WARNING: Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War ahead
Ross Marquand ended up being one of the more surprising cameos in Avengers: Infinity War, a role that he didn’t even tell his Walking Dead castmate Danai Gurira about it. But if you think that is the only role he wants from the Marvel Universe, you’re sorely mistaken. According to Marquand during an appearance at ComiCONN 2018 in Connecticut, he’d like to take on Marvel’s answer to Batman (Via SyFy):
Oh yes–Moon Knight! It’s tough because a lot of my friends have said Moon Knight is essentially just Marvel’s answer to Batman, but I don’t agree with that. I agree that there are similarities, but Moon Knight was a mercenary–kind of a gun for hire who didn’t really have much regard for people before he had his moment of awakening, I guess. And Bruce was always a good guy–even as a kid, he was torn by revenge, but he wasn’t this bloodthirsty killer like Moon Knight was. So I think that, coupled with what they’ve been doing the last 15 years with the character–going into the dissociative identity disorder, really calling in to question if everything happening is all in his head, is he actually a vigilante killer or did he die in Egypt? It brings up a slew of questions, and that to me has never really been delved into in any comic book character before–the idea of, is any of this actually happening? Is he crazy? Is he killing good people? Is he actually dead in Egypt? Those are such amazing questions and I don’t feel like any comic book series before or since has really tapped into that. So for me, playing a crazy superhero would be awesome. So Moon Knight, Moon Knight for sure.
Moon Knight is bound to stir some controversy if it was ever to make the jump to live action — look at the reaction to Iron Fist — but it has been proven that the character is worthy of great stories. Warren Ellis’ run from 2014 stripped the character of a lot the mythology, opening issues with some simple establishing information according to ComicBook:
“Mercenary Marc Spector died in Egypt, under a statue of the ancient deity Khonshu. He returned to life in the shade of the moon god, and wore his aspect to fight crime for his own redemption. He went completely insane, and disappeared.
This is what happened next.”
From there, we get Moon Knight in a suit and white mask, a fusion of personalities, and a study in sanity. It could be a great Netflix series at the very least, right alongside Daredevil or Luke Cage. And as SyFy points out, one of Infinity War‘s writers supports this idea:
“Somebody should make a really good Moon Knight movie, but it’s complicated,” Markus said last month during an interview on Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin’s Fatman on Batman podcast. “It’s because he got really good later. At the beginning, he was kinda good but also kinda cheesy, and then later on he got kinda awesome, but the awesome part kind of needs the cheesy part to make sense, so it gets convoluted very quickly. But he’s Jewish, which is nice.”
Going the Ellis route would sort of ground the character a bit to tell stories, and the origin could be hinted at instead of becoming the focus for any film or series. It would also be an excellent way for Marquand to balance out the evil of playing someone like the Red Skull.
(Via SyFy Wire / ComicBook / Bleeding Cool)