him for the death of his brother, then when he ran to up to his bedroom she chased him and beat with a belt in a drunken rage. This is what pushed him over the edge, develop dissonance identity disorder, and create Steven to help cope with his mother’s abuse.
• Bottomless Magazines: Thanks to the armor's magical nature, Moon Knight is able to draw two crescent darts from his suit's chest, with a third still visible.
• Brains and Brawn: He is the battle-hardened brawn to Steven Grant's meek yet crafty brain.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Marc has been trying to divorce Layla to make sure she doesn't become the next vessel of Khonshu.
• Broken Bird: He's a cynical, grim, generally stoic hard-ass compared to the gentler Steven, but it's revealed that a great deal of it is a shell he projects to cope with a long history of trauma and that he's far more conscientious and emotionally fragile than he appears.
• Cape Wings: "Gods and Monsters" reveals that he can use his cloak as Moon Knight to fly.
• Catch and Return: Moon Knight can use his cloak to absorb incoming bullets before he flings them back at his shooters, as shown in "The Friendly Type".
• Cloak of Defense: "The Friendly Type" shows Moon Knight using his cloak to protect Layla from a barrage of gunfire before launching the bullets back at the shooters.
• Combat Parkour: Marc has quite a lot of jumping incorporated into his fighting style.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Steven willingly (if reluctantly) allows Marc to front in "The Goldfish Problem", the latter beats the crap out of a jackal-like creature until it is truly dead.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Much of Marc's past before coming to be Khonshu's avatar is a mystery, but it's heavily implied that his early life wasn't exactly the happiest. Arthur Harrow even hints that Marc may have actually been responsible for the death of his own wife's father, which he refuses to explain to Layla. Although he didn't actually kill Layla's father, he was present and unable to stop the person who did, not to mention he got shot in the gut and nearly died for it.
  • "Asylum" is all about this trope. His brother died when the two were exploring a cave during a rainstorm and it flooded, culminating in his mother becoming an alcoholic drunk to get away from the pain, blaming Marc for his brother's death, then beating Marc up with a belt, the trauma of which led to him creating the alter known as Steven Grant. After his father failed to intervene in his mother's abuse, he ran away from home as a teenager. This also isn't counting how he refused/couldn't bring himself to go to his mother's shiva, or was ready to kill himself after failing to stop his partner's massacre of the archaeologists.
• Deadpan Snarker: Marc comments that the Mr. Knight outfit makes him and Steven look like "psycho Colonel Sanders" instead of Khonshu's fist of vengeance.
• Death Glare: Marc frequently narrows his eyes into a grim and determined stare. It's one of the visual indicators that distinguish him from Steven.
• Death Seeker: He's content with undergoing Death of Personality to grant Steven peace after helping Khonshu, and admits he wishes he had remained dead when his partner killed him instead of being revived by Khonshu. In "Asylum", he tells Steven that he wishes each enemy he's fought as Moon Knight would just kill him for good, except that his Healing Factor keeps bringing him back regardless. Tellingly, when Khonshu first asks him if he'd rather live or die, his answer is that he doesn't even know.
• Defiant to the End: Near the end of "The Tomb", Marc decides to go out fighting and killing Harrow's mooks who were surrounding him before being unceremoniously shot by Harrow himself.
• Deus Ax Machina: Not a fire-axe, but Marc picks up an adze from Alexander the Great's sarcophagus and uses it to fight against some of Harrow's mooks before being shot by Harrow himself.
• Driven to Suicide: Prior to meeting Khonshu, Marc was ready to kill himself quickly and painlessly with a shot through the chin, due to being gravely wounded and not wanting to bleed out alone in the Egyptian deserts.
• Drowning My Sorrows: The final scene of "Summon the Suit" has Marc laying on a hotel room floor in Egypt with a bottle of alcohol in his hand, presumably to drown out Steven, who is watching him through the mirror. In "Asylum", Marc drinks a flask of liquor, presumably trying to work up the liquid courage to attend his mother's shiva.
• Dual Wielding: Moon Knight usually wields two of his crescent darts in each hand.
• Everyone Has Standards: While he's more willing to use violence than Steven, even Marc is shocked at the level of brutality Jake Lockley is capable of.
• Extreme Doormat: Completely obedient to Khonshu and endures his abuse even though his duties eat away at him inside. It's heavily implied to be the result of his mother's abuse instilling this kind of fatalism into him, and the one time he musters the will to defy orders in the past got him fatally injured for his trouble. A major part of his character development is learning to overcome this with Steven's help.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Moon Knight's ceremonial armor from Khonshu's temple is white, and his crescent darts are gold in color.
• Hates Their Parent: Because of her years of abuse, Marc grew to hate and resent his mother to the point of refusing to attend her shiva, drunkenly muttering that he wouldn't give her the "satisfaction". However, given that he breaks down in grief soon after, it's implied that Marc's feelings about his mother may have been more complicated, as is often the case with parental abuse.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He feels immense guilt over all the people who have died in his past, and actively attempts to push his wife away from himself to protect her. Steven accusing him of doing nothing but hurting everyone around him activates a Berserk Button in him because of how much it gets to him.
• Horrifying the Horror: At the end of the first episode, Steven is being chased by a jackal-like monster. Steven agrees to give over control to Marc, transforming into Moon Knight as Marc takes over. The monster manages to break into the restroom, and seconds later it's running away from him, even outright trying to crawl away.
• Human Pincushion: In "The Friendly Type", Anton Mogart's mooks attempt to trap Moon Knight by impaling him onto the ground with several spears. While they have Moon Knight on the ropes, he overcomes this situation when he sees Layla in trouble.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Steven is stunned that Marc would abandon and divorce Layla, but Marc refuses to let her get hurt in the course of his service to Khonshu, or worse, become the moon god's next avatar.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Marc feels responsible for letting his beloved little brother Randall drown in a cave during a rainstorm. Steven comforts Marc by saying that it was all an accident and that he never meant it to happen.
• Informed Judaism:
  • Marc was raised Jewish, and you can see a Star of David around his neck in the reflections when he's speaking to Steven, although it's ambiguous if he still practices in the current day. He also uses the common Yiddish colloquialism "Oy". His actual practice of the faith, however, is mostly kept in the background and left ambiguous as to whether he is still a believer, except in a pair of crucial moments; in episode 5, Marc's family is shown sitting shiva (a seven-day mourning and acceptance period in Judaism) first for his brother and, later in the episode, for his mother, and Marc is shown wearing a kippah.
  • While he never discusses it onscreen, it's suggested via the items in his apartment that Steven is a practicing Jewish man, given that he keeps a mezuzah, kiddush cup, and menorah, items associated with the observation of Jewish rituals. In an interview, Oscar Isaac talks about how Steven's accent is modeled after the accents heard in the northeastern part of London which is home to a thriving Jewish community.
• In the Hood: The Moon Knight outfit comes with a signature white cowl.
• It Never Gets Any Easier: Marc remembers every single person he's ever killed as Khonshu's Fist of Vengeance and expresses shame over it, even while he acknowledges that everyone he targeted was the scum of the Earth. When Steven expresses total disbelief at this, Marc quickly retorts: "You try taking a life. See how quickly you forget."
• It's All My Fault: In "Asylum", Marc blames himself for his inability to protect his younger brother, which leads to the deterioration of his relationship with his parents. Steven assures Marc that it was not his fault and that he was just a child.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In "The Friendly Type", Marc uses physical violence against a mook to press information from him about Harrow's location. He doesn't succeed, because a Tap on the Head from another baddie behind him knocks him out.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As blunt as Marc can be, he's right when he points out to Steven that without his help, a lot of the situations they've been placed in would've certainly ended in a tragedy without Marc's combat capabilities, and that Steven is very much out of his element.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Marc is an abrasive, violent mercenary with something of a short fuse. He does, however, have a few lighter-hearted interactions with Steven from time to time, is only distancing himself from Layla to keep her from Khonshu's grasp, and even though he was forced into heroics by Khonshu, he at least seems to be on board with the moon god's "delivery of justice" M.O. that opposes the extremist ideals of Ammit and Arthur Harrow.
