"[Marc Spector] may have been a mercenary, but [Bushman was] a butcher!"
"You see, there were some of us, a cabal, who were able to replicate some of your American Metahuman prowess. We created the Red Skull, we even managed to clone Hitler into Hate-Monger. My enhancement is more simple, more elegant. I discovered a method to elongate my life so long as I sufficiently stimulate the dark, primordial pleasure center of my brain on a regular basis. And as you can see, what I enjoy most is killing Jews."
—Ernst, Moon Knight Vol. 1 issue #194—"Moon Knight: Origin"
Moon Knight and his many personalities have come up against an equally diverse array of criminals, but these villains are by far the most depraved and despicable of them all.
Entries are by first appearance.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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Multiple Volumes
- Ra(o)ul Armand Bushman is a thuggish terrorist, crime lord, rapist, and even dictator who roundly proves himself the worst enemy of the Moon Knight. Once the head of a group of mercenaries Marc Spector was part of, Bushman personally murdered the head of an archaeological dig withholding valuable artifacts from him and promptly had the entire town he was in massacred to follow, leaving Spector for dead upon his revulsion. Dealing in many more crimes afterwards, Bushman returned to glory when he became the dictator of his home country of Burunda in a cruel dictatorship that killed millions, systematically exterminating everyone with AIDS within; killing his own men at the drop of a hat; taking advantage of his country's rich soil by having towns and villages wiped out—regardless if the populace can make it out—to build dope farms; and later slaughtering rebels with aplomb solely to get to Spector. Later trying to force Spector's friends to commit political assassinations to utterly humiliate and break Spector and aiding in an attempt to end the planet, Bushman was later brought back from his eventual death to lobotomize an entire asylum of patients to cause chaos all across the city, smugly admitting nothing matters to him more than seeing Spector broken before him.
Examples
- Issues #7-8: Simon is the leader of a gang of small-time crooks who decide to hit the big time by introducing a Hate Plague into Chicago's water supply, turning over eighty percent of the city's population into homicidal maniacs who want to do nothing but kill and destroy. Simon throws Chicago into chaos and threatens even worse if the city doesn't kowtow to his demands and pay him millions, after which he'll allow the drug to wear off and blackmail another city with the same scheme. Thwarted in this, Simon decides to introduce a lethal toxin into the reservoir to kill as many people as he can out of spite. A dreadful boss to the quartet of Stupid Crooks he's in charge of, Simon objects to the death of the first only out of Pragmatic Villainy; sends two more to their deaths so he has less people to split the money with; and shoots his final man dead when he refuses to go along with Simon's plan to poison Chicago.
- Issue #16's "Shadows of the Moon": Alexander Latimer is a bloated Corrupt Corporate Executive plotting to use a nuclear bomb to wipe out all of Manhattan Island. This is part of Latimer's greater exchange with an unnamed foreign power; the nuclear blast will paralyze the communications network across the eastern seaboard and Latimer will fly away with his pockets lined as the foreign power launches a disastrous attack on America. Latimer even decides to let two of his own minions get caught up in the blast when they fill their purpose.
- Issues #17-20: Nimrod Strange, aka "Arsenal", is a brutal dictator and leader of the Third World Slayers, seeking to upheave all of modern society so as to replace it with anarchy and his own power base. Indoctrinating hundreds into his armies while having loose ends across the world assassinated, Strange is always surrounded by his three female bodyguards who he forces to sleep with him and fight against each other to constantly compete to stay in his good graces lest he use them as Cannon Fodder. Strange's master plan involves striking over two dozen major cities across the world and killing millions of people to bring fear and terror in his name, kicking off this plan by having the congregation of a Jerusalem synagogue massacred. Even when his original plan is thwarted, Strange tries to hold Manhattan, New York hostage, threatening to trap everyone on the island before burning them all alive if his demands aren't met.
- Issues #29-30: Schuyler "Morning Star" Belial is the dark leader of a Satanic cult he leads in the hopes of bringing about Hell on Earth. Upon learning of Jack Russell, Belial seeks to capture and force Russell into his werewolf form against the man's will, with Belial's cultists killing an elderly railyard worker for merely witnessing them. Belial eventually traps both Russell and Moon Knight, planning to sacrifice the latter before infecting himself and his followers with Russell's werewolf curse, then running rampant across the planet and until the world is an apocalyptic nightmare fit for Satan himself to use as a kingdom.