• Just a Kid To comfort him, Steven tells Marc that Randall's death was never his fault because he was just a child who never meant to harm his little brother.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Spector means "face", and Marc was the main fronter for most of his life, so he was basically the face of the system.
  • Subverted with "Marc", as it may lead one to thing it's an alternative spelling of "mark", as the guy who gets shot at. However, "marc" is the refuse from fruit that has been pressed for wine-making. After separating out the traits that make up the angelic Steven and the villainous Jake, Marc is what's left.
• Military Superhero: Marc was in the military until his DID cost him his job, causing him to turn to mercenary work before he became Moon Knight. It's part of why he's such a good fighter and marksman even without his suit.
• Mirror Scare: Sometimes Marc unexpectedly appears and talks to Steven in mirrors, startling him and the audience.
• Mister Exposition: In "Summon the Suit", Marc gets Steven up to speed as to what's going on.
• Mook Horror Show: "The Goldfish Problem" shows Moon Knight as a terror to his enemies — and also to Steven. The episode is seen entirely from Steven's point of view (until the end), and at one point, he is surrounded by four hostile mooks. Then he blacks out for a few seconds and recovers to find four dead mooks and other people fleeing from him in terror. Then, at the end of the episode, Steven is running from a jackal-like monster, locked himself in a restroom, and Marc speaks to him, begging him to take control. The monster breaks in — and a moment later, it is trying to flee before the unleashed Moon Knight beats it to death with his bare hands.
• Morton's Fork: Marc is only working for Khonshu so that Layla doesn't get involved and he can finally rest. But if Arthur is right, there will always be "one more job". So, Marc either continues to follow Khonshu's commands without stopping, or he gives up, and Layla will be the next vessel. Either way, it doesn't end well.
• Mummy: The Moon Knight outfit invokes the bandages of a mummy, with the strips of cloth wrapping around Marc's body to form the suit.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: He's sometimes a little too quick to suggest murder, even against a god such as Taweret.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: According to Marc, he tried to stop Bushman from killing Layla's father and Dr. El-Faouly's fellow archaeologists. All he managed to accomplish was convincing Bushman to shoot him, too.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • In "The Goldfish Problem", Marc does this to multiple attackers after taking control for a brief period when Steven is in danger.
  • Moon Knight can be seen giving one of these to the jackal in the final shot of "The Goldfish Problem", showing how he's not holding back when he's in that identity.
• No-Sell: "The Friendly Type" reveals that as Moon Knight, the ceremonial armor of Khonshu allows him to be barely fazed after getting shot or even being impaled by multiple spears thanks to the healing abilities it has.
• Not So Stoic: Marc's first few appearances show him as being always calm and collected and ready for anything. What does makes him lash out is Steven confronting him about how all he ever does is hurt people, both friends and foes alike, including his own wife. He also has a shocking breakdown, screaming and slapping himself, when faced with revisiting his mother's abuse and his creation of Steven to escape it.
  • A more humorous example happens earlier, where Marc is visibly startled when a jackal suddenly pounces on Mr. Knight.
  • Another humorous moment appears at the end of episode 4 when he screams upon seeing Taweret.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • In the first episode, we're never shown how he managed to escape from Harrow's forces and get back to London, to the point that Steven writes off the experience as a bad dream. It apparently wasn't easy, as Steven's missing two days when he woke up.
  • The very first clue as to what exactly is happening with Marc at the helm can be implied from what little we see of the fight between Moon Knight and the jackal monster. With how the restroom ends up totally wrecked, it must've been short, but brutal. The jackal does flee from him in terror, after all.
• One-Man Army: Marc as Moon Knight is shown to (fairly easily) overpower dozens of Anton Mogart's mooks single-handedly.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "Asylum" has Marc going through a huge breakdown when he refuses to show Steven the truth about his past.
  Marc: NO! I won't do it! (shaking and repeatedly hitting himself) I won't do it! You can't make me! You! Can't! MAKE ME!!!!
• Le Parkour: Marc Spector's preferred method of travel is some serious legwork and acrobatics while in a chase, especially when he's Moon Knight.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite the bickering between the two alters, in "Summon the Suit" Marc compliments Steven's punch against the jackal monster while in the Mr. Knight persona.
  • Again in the same episode, once Marc is in control and Steven is trapped in the mirror, Marc is initially very gentle with him, trying to talk him through his panic and empathize with him. It's only when Steven starts insulting him that Marc gets aggressive.
• Private Military Contractors: After losing his military career, Marc went into business with his former CO, Raoul Bushman, as a mercenary. Despite no longer seeming to be in that line of work, Marc still has a reputation as a mercenary, to the point that Arthur Harrow immediately recognises him as one.
• Rage Against the Reflection: In "Summon the Suit", Marc repeatedly kicks a mirror while yelling "SHUT UP!" to it, as he and Steven are arguing with Steven manifesting in the mirror, with Steven swearing he'll never let Marc parade around in his body again.
• Roofhopping: Moon Knight travels across the city of London by jumping from one rooftop to another during his fight with the jackal monster in "Summon the Suit". Later on in "The Friendly Type", Marc leaps from one building to another when he confronts Arthur Harrow's mooks in Cairo.
• Say My Name: At the end of "Asylum", he's reduced to screaming "STEVEN!!!" as Steven sacrifices himself to save Marc and ends up turning to stone in the Duat.
• Self-Harm: A hilarious example. After Steven kisses Layla, he briefly takes control of his left hand to punch Steven in the face and recklessly jumps into the mines out of spite.
• Skyward Scream: In "Summon the Suit", Marc screams "SHIT!!!!" when he finds out that the scarab — which Layla put in his coat — is gone after the intense fight with the jackal monster.
• Stellar Name: Moon Knight.
• Strong and Skilled: Marc clearly has more combat experience than Steven thanks to actually being a former member of the military, and when he becomes Moon Knight, he possesses superhuman strength that allows him to swiftly overpower the jackal monsters that are summoned by Arthur Harrow.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: As Moon Knight, he wears a crescent shaped cloak that can deflect bullets and allow him to fly.
• Survival Mantra: When Marc Spector was a boy, he kept on muttering "it's not my mom", before Steven Grant fronted for the first time just as his mother was about to beat him.
• Talk to the Fist: When one of Harrow's mooks stops fighting and proceeds to taunt Marc by licking the blade of his knife, Marc just takes the opening to punch the mook in the face as he's doing it.
• Trauma Button: Being told that things are entirely his fault, given that it reminds him of his brother's death, his mother's abuse of him, and even his near-death experience in Egypt, is an effective way to trigger his PTSD.
• Tsurime Eyes: His eyes in his Moon Knight persona are sharp and tapered downward at the inner corners to demonstrate his serious attitude.
• The Unfavorite: Marc became this after his mother Wendy blamed him for the death of his brother Randall.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Marc can only make such a face in "Summon the Suit" when Steven manifests his suit (as in the Mr. Knight persona, not Khonshu's ceremonial armor) and it makes him look like "psycho Colonel Sanders".
• Zero-Approval Gambit: At the start of "The Friendly Type", Marc suggests calling on the other gods to stop Harrow, but Khonshu points out that he has little leeway with the other gods, and they might punish him further for even daring to call them. He then immediately organizes a meeting of the Ennead anyway, as he is that desperate to stop Harrow, and they're out of options, doing so by pissing them all off with a grand display of power. Unfortunately, Harrow takes advantage of the gods' dislike of Khonshu and Marc's own instability to discredit them before they can even make any tangible claims toward him.

Tropes that apply to Steven Grant and Mr. Knight

Steven Grant / Mr. Knight

Known Aliases: Mr. Knight

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: British

Affiliation(s): National Art Gallery (formerly)

A meek gift-shop vendor at the National Art Gallery, Steven finds himself way out of his depth as he's thrust into a world of violence, mercenaries, and Egyptian gods. Despite being way in over his head, he resigns to work together with Marc and all other parties involved to stop Arthur Harrow's machinations. Despite believing himself to be the original persona, Steven is in fact a constructed personality, born from a troubled and traumatized mind as a coping mechanism.

Steven's idea of Khonshu's ceremonial armor is...a little different from Marc's, instead opting for a sleek three-piece all-white business suit and moon mask, becoming Mr. Knight, granting him many of the same abilities and powers as what Moon Knight would have, plus a pair of truncheons. He's not terribly proficient at the beginning, however.

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• Action Survivor: Steven survives perilous situations due to Marc and Jake's protection, his quick thinking, or because of sheer luck, before he takes a level in badass in later episodes.
• Actual Pacifist: Steven Grant is horrified by the violence Marc commits and Khonshu encourages. By the second episode, Marc is forced to take control because Steven would rather lock himself up in an asylum than hurt more people, and even while Marc is in control, Steven constantly tries to get him to stop attacking people. He even wrests control of the body to hail a taxi to the airport in the third episode while Marc is interrogating other people. By the fifth episode, Steven comes around to the idea of violence sometimes being necessary, turning him into more of a Technical Pacifist.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Steven Grant has much more in common with Bruce Wayne in the comics, being a businessman and playboy who is very self-confident for the most part. The series shows Grant to be a significantly meeker and unhappy person who suffers from insomnia and is barely scraping by as a museum employee.
• Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged. At first, Grant appears to be an ignorant, bumbling Brit who can't really handle himself in a fight at all. Then, episode 2 reveals that he's able to become Mr. Knight, and demonstrates incredible Super-Strength while fighting the jackal monster from before...except he still has no idea how to actually fight, forcing him to relent and hand over control of the body to Marc to defeat the jackal.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: In the comics, Mr. Knight was the persona Moon Knight used to track down criminals while acting as an informant for the police and was generally just as serious and intelligent as Moon Knight. In the Moon Knight series, Mr. Knight is the result of Steven Grant trying to "summon the suit" rather than Marc Spector, and as such he acts much more like an ineffectual Fighting Clown until the series finale, where he's capable of kicking just as much ass as Marc once he realizes that, since they share the same body, then he also is capable of fighting.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Steven is shown to have quite detailed knowledge about Ancient Egypt and its mythology, something that his comic counterpart never had. In episode 3, he even uses his knowledge to help Layla and Khonshu figure out where the tomb of Ammit is.
• Adaptational Job Change: In the comics, Steven Grant is Moon Knight's identity as a Upper-Class Twit, who was created to finance his crimefighting lifestyle. In the MCU, Grant is a regular museum employee, and he lives in a fairly rundown apartment.
• Adaptational Nationality: In the comics, Moon Knight and all his alters are American and are primarily based in New York City. In the MCU, Steven Grant speaks with an English accent and works at the National Art Gallery in London. His passport reveals that Marc Spector is an American citizen, and Marc is shown speaking with Oscar Isaac's natural American accent.
• Adaptational Wealth: In the comics, Steven Grant is a multimillionaire who uses Marc Spector's mercenary money to enrich himself, finance his Moon Knight persona, and make himself known amongst the wealthier citizens of New York. Here, Steven is nowhere near as loaded, as he's shown working in a museum and living in a ramshackle London residence. His apartment is still incredibly luxurious for someone who only makes a gift shop cashier's salary, especially given that it's located on prime real estate in London, but Marc is the one who's implied to be paying for it.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Steven is this compared to his comic counterpart. In the comics, he's a confident multimillionaire businessman. Here, he's a jumpy and meek guy who works a low-paying job in a museum and is widely considered a loser by his peers and Khonshu.
  • Mr. Knight especially is hit with this in episode 2. The persona who in the comics kicked the collective asses of an entire building full of mooks and Guns Akimbo'd a boogeyman can barely hold his own against a basic jackal monster. This is justified by the fact that the MCU version of the persona has a more timid Steven Grant under the mask, not to mention that here Mr. Knight was only created for the first time in that very episode, and still has room to grow.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: He is incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about Ancient Egypt, even before going on an adventure to said country. As it turns out, he's named after and at least partially based on a fictional Adventurer Archaeologist character who greatly resembles Indiana Jones.
• All Just a Dream: What Steven assumes when he wakes up in his bed after the car chase in the Alps. He is very upset when he realizes he missed two days.
• And I Must Scream: During the second episode, Steven is stuck in the mirror having to watch Marc walk around in his body. Marc, having experienced the same while Steven was fronting, says he'll get used to it.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Steven says to his new pet fish, "If you're Gus, I'm the bloody Queen of Sheba."
• Animal Lover: He's a vegan with an affinity for animals, between his fondness for his pet goldfish Gus, having an eye for the presence of goats in his vicinity, and his friendliness in greeting camels.
• Animal Motifs: Alligators. Steven says the phrase, "Later gators!", and the home screen of his phone has an alligator on it. If connected to Egyptian mythology, this could relate to the crocodile-headed god Sobek, a protector against evil — or the goddess Ammit, who combines a crocodile's head with the body parts of a lion and a hippopotamus. We later learn that the phrase was actually something Marc's brother Randall said in his childhood and that Steven was subconsciously invoking his memory whenever he used it.
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • As he's fighting and killing other people, Steven can only profusely apologize, especially when he resurfaces from Marc or the third alter taking control of the body and doesn't know what's going on.
  • Exaggerated when he has to remove Ammit's ushabti from the body of her last avatar, Alexander the Great, by pushing his hand and whole arm down its throat. Steven can't help but stammer apologies to "Mr. Great."
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In "Summon the Suit", Steven continues to believe that Marc is just a hallucination, and finds his story of serving as Khonshu's avatar and champion to be ridiculous. This, despite not just the events of the previous episode, but the MCU as a whole, where magic and gods^note the Norse ones, at least are known to be real. This is somewhat justified though due to Steven's obvious mental health issues, and the fact that the jackal creature that attacked him in the previous episode didn't show up on security cameras, making everyone else think he's crazy too.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "Summon the Suit", Steven pokes a lot of holes in Ammit's Precrime Arrest philosophy, pointing out how children can fall under the umbrella of those who would be punished, and questions everybody in the cult if they're really okay with the fact that they are expected to kill kids. This clearly unsettles Harrow, who doesn't have any retort and instead opts to use Ammit's power to threaten Steven.
• As You Know: Steven introduces himself to the audience by correcting Donna when she calls him "Stevie". He points out his nametag as if it's the first time Donna is hearing about it, despite being his boss for quite some time now. Donna replies that he should do his job, which is selling stuff to children at the museum.
• Ascended Extra: In the sense that Steven Grant has generally phased Out of Focus in the comics in recent years after several status quo upheavals retooled Moon Knight into a reclusive loner, making the need for a Upper-Class Twit identity eventually unnecessary. Here, Steven is given much more focus as the main alter the series focuses on, with the series painting him as the protagonist more than Marc Spector himself.
• Audience Surrogate: Steven Grant is the first of the alters in the Moon Knight system that the audience is introduced to. He's a socially-awkward retail worker who suddenly gets dragged into a world of supernatural horrors with virtually no recollection of how he keeps ending up in increasingly dire situations. The more Steven learns about himself and the alters he shares a body with, the audience learns right alongside him.
• Bad Date: In the first episode, Steven was supposed to have a date with a colleague on Friday, but when he calls her he finds out that it is already Sunday and he inadvertently stood her up. He decides to still eat at the steakhouse but is so shaken that he can barely tell the waiter his order.