Examples
- Issue #2—"Deadly Knowledge": Dr. Arthur Harrow is a twisted Mad Scientist who follows in the footsteps of the Nazis. Working for the group OMINUM to heal his own paralysis, Harrow has numerous people—mostly black men or other minorities—abducted for experimentation in an attempt to create mindless soldiers. This involves subjecting them to the worst pain imaginable, leaving them in unendurable agony as Harrow laughs over the pain the "human cattle" experience. Gleeful about the tortures and using his victims as lobotomized soldiers, Harrow plans to continue his experiments as long as possible until he is satisfied with the results.
- Issue #5—"Debts and Balances": Virgil and David Morgan are worshipers of the vile White Cobra. Dedicated to spreading chaos, evil and death, the two have a vile way of staying alive. Abducting children, the two subject them to a torturous, agonizing death to distill an elixir of life to allow themselves to live longer, which they have done for centuries. When Virgil is killed, David only sneers he is a fool and now there will be more elixir for him.
- Issue #6—"The Last... White Knight": Mother White is a South Caribbean drug lord who rules through the heroin trade. A multiple murderer who keeps a cop named Lynora as her drug-addicted slave, Mother White also moonlights as a cult leader with an especially vile victim choice; ghetto children, whom she kidnaps in the dead of night so she and her followers may kill and eat them.
- Issue #51—"Silverbird": Harlan Silverbird, after having gotten rich off the use of vibranium, decides to take the extra step in using it to claim the 21st century for his own. Silverbird attempts to create a massive satellite called "Silvermoon" to cover Earth in a field made of vibranium so that no man-made object can ever pass into orbit without his say-so. Silverbird first targets the satellites that are already orbiting Earth and starts downing them, allowing them to crush whatever is unfortunate enough to be below them, from Brooklyn Heights to small farming communities. After having already downed over a dozen of these satellites, Silverbird, all too happy to bring down a catastrophe upon the world so long as he's on top of what's left by the end of it all, tries to turn on his vibranium field and rain all the hundreds of satellites still in orbit onto Earth in the process.
- "High Strangers" arc, written by Doug Moench: Germain Royce, once known as Aleister Ravenna and more commonly by his chosen moniker of the Red Dragon, is an occultist whose time in the presence of beings from another world left him obsessed with the idea that controlling thought was the key to controlling the world. Seeking to enact another ritual to open the door to the same otherworldly powers that inspired him so he can rob the world of all thought and free will, Royce has experimented in Mind Control on countless homeless vagrants, leaving them as brainwashed killers he can compel into murder and suicide whenever is convenient for him. Royce once influences a detective into stabbing himself to death in a motel bathtub, and when another man comes to his door and threatens to expose him, Royce compels him into killing himself with a letter opener in the slowest, cruelest way he can manage while watching with pleasure. Royce later tries to have another innocent woman ritualistically sacrificed, which even his sinister assistant balks at. Allowing nothing to stop him in his pursuit of enslaving the minds of all humanity, Royce's efforts are even implied to have been behind Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and Charles Manson, the next of which Royce is all too happy to turn Marc Spector into.
2008 Annual—"Date Night", written by Duane Swierczynski
- The sadistic Serial Rapist who serves as the one-shot villain for the Annual proves himself to be utterly depraved even as a relative nobody in the Marvel universe. Using several false identities to approach and flirt with women, the rapist would proceed to drug his targets, then violently assault them physically and sexually for hours, leaving them bloodied, bruised messes by the time he's done. Subjecting more than half a dozen women to his cruelties with cheerful glee, leading to one woman attempting suicide, the rapist is only stopped when Moon Knight takes notice of the trail of traumatized, violated women he leaves behind and takes him down, saving the rapist's latest victim from yet another attempted assault.
Examples
- Issue #13—"Footprints": The unnamed leader of the ghost trappers is a greedy man who has masterminded a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme. Traveling the city to find spots populated with innocent ghosts, the leader traps dozens of ghosts of men, women, and children inside Witch's Orbs, causing chaos and terror throughout the spirit community. Planning to sell the ghosts as "trophies, conservation pieces, or even weapons", the leader hopes to create an entire new industry of trapping and enslaving countless ghosts in a miserable existence.