• Badass Adorable: He begins the show as a Non-Action Guy, and in his Mr. Knight form he's too Strong, but Unskilled to fight enemies off properly. But, when he realizes he shares a body with Marc and therefore his muscle memory, he increases in combat competence but remains as goofy and cheerful as ever.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: When Steven channels Khonshu's power, he manifests an all-white business suit complete with a moon mask, much to Marc's incredulity and annoyance. The "badass" part is downplayed, as Steven is still a rookie compared to Marc. Steven protests that he was just doing what Layla told him to do — summon the suit — and the outfit shifts to the Moon Knight outfit proper once Marc takes control. The badass part is invoked when Steven fights off Arthur Harrow and his mooks almost effortlessly in "Gods and Monsters", having realized that if he shares a body with the badass Marc, then he shares Marc's muscle memory to kick ass too.
• Battle Strip: In "Summon the Suit", Steven throws his white Mr. Knight blazer off when he decides to take his fight with the jackal seriously, only for the jackal to continue kicking his ass.
• Beard of Sorrow: Inverted. Marc has grown said beard in his despair after his abusive mother died, but he doesn't share memories with the other alters, so when Steven fronts right outside her shiva, he is completely unaware that his mother is dead and happily calls her while still having the scruffy beard.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Initially seems to be an Extreme Doormat who is unable to defend himself in a conflict and willfully puts up with his Bad Boss treating him like crap, but unlike Marc when his buttons are pushed enough he becomes quite assertive. It's Steven who stands up to Harrow's idea to kill children as a form of Precrime Arrest and who ultimately pressures Khonshu to end their contract.
• Blatant Lies: As Steven leaves the steakhouse (upon learning that he stood up his date), he tells his mom that he had a great time.
• Brains and Brawn: He is the brain to Marc Spector's brawn.
• Butt-Monkey: Steven Grant works a very low-pay job as a museum employee, gets treated with little respect from his boss and coworkers, and often finds himself in the middle of other wacky hijinks.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Steven has absolutely no idea of what is happening to him and is fully willing to give Harrow the scarab he's looking for, only to be forced into a chase when Khonshu wrests control of his body to prevent that from happening. Harrow even brings it up once he realizes that Steven genuinely has absolutely no idea of what's happening, even comparing Steven to "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".
  • It happens again when he meets Layla, who assumes that "Steven Grant" is just an alias Marc is using. She doesn't realize that she's dealing with a completely different person until she realizes that he doesn't know how to summon the suit.
• Catapult Nightmare: Steven sits up in a panic when he wakes up from the "nightmare" in the Alps.
• Character Catchphrase: "Laters gators!", which he uses to end a voicemail to his mum. It's based on something Marc, as well as his younger brother, Randall, would say.
• Chekhov's Skill: In addition to being an Egyptianophile in a series based around Egyptian mythology, his habit of working with puzzles to try to manage what he assumes is a sleep disorder comes in handy while having to reassemble the tattered remains of an ancient map, which itself needed to be folded to be readable.
• Clones Are People, Too: Despite being a Split Personality of Marc Spector's and a copy of an in-universe fictional character, at no point is Steven thought of as anything less then a full person nor is his individual personhood brought into question. It's shown off especially in the final episode, where he now knows about Marc's past trauma, nullifying the very reason he even exists, but Marc still goes back to save him as they escape from Da'at.
• Closet Geek: Steven cannot help but to correct others and explain Ancient Egyptian cultures and myths when someone is curious about them or gets them wrong. He also mentions that he loves Avatar, and implies he's watched the other Avatar. Upon meeting Dr. Harrow, he comments that he looks like Ned Flanders.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: At no point in the show does Steven refer to himself as Mr. Knight, despite his suit clearly being based on that particular alter/character when he draws from Khonshu's power.
• Confusion Fu: Justified. Because he has no fighting skills or any sense of self-defense, and until late in Season 1 he tends to front at rather inopportune times, Steven's combat style is generally pretty random and unpredictable. In the first episode alone, Steven does things such as throw a gun at somebody and fight off a man by smearing a cupcake in his face.
• Cope by Pretending: In "Asylum", it is revealed that Steven was created as a result of Marc's mother blaming him for his brother's death and abusing him. While Marc had to deal with the reality of the situation, Steven lived his life believing everything was fine. This is why Marc tries so hard to prevent Steven from learning the truth about their past: if he did, then Marc would lose that escape.
• Cowardly Lion:
  • Steven is a kind-hearted but mild-mannered "gift shoppist" who is understandably out of his depth in situations more suited to be handled by an experienced mercenary. That doesn't stop him from trying to do what's right, which leads to him being willing to pick a fistfight with a jackal creature just so it'll leave Layla alone. Later on, in the third episode, Steven willingly assists Layla and Khonshu in finding Ammit's tomb by tapping into his knowledge of Egyptian history. As of the fifth episode, Steven takes a level in badass and becomes braver than ever before.
  • It's worth noting that while Marc is brave in a more traditional way, Steven is morally braver, willing to die at the hands of Harrow and his cult because what they're planning to do is wrong and to protect the woman he loves, and he's able to share important information with Layla that Marc is too afraid of rejection to be honest about, even when it would seemingly put him in a weaker position compared to his love rival, something which Marc acknowledges and which serves to help them mend fences a bit.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Steven gets a solid punch in on the jackal monster during his first fight as Mr. Knight, but otherwise gets completely thrashed until Marc takes over.
• Cute Oversized Sleeves: Steven Grant wears oversized sweaters and jackets with overly-long sleeves to emphasize his sweet and innocent temperament. It's a notable contrast with his other self Marc Spector, a dour man of business who always keeps his sleeves at the right length.
• The Cutie: His kind nature and almost childlike enthusiasm are among his most prominent traits, and his appearance notably utilizes several stereotypically "cute" tropes compared to Marc, such as Puppy-Dog Eyes, Quirky Curls, and Cute Oversized Sleeves. It's not a coincidence, given that he and Marc originally disassociated from one another in the wake of their mother's abuse as a way for someone to have an innocent family history even if Marc himself could not, and thus he represents the childhood Marc was never able to experience.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's not without his own barbs, as he snidely refers to Khonshu as a "stupid pigeon" and gets sarcastic with Marc when he struggles without his help. He's also surprisingly snarky towards Harrow once he realizes his plans entail child murder.
• Double Take: Steven does this when he realizes that his pet goldfish Gus apparently grew an extra fin overnight.
• Dream Reality Check: Steven slaps himself and tells himself that it is only a dream when he is locked in the restroom with the jackal-like creature trying to get in. However, Marc assures him that everything is real.
• Dual Wielding: Mr. Knight wields two truncheons, one in each hand.
• Endearingly Dorky: Steven's bumbling yet enthusiastic demeanor ends up causing Layla to become more attracted to him than she was to the straitlaced but emotionally closed-off Marc.
• The Everyman: The series shows Steven as just a normal person suffering from some kind of mental illness who works at a museum gift shop... on the surface.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Steven initially wants nothing to do with Arthur Harrow or his strange cult, he's openly incredulous upon hearing Harrow's justification for using his ritual on children. From that point onward, Steven is much more willing to work to stop Harrow from resurrecting Ammit.
• Evil Hand: Steven genuinely tries to hand over the scarab to Harrow, but his hand either refuses to open or moves out of the way on its own.
• Exact Words: Layla begs Steven to "summon the suit" and transform into Moon Knight. So he summons a suit... and turns into Mr. Knight, who wears a stylish white suit. He has to be told by Marc that the "suit" she meant is his Moon Knight attire.
• "Friends" Rent Control: The first sign that things aren't as they seem with Steven is that a guy who works at a museum gift shop can somehow afford a large flat in London. That it's being subsidized by Marc becomes obvious over the course of the first two episodes.
• Friend to All Children: It makes sense for a person that was basically created to protect a child, based on the hero of a child's favorite movie. Steven is protective of children, be they ones who might be targeted by Harrow's plans to have Ammit execute future criminals or two children who he sees in Marc's childhood memories.
• Genius Bruiser: He has incredible knowledge of Ancient Egyptian culture, and in later episodes, he becomes a formidable combatant as Mr. Knight.
• Genius Ditz: Thanks to his insomnia and DID, Steven is quirky and strange. He is also very knowledgeable about Ancient Egyptian myths and religion.
• Hates Being Nicknamed: Steven is quick to insist on being referred to as such when Donna, his boss at the museum, condescendingly calls him "Stevie" instead.
• Hearing Voices: After Steven wakes up in the Alps, he starts hearing two voices: one that is apathetic and dismissive (Khonshu), along with another that warns him to not get closer (Marc).
• Helpless Good Side: He's a good-natured but wimpy person who has to deal with sharing a body with two other people who are much more willing to commit acts of violence than he is.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. In "Asylum", he pushes an undead attacker off of Marc and ends up falling into the sands of the Duat, which causes Anubis' scales to balance and transports Marc into the Field of Reeds. It's a subversion because he didn't mean to sacrifice himself, and it happened purely by accident.
• High-Class Gloves: Due to misunderstanding what Layla meant by the "suit", Steven's version of Khonshu's ceremonial armor is a completely stark white three-piece business suit, and it naturally comes with a pair of white classy gloves. They become slightly more obvious when Steven takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves when fighting the Jackal monster.
• How Do I Shot Web?: At first, Steven has no idea how to use Moon Knight's powers. In "Summon the Suit", he doesn't know how to access his powers at all, to Layla's confusion. He finally manages to summon the suit when he gets pushed out of a window and it's life or death, but ends up in an all-white business suit, since he misunderstood what kind of suit Layla meant. He also pulls truncheons out of nowhere while trying to make a point to Marc, and crushes a car's bumper by mistake since he's not used to his strength. He eventually becomes more adept at utilizing his powers as the series progress.
• I Am Very British: Steven's dialogue is littered with traditional British slang, which includes phrases such as "bloody hell", "bollocks", and "cheers!", establishing that yes, Steven is indeed a Brit. He cheerfully shouts "WAGWAN!" after punching a jackal monster in the jaw. Justified, because his Britishness is based on what an American child imagined British people to be like, rather than him being physically born and raised in England.
• Identity Amnesia: Steven Grant has no memories of Marc Spector, because Marc created him as a child to get away from his grieving and abusive mother.
• Identity Breakdown: Steven undergoes this in "Asylum" after discovering that Marc created him to escape the pain inflicted by his abusive mother after the death of his brother Randall. He's not very pleased about this revelation, and punches Marc in the face for it.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Steven was created out of Marc's desire for normalcy and to escape his childhood trauma. While Marc is a broken man who was beaten and hated by his mother, felt responsible for his brother's death and blamed for it by his mother, and almost got himself killed as a soldier, Steven could live a completely mundane, unexciting life where his biggest concern is that he can't account for all of his time. Most importantly for Marc, Steven was allowed to live believing that his mother was kind, loved him, and was still alive.
• In Name Only: This Steven Grant has very little in common with his source counterpart,
• In the Hood: In the first episode, Steven attempts to use the hood of his jacket to disguise his face so he will not be suspected by Arthur Harrow's mooks before his cover is blown.
• The Insomniac: Inverted. Steven is so desperate to stay awake and avoid having Marc take over that he is seen trying to force himself into being an insomniac by listening to a "Staying Awake" podcast.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He appears to be a practicing Jew, going by the presence of several items in his apartment associated with the Jewish faith, and he also often geeks out over Egyptian mythology to anyone who will listen.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Steven is really into Egyptian mythology. Over the course of the series, he gets to personally explore Egyptian tombs and interact with their gods, which leads to him getting briefly sidetracked several times from the sheer joy of it.
• Last-Second Word Swap: When Steven sees his beloved goldfish somehow has developed two fins when he knew for a fact it only had one before, he goes "What the- (cut to pet shop) fish?!"
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When Steven realizes that he has the same fighting skills as Marc, he starts to effortlessly fight off the undead souls that were attacking them.
• Literal-Minded: Steven is told to "summon the suit" (as in becoming Moon Knight) so he summons a three-piece business suit. It still works — it is a magical suit, after all — but he's still given flak for it by Layla and Marc.
• The Load: Marc is highly proficient in the finer points of combat. Steven, on the other hand, spends more than one episode being an outright hinderance to Marc. Anytime a brawl gets close to a mirror, expect Marc to be distracted at a crucial moment by Steven pleading with him to stop beating people up, or for Marc sometimes Jake to switch control of the body. It takes several episodes for the two to finally come to terms with each other.
• Meaningful Appearance: Steven's sleeves are never rolled up properly, and his hair is often a complete mess, indicating just how little sleep he gets.
• Meaningful Name: Steven Grant Rogers is the original Captain America, and Steven Grant is the most unambiguously heroic person in the Moon Knight system, with Marc being an anti-hero at best.
• Missing Time: The first episode makes heavy use of this, as Steven suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and often loses several minutes, or even hours, when Marc takes over. Every time Steven 'skips' forward, he's utterly terrified (it probably doesn't help that the skips seen tend to involve him being attacked by Harrow's cultists).
• Momma's Boy: Part of Steven's Establishing Character Moment in "The Goldfish Problem" is that he calls his mother every morning, leaving a voicemail apologizing for missing her and promising to call again the next day. Marc, on the other hand, isn't on speaking terms with his mother (something that Layla notes), implying that Steven's calls are to a false number. It's confirmed in "Asylum" that Marc's mother was not only physically and emotionally abusive, but she died two months prior to the first episode.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the middle of his confrontation with the cultists in "The Goldfish Problem", Steven blacks out and wakes up to find himself covered in blood and surrounded by dead cultists. He is appropriately horrified.
• Nerd Glasses: Marc is never shown to have impaired vision, but Steven is a little near-sighted and sometimes dons a pair of thick-rimmed glasses in order to pore over his books.
• Nerds Are Virgins: It's clear he's never had a girlfriend before, let alone had anyone come over to his place. He also gets very flustered over the chance to give Layla a hug on their motorcycle and excitedly announces that he'd been waiting for something like this his entire life when he mistakes Layla talking about rappelling for her offering to give him a blowjob.
• Nice Guy: Steven is a sweet and gentle soul who's non-violent and vegan. Marc, on the other hand, is much more abrasive and prepared to hurt others. Layla looks at Steven much more affectionately than she does at Marc, as she and Steven don't share the same troubled past.
• Nice Jewish Boy: Episode 5 reveals that Steven and Marc are Jewish by birth, and Steven appears to still be practicing to some extent in the present day. Steven is also very mild-mannered and easygoing.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He stores the scarab Layla gives him in his coat pocket, so when he removes his jacket as Mr. Knight he ends up leaving the scarab right where Harrow can pick it up.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Oscar Isaac has described his portrayal of Steven Grant in the show as heavily based on Peter Sellers' many roles, particularly leaning into how his style of comedy comes from him being unaware of how funny he is.
  • Steven is also intended to be a partial impression of Karl Pilkington from An Idiot Abroad, especially given his ambiguous sense of The Comically Serious.
• Non-Action Guy: Steven Grant is essentially this compared to Marc Spector and Jake Lockley. He does fight as Mr. Knight, enough to even take a swing at the jackal, but he lets Marc take over the rest of it. He becomes a full-on action guy in "Gods and Monsters".
• Noodle Incident: How Steven managed to end up in the Alps with the scarab and a dislocated jaw is never shown, and neither is the way that he got back from there.
• The Not-Love Interest: Although Marc (and Steven himself) are clearly devoted to their wife Layla, Marc's efforts to keep her at arm's length results in Steven assuming a lot of the story duties a superhero's love interest typically would in her place. Steven is a mostly Non-Action Guy who provides an emotional bedrock for the troubled Marc, while Marc tries his hardest to protect Steven from his dangerous life as a crime fighter, resulting in their relationship as the most intimate one shown onscreen, resulting in their relationship being the most intimate of the ones shown onscreen and following the typically-romantic arc of going from strangers who can barely stand each other to being devoted enough to die for one another.
• Oh, Crap!: In the first episode, Steven ends up driving a cupcake van to evade his pursuers and briefly blacks out, only to wake up to find himself wielding a gun. He then freaks out when he sees he has a gun, along with the fact that he used it to shoot someone's brains out.