- Issue #14—"Old Gods' Favors": The unnamed dog trainer has such an intense hatred for all rich and wealthy citizens that he concocts a scheme to "knock rich scum off their high horses". Cruelly abusing a pack of dogs to turn them into vicious beasts and killing any who "fail" him, the trainer uses them to maul various socialites to death. The trainer then unleashes his pack of mutts into a populated restaurant, hoping to have the dozens of patrons and staff torn to shreds by his animals.
- Issue #15—"Bogeyman": The Bogeyman is a child-devouring monster who wanders from neighborhood to neighborhood seeking "crops of blood and gristle to harvest". Not just a predator but a gloating sadist, the Bogeyman is interrupted as it's preparing to eat another little girl alive, telling her that her fear makes her all the more delicious.
2017-2018 run, written by Max Bemis
- Ernst is a Nazi, a Serial Killer, and one of the most personal threats Moon Knight ever faced. Having taken part in the creation of the Red Skull and Hate-Monger while basking in the deaths of millions during The Holocaust, Ernst murdered a Jew and stole his identity to escape at the end of World War II. Hiding in America as part of a Jewish community, Ernst began secretly torturing and murdering Jews to satisfy his sadism and as the secret to eternal youth. Eventually founding the "Société des Sadiques" and using it to meet and endorse fellow horrible murderers, Ernst would use the Société as bait to torment and try to break Moon Knight into embracing evil, threatening the hero's daughter and even trying to force Moon Knight to murder a child that Ernst himself proceeds to kill anyway when Moon Knight refuses.
Examples
- Issues #2-3: Leonard Hawley is a man with telepathic powers who loves to "raise hell" simply for the fun of it, and hires himself out to villains so he can use his powers to hurt others in imaginative ways. Paid by Zodiac to torment Moon Knight, Hawley takes control of an entire old folks' home and uses the occupants to attack many people through the city. When Moon Knight investigates, Hawley plans to force Moon Knight to fight for his life through the dozens of seniors, knowing Moon Knight will have to cripple or kill them to survive. Challenged by Moon Knight to test his powers on him, Hawley gleefully tries to take control of Moon Knight so he can force the hero to slaughter the entire old folks' home then move onto the rest of the neighborhood.
- Robert Plesko, the third Black Spectre, is a self-proclaimed "student of atrocity", whose greatest joy is witnessing acts of evil. A former mercenary who ran with Bushman simply to indulge in war crimes, Plesko feigns being an ally to Moon Knight only to then assassinate his Shadow Council and fake his own death to hurt the hero. As Black Spectre, Plesko tests a violence-inducing soundtrack on a nightclub and a prison, forcing the populations to tear into one another while he releases the Serial Killer Waxman and homicidal Zodiac into the streets to torment Moon Knight. Black Spectre's ultimate plan is to use his sound technology to drive all of New York into an insane frenzy, then kick back and watch as everyone kills each other for his viewing pleasure; to further his plan, he enslaves the Moloid people with threats of pain and death. Even when his plan is stopped, it seemingly costs the life of Moon Knight himself.
- "The Tutor" was once an ordinary man named Kenneth who considered vampirism the next step in evolution, and himself as the master of this new race. Voluntarily turning himself into a vampire, the Tutor spreads his curse in a uniquely vile fashion he calls the "Structure"; peddling a vampire Ponzi Scheme through New York City, the Tutor has dozens of innocent people enthralled and made to join the Structure, and dozens more kidnapped by the vanload so the new "initiates" may be forced to feed upon them. With victims in such numbers that he is willing to write off dozens of his own men as rank-and-file Cannon Fodder at Spector's hands, the Tutor plans to spread this human-devouring horror worldwide until he is strong enough to depose Dracula himself. The Tutor also keeps his one vampiric rival in NTC, Lady Yunan, at bay with an especially reprehensible threat: the leak of her location to her former master Yi Yang, knowing that Yi Yang may raze all of NYC simply to catch her wayward apprentice.