• Omniglot: He is fluent in English and French, and can read Macedonian. He can also read and understand Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics — which, as he mentions to Layla, requires knowledge of Coptic — as well as being somewhat familiar with Mandarin.
• One-Steve Limit: Steven Grant's name is the same as Steven Grant Rogers. There's also Stephen Strange, who has ties to the supernatural like Steven Grant.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • "The Goldfish Problem" reveals that Steven is a vegan, which Donna points out when she finds out he has a date at the steak house. He originally intended to just eat a salad or some bread, but when he realizes that he has missed his date by two days, he orders a steak, showing how upset he is.
  • Despite being a pacifist who would never dream of intentionally hurting another person, Steven learning in episode 5 about how Marc created and used him as a shield against his mother's abuse angers Steven so much that he immediately slugs Marc in the jaw without provocation.
• Pie in the Face: During the car chase in the Alps, Steven smears a cupcake across the face of one of Harrow's goons who managed to enter the van he is driving.
• Poor Communication Kills: Layla repeatedly tells Steven to "summon the suit". What she's trying to say is "turn into Moon Knight", but Steven hears it as "put on a nice dapper suit" since he has no idea who/what Moon Knight is, which results in the creation of Mr. Knight. Downplayed, because Layla appears not to know about Marc's condition, and couldn't know Steven wouldn't know what she means.
• Prone to Tears: He's frequently teary-eyed due to all the stress brought on by sharing a body with Marc Spector. His coworker JB also catches him crying on the security camera when an invisible jackal monster attacks him in the museum.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Steven's perpetually wide, bright, and expressive eyes are one of the key visual indicators that helps distinguish him from grim-faced Marc. This trait is retained in his Mr. Knight form, who has big glowing friendly-looking eyes.
• Quirky Curls: He's considerably more eccentric than Marc, which is reflected by his hair being much more disheveled and consisting of loose curls.
• Real After All: After finding himself at home, in his own bed, seemingly unharmed, Steven writes off the chaos in the Alps as a dream. When he sees Harrow on a bus on his way to work that day, he's horrified to realize that it was all real.
• Refuge in Audacity: Played with. Many of Steven's actions come off as this to Harrow and his minions, since they do not realize that they are dealing with multiple people in the same body. One minute, they are facing a tough mercenary who killed two people to get the scarab, and the next one he's telling them that he is just a gift shop employee trying to get back to London. He then seems to troll Harrow by doing the whole "my body parts are not obeying me" schtick. It takes Harrow a while to realize that Steven is not fooling around and genuinely has no idea what is going on.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • Literally. The pet shop owner Steven talked to mentions that he (Marc) came to her shop to buy another fish with a missing fin, indicating Gus died while Steven was fighting off Arthur's cult.
  • It's also suggested, once it's revealed how exactly how Marc's DID came about, that Marc's Big Brother Instinct towards Steven is because he himself is serving as one for their younger brother Randall.
• Rubik's Cube: International Genius Symbol: Downplayed on the "genius" part, but Steven fiddles with a Rubik's Cube while trying to get some sleep, most likely taking advice from the "Staying Awake" podcast.
• Sanity Slippage: The first episode shows that Steven Grant is a normal man who works at a museum gift shop, but also is suffering from hallucinations and insomnia. Then things get worse when he gets called "Marc" by a woman who he calls from a mysterious cell phone hidden in his walls and hallucinates a mummy-like monster with a giant bird skull ahead...
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Steven does this during the car chase in the Alps and when he encounters Khonshu in Central London Storage. He does it again in chorus with Marc in episode 4, upon seeing Taweret — the Egyptian hippo goddess.
• Secret Identity: Steven himself has yet to discover that he is an alter in a DID system alongside Marc Spector / Moon Knight until the beginning of "Summon the Suit".
• The Shadow Knows: In "Summon the Suit", Steven's shadow resembles a crescent during his encounter with Khonshu in Central London Storage.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Shortly after transforming into Mr. Knight for the first time in "Summon the Suit", Steven comments that the suit makes him look sharp.
• Sleep Deprivation: Steven listens to a "Staying Awake" podcast because of his "sleepwalking". The podcast instructs him to solve puzzles or read a book to keep his mind alert.
• Sleepwalking: Steven initially believes that he suffers from sleepwalking and ties his ankle to the bed frame to prevent himself from getting up in his sleep. He also scatters sand around his bed and sticks tape to his doorframe so that he knows if he sleepwalked at night. Since Marc is the one responsible for his sleepwalking, he can just cover up all of the signs so Steven never catches on, but it's the thought that counts.
• Sleepyhead: Due to his insomnia, Steven sleeps in public a couple of times. The first episode shows him asleep on someone's shoulder standing up when taking the bus to work.
• The Smart Guy: Steven's main contribution to the Moon Knight 'team' is his expertise in Egyptian history and mythology. The only time Marc voluntarily cedes control to Steven before their newfound understanding and acceptance of each other in the fifth episode is to use his knowledge to decipher an ancient map Marc can't understand.
• Spanner in the Works: Marc has an entire identity and contact list separate from Steven without his knowledge and has seemingly been operating on several successful missions without him being aware of it. Though not shown, it's implied the damage sustained to their body during Marc's heist of the scarab was sufficient to 'shock' Steven awake and wrest control from Marc, making him aware of his alter's other life.
• Spotting the Thread: Steven begins to note something is wrong with his life when his beloved one-finned goldfish, Gus, somehow develops a second fin one morning.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Steven transforms into Mr. Knight after a jackal monster throws him out a window while he hits some pipes, the power that comes with it allows him to do a Three-Point Landing to save himself. Being unskilled in the realm of heroics, he still collapses to the side in pain after the fall.
• Tareme Eyes: Mr. Knight has large glowing eyes that droop at the outer corners, indicating his good-natured personality.
• Technical Pacifist: What he comes around to by the fifth episode. He still prefers not to kill people, but he becomes more willing to fight for his life. Tellingly, his signature weapon remains a pair of truncheons even after he gains this new resolve.
• That Was Not a Dream: Steven is shocked to realize that everything that happened in the Alps was real when he sees Harrow and some people in a bus staring at him.
• Three-Point Landing: In the second episode, Steven Grant is thrown out of a window and, as he's falling, he summons the Mr. Knight suit which allows him to hit the ground in this position. After a few seconds of posing, Steven collapses onto his side in pain from landing on his knees that way.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Steven keeps seeing Khonshu everywhere... unless he is everywhere.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: In the first episode, after "waking up" during a mountain chase, Steven hurriedly throws a gun he acquired — and that Marc had just used to shoot someone in the head — in a panic at Arthur Harrow's pursuing mooks, while driving the cupcake van in full reverse, much to Khonshu's disbelief and annoyance.
• Took a Level in Badass: Steven starts to show signs of this when he embraces his Mr. Knight persona for the first time, willingly going to fight the jackal to protect Layla, and he even lands a solid punch that even Marc compliments. On the non-combat level, he calmly dissects Arthur Harrow and Ammit's ideas of killing people before they even commit crimes and tells Marc that he will make sure to switch out so Marc can never kill anyone again, causing Marc to scream "SHUT UP!" and kick a mirror in frustration. In "Asylum", Steven realises that he has all of Marc's fighting abilities due to sharing a body with him, and proceeds to fight off a horde of undead to protect Marc. By the season finale, he's the one making a deal with Khonshu to free both him and Marc from servitude and uses his truncheons like a pro.
• Trying Not to Cry: Steven can barely keep it together when he realizes that he stood up his date and missed two days.
• Two First Names: Steven Grant, with both being able to be used as a first name.
• Unskilled, but Strong: When Steven becomes Mr. Knight, he gains all of Moon Knight's powers, including summoning weapons and enough strength to casually crush metal. Without Marc's combat experience, however, all he can really do is flail at the jackal monster, and he predictably gets his ass beat until Marc takes over. He gets over it by the last two episodes.
• Unusual Pop Culture Name: The fourth episode reveals that Steven Grant shares his name with an obscure pulp adventure character from the eighties who's basically a British Captain Ersatz of Indiana Jones, due to being created as an alter based on that character.

Tropes that apply to Jake Lockley

Jake Lockley

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: Unknown

Affiliation(s): Khonshu

The third, and most enigmatic, of Marc's personas. Jake is a brutal, vicious and cold-school assassin who seems to appear at only the most desperate times to save Marc and Steven. Apart from this, virtually nothing is known about him, not even his origins. Even Steven and Marc seem completely unaware of his existence. That being said, Khonshu seems to have worked out some sort of deal with Jake, as he gleefully takes on whatever job opportunities the ancient god provides.

---

• Adaptational Badass: Jake is noted to be even stronger than the other two alters, being able to overwhelm an Ammit-empowered Harrow while he was in the middle of being disintegrated. In the comics, the alters tend to be equal to or less capable than Marc himself.
• Adaptational Job Change: Downplayed. In the comics, Jake was a lowly NYC cab driver, while the MCU version instead sees him driving a limo in London.
• Adaptational Nationality: The Jake Lockley of the comics is a traditional New York cab driver, complete with Brooklyn Rage. Meanwhile, his MCU counterpart appears to be from a Spanish-speaking country, as he speaks with his actor's native tongue (though he seems to have a New York accent when he talks in English) but still works in London like Steven Grant.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Jake is generally portrayed by most comic writers as the most approachable and down-to-earth of the alters, and the one who inspired Marc to become The Atoner in lieu of serving Khonshu, although Max Bemis's run portrayed him as a ruthless Jerkass with a perchance for violence. The MCU incorporates a mix of those traits, with Jake being polite to women when he meets them, but is without a doubt the most ruthless and bloodthirsty of the alters, and fully devoted to Khonshu.
• Adaptational Wealth: With Decomposite Character at play, Jake is doing a lot better here than he was in the comics. He's seen driving a rather luxurious limo and wearing some dapper clothes with a hat, ironically making him resemble the Steven Grant from the comics more than Steven does.
• Ambiguously Evil: Episodes 3 and 4 present him in this light. He is a lot more violent than Marc and Steven due to the body count and the bloodshed he causes, and they are clearly scared of what is heavily implied to be him in the mental institution, but until the stinger, he is only shown to kill in self-defense.
• AM/FM Characterization: Jake establishes himself as a fan of old-time music in his appearance in The Stinger, as he can be heard whistling "Mas Allá Del Sol" by Manuel Bonilla in the mental hospital, and later plays "My Way of Life" by Frank Sinatra as he shoots Arthur Harrow in his limosine.
• Anti-Hero: To an even greater degree than Marc, as Jake lacks Marc's moral qualms with killing helpless enemies and even seems to enjoy doing Khonshu's bidding.
• Badass Driver: The first episode strongly implies that Jake is one, if it is him fronting in the Alps and not Marc, much to Steven Grant's bewilderment after blacking out and discovering that he is driving the cupcake van in full reverse with Arthur Harrow's mooks hot on his front. Sure enough, in The Stinger for episode 6, he arrives in a really sweet limousine to pick up Harrow from the hospital.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Befitting a chauffeur, he shows up at the psychiatric ward wearing a very snazzy suit.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: While it's suggested that he's not bad so much as just much more pragmatically antiheroic, he's the one responsible for the deaths of many of Harrow's cultists and ultimately Harrow himself.
• Big Damn Heroes: Arthur has Moon Knight on the ground and is about to kill him with his staff's magic, and Layla has been pinned down by being shot at by Harrow's men with only her metal wings to shield her. Then Jake takes control, and even though we don't see what happens, Marc wakes up to Arthur being the one pinned to the ground and his followers dead.
• Blood Knight: He clearly enjoys being Khonshu's "fist of vengeance", and the aftermaths of his fights show he has no qualms about getting his hands bloody.
• Brooklyn Rage: It's heavily implied that Jake's first on-screen appearance is in "Asylum", where Dr. Harrow may have mistaken him for being Marc, and he goes on to end their therapy session shrieking with rage and brandishing a spike. Both his accent and way of speaking alongside his erratic actions in this scene are drastically different from what either Marc or Steven would do if they were the ones fronting.
• The Casanova: During his appearance in The Stinger, Jake calmly charms the woman taking care of Arthur Harrow, even calling her "seniorita" for good measure. It's also heavily implied that he was the one who set up a steakhouse dinner date with one of Steven's museum co-workers: on top of his awkward personality, Steven is a vegan and was was completely unaware a date had been set up; while Marc is devoted to Layla and took them on an international mission that led to them missing the date altogether.
• The Charmer: When taking Harrow from the asylum in The Stinger, Jake strokes the nurse's face and tells her to calm down in spite of her confusion. He's able to calm her down into giving Harrow to him without too much of a fuss.
• Conspicuous Gloves: He wears black gloves while wheeling Harrow out of the asylum.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The first, although it is ambiguous whether it is him or Marc doing it, doubles as an Offscreen Moment of Awesome in "The Goldfish Problem". Steven is surrounded by four armed mooks in the Alps, temporarily blacks out, and wakes to find himself unscathed and surrounded by four bloody bodies.
  • The second is in "The Friendly Type", with Marc regaining control and finding two of the three mooks he was fighting earlier dead and the third one laying on the ground but is still alive.
  • In the finale, Jake seemingly ends up murdering every single Disciple of Ammit in one go.
• Dark Is Evil: When he kills Harrow and we get our first full look at him, he's wearing black, a good visual indicator as to what's in store for him in the future.
• Decomposite Character: Jake is hinted to be the wealthiest alter of the three (as opposed to Steven in the comics) since he shows up to pick Harrow up from the hospital in a very expensive-looking Rolls-Royce limo with a custom license plate in his (or rather, Marc's) last name.
• The Dreaded: Easily the most violent of the three alters, Jake's brutal fighting style terrifies not only Layla, but even Marc himself, as he's utterly horrified at the amount of bloodshed he commits when he fronts the body. Jake even makes Harrow afraid of him — the same Harrow who belittles an Egyptian god with no fear.
• Empty Eyes: Closeups of his eyes right before he threatens Harrow with a glass prism show them to be wide with blank pupils that reflect little light.
• The Ghost: His existence is completely unknown to the other alters, although he makes his existence known through his actions. He's only finally shown onscreen in The Stinger.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: In "The Friendly Type", Marc and Steven ask each other if they forced one another to commit violent murders. Neither of them did it, much to their respective shock.
• Good Is Not Soft: He is a part of the superheroic Moon Knight system and is still serving Khonshu to mete out justice, but it's all too clear he's the most unscrupulous of the three alters.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Jake's sole appearance in The Stinger has him speaking exclusively in Spanish, a sharp contrast to his comics counterpart, who was never so much as hinted to have known any languages other than English.
• Horrifying the Horror: He makes Arthur Harrow and Ammit look terrified before he pulls the trigger.
• Insane Equals Violent: Unlike the other two, Jake seems to play this trope straight. Whenever he emerges, several people end up dead and/or maimed. That said, The Stinger implies that while Jake is definitely the most violent and murderous of the three alters, he's at least stable enough to purchase an expensive limo to drive around in.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Marc and Steven are both horrified by the acts of violence the other seems to have committed while they were blacked out. But in "The Friendly Type", it becomes clear that it's neither of them taking over, but rather Jake, who is more ready to kill than either Steven or Marc, especially if him killing Harrow (and by extension, Ammit) is anything to go by.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: With the possible exception of The Stinger, all the times he is known to appear are connected to some form of retribution against those who would harm his other alters, leaving them once they're out of immediate danger. That he likely set Steven up on his date further suggests his protectiveness is motivated by a soft spot for his two "brothers".
• Last Episode, New Character: He appears in the post-credits scene of episode 6, where he kills Arthur Harrow in the back of his limo with a double tap. However, this is only for full confirmation that he's the Jake Lockley alter from the comics; he took control possibly during episode 1 and definitely during episode 3, and a representation of his soul appears in episode 4 locked in a sarcophagus, similarly to how Steven starts out in the same sequence.
• Meaningful Name: Jake means "supplanter", and that's exactly what he does.
• Noodle Incident: Jake is practically a living example of this. Whenever he takes control of the body, both they and the viewers black out and are only left to witness the bloody aftermath of what Jake has done.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The audience is never shown how he beats the crap out of people, only that the outcomes are incredibly bloody.
  • How and when Jake even came to be is also a mystery.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Unlike Marc and Steven, Jake appears to be a full believer in this trope, gunning down Arthur and Ammit without hesitation.
• Pet the Dog: While he is a ruthless person who has no qualms brutalizing Harrow and his followers, Jake is very gentle and soft-spoken with the nurse he takes Harrow from. He's also heavily implied to be the one responsible for asking Dylan out on a date.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Right before he double-taps Harrow.
  Jake: Hoy te toca perder.^English Today is your turn to lose.
• Red Herring: Throughout the show, Marc's voice often suspiciously seems to dip into a heavy Brooklyn accent, leading many eagle-eared viewers and comic fans to suspect that Jake was starting to front during these moments. However, in The Stinger to "Gods and Monsters", Jake speaks entirely in Spanish. We've yet to receive explicit confirmation as to what his English sounds like.
• Red Is Violent: He's trapped in a red sarcophagus in the mental hospital world, and he's the alter that unleashes the most bloodshed when fronting. Moreover, red in Ancient Egypt represented Set, the God of Chaos.
• The Reveal: His very existence is one, and he only properly reveals himself in The Stinger for the season finale.
• Rule of Three: Three times over the course of the series, he forcibly takes over the body and kills a group of attackers off-screen, all Harrow's followers.
  • In the Alpine town in episode 1.^note (without explicit confirmation, it might also be Marc, though the type of violence dished out here is more characteristic of Jake)
  • Outside Cairo in episode 3.
  • In Cairo in episode 6.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: In episode 4, Steven and Marc come across a red sarcophagus that's heavily implied to be housing a third alter. He briefly gets out throughout the series, culminating in the climactic fight of the season finale, apparently effortlessly killing every single cultist of Ammit and beating Harrow to near-death by himself, even though Harrow was in the process of disintegrating Marc's body when he took over. Marc, Steven, and Layla are all shocked at how destructive and powerful he is when in control of both their body and Moon Knight's powers.
• Signature Headgear: Despite his Adaptational Wealth he retains his trademark cabbie hat, indicative of his job as a vehicle driver and used to emphasize his strong sense of fashion.
• Slasher Smile: He flashes a chilling grin at Harrow before he finally puts him down.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He speaks Spanish at a low volume and murders people casually.
• Spanner in the Works: Both for and against the heroes. Despite their best efforts, Harrow ultimately overpowers Marc and starts disintegrating him whilst his goons assault Layla, only for Jake to assume control and brutalise Harrow, his Mooks, and the surroundings all at once, allowing the heroes to win thanks to his interference, even if none of them understand what just happened. However, his presence also means that Marc's body is still technically Khonshu's avatar, even after the god kept his word by releasing Steven and Marc from his service, and with them unaware of Jake's existence, there's nobody who can stop him loyally serving Khonshu with the full breadth of Moon Knight's powers at his disposal.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Downplayed, as he's the only alter that we don't see using Moon Knight's suit and abilities, but every time he does, the results speak for themselves. He regularly commits extremely bloody acts of violence whenever he assumes control, often leaving the survivors terrified of Steven/Marc in the aftermath when they resume control, unaware of what precisely he just did, and when he fronts during the climactic fight against Harrow, just as he's pinned Marc down and is in the process of disintegrating him, he somehow massacres every single cultist of Ammit, beats Harrow to the point of near-death, and is about to kill him with his own broken staff when Marc resumes control. From his perspective, Jake turns the seemingly-hopeless fight against Harrow into an Anti-Climax all by himself and with apparent ease, but also has a distinct disregard for collateral damage with how devastated the surroundings become.
• Token Evil Teammate: In The Stinger, he kills at least one orderly (who may or may not have been one of Harrow's many hidden cultists) to get Harrow out of the mental facility so he can execute him, showing he may not care if others are harmed during his work for Khonshu.
• Undying Loyalty: Unlike Marc or Steven, Jake appears to genuinely enjoy working for Khonshu, flashing a cheeky grin at Harrow before blowing his brains out.
• Unintentional Backup Plan: He's the unintentional backup for his system as a whole. When Steven's diplomacy and Marc's fighting skills fail, Jake shows up, always with the element of surprise on his side, and kills everyone in sight.
• The Unfettered: Unlike Marc and Steven, Jake isn't a merciful man, nor does he have any qualms about violence under any circumstances, ruthlessly slaughtering his enemies and murdering the unarmed and helpless Arthur Harrow.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Despite Jake forcibly taking over the body to inflict extreme violence on multiple occasions, both Marc and Steven seem to not put any more thought into who or what is causing these acts beyond a quick questioning of each other to determine it's not either of them (and the one time Marc does question it, he gets interrupted). Neither even seems interested in opening his sarcophagus when it appears in episode 4.
• Vanity License Plate: His limo has "SPKTR" (Spector) as the license plate.
• Walking Spoiler: Mention his name at your own peril.

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"You’re not gonna die. Let me save us."