I’m a lifelong lover of comic books, having started my infatuation with them in 1978. Following their exploits for decades, two characters burned in my mind as deserving of a broader audience beyond their cult fan status. Working in a comic book shop in the 1990s and through the mainstream hijacking of superhero films, I’ve said time and again how Black Panther and Moon Knight were worthy of comeuppance. Not merely because they are connected through a mutual goddess, Bast.

It took all the way until 2018 for Black Panther to shake the world as Stan Lee envisioned his gravity back in the 1960s. Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman. Meanwhile, Moon Knight has long been relegated to a minor tier fan favorite. Call him a deep cut of the Marvel U. The Fist of Khonshu has only recently broken through this year with Oscar Isaacs pulling off the unthinkable in a triumphant depiction of not one, but multiple lead characters in Moon Knight’s Disney Plus miniseries.

Comics-speaking, Moon Knight is the bipolar earthly avatar of the Egyptian moon god, Khonsu–written as Khonshu in the comics and t.v. show. The struggles of central human host, Marc Spector, wrestling with his dissociative personality disorder while fighting crime, has ushered some emotively compelling storytelling in recent years.

To really know Moon Knight is to understand his nuances. Marc Spector is a man of the Jewish faith fighting on behalf of Egypt. All eyes on you, Rameses II. Worse, he’s fighting his violent deeds as a mercenary forced to share head space with a proverbial cab driver (Jake Lockley), a rich socialite (Steven Grant), a masked, bruising Dapper Dan (Mr. Knight) and the shadow warrior himself.

I had a burst of inspiration after reading the latest issue of Jed Mackay’s run of Moon Knight, then chatting with my pantheon after drawing a tarot reading on myself. It was my patron warrior and healer goddess, Sekhmet, and a writer’s best buddy, Thoth, who nudged me to generate a tongue-in-cheek piece, thrusting Marc Spector into an even weirder “What if?” scenario than usually comes out of The House of Ideas…

When Moon Knight Cheated on Khonshu with Sekhmet…

THE SCENE:  In the Manhattan apartment of Marc Spector, aka Moon Knight, aka Mr. Knight, aka Steven Grant, aka Jake Lockley.  Spector and his various personae are leafing through a photo album of Spector’s childhood years.  Spector is drinking a glass of deep red and holding his head like he has the mother of all hangovers.  It’s only 1:36 a.m.  His fists are raw and already scabbing from the night’s activities when his patron lunar god, Khonshu makes an unexpected appearance…

Khonshu:                    “My son…”

Marc Spector:            “Yeah?  Oh, great, it’s you.”

Moon Knight:            “What is your bidding, my Lord?”

Jake Lockley:            “Yo!”

Mr. Knight:               “Shit, I have a wine stain on my tie.  What, is it Mercury Retrograde again already?  You would have to pick tonight for one of your edification sessions, Khonshu.”

Jake Lockley:            “That’s what you get for wearing an entire suit of white all the time, Snowball.”

Steven Grant:            “Don’t sweat the small stuff.  I’m a regular at Lemire’s Cleaners down on Pinehurst and 54^th.  Tell them I said to take care of you and put it on my account.”

Khonshu:                   “Sigh…Thoth help me…  My son, I had a disturbing chat with Sekhmet moments ago…”

Mr. Knight:               “2015 vintage cabernet, no less.”

Steven Grant:            “How topical.  I just bought a few bottles of Cabernet Franc from this vineyard outside of Cooperstown last week.  I’d swear upon Ani’s writings the blackcurrants were blessed by Renenutet herself.”

Mr. Knight:               “I’d bet my ruby-crusted ankh we’re talking about the same place.”

Steven Grant:            “We’ve traveled the same circles, obviously.”

Jake Lockley:            “Did someone mention alcohol?  I’m a little dry.”

Marc Spector:            “Can it, guys, I’ve got this.”

Moon Knight:            “Quit posing, Spector.  I do all the dirty work around here.  I am the chosen one, after all.”

Mr. Knight:               “Running a few merc ops without getting yourself killed will give anyone a superiority complex.  Doesn’t do a Goddess-damned thing for my predicament, though.  I wonder if Brioni has 24-7 customer service.”

Jake Lockley:            “Primadonna.”

Khonshu:                   “Grrrr, and I thought the Fifth Dynasty were full of themselves…  Getting to the matter at-hand, I am informed you may have been colluding with the cat goddess…”

Mr. Knight:               “Bastet has the most exquisite tailoring, and she gives hella good cat scratch fever.”

Jake Lockley:            “You wish, Desmond Merrion.”

Khonshu:                   “Quiet!  Again, I am referring to Sekhmet.  A tryst is said to have occurred only hours ago.”

Jake Lockley:            “Don’t look at me, man.  I was taking a fare to the Gaga show at the Garden.  Some fat cat high roller who tips like crap.  Which is to say, not all.”

Stephen Grant:          “That was me, you idiot!  And Misty Knight, whom you had the gall to blow her cover bringing up that Daughters of Liberty gig anyone in our racket knows is on the down low.  Also on the no-discuss list, she’s been clipping the wings of Captain America lately.  Not Rogers, the Wilson guy.  Both my Cap, for the record.  Yes, I’m rambling.”

Mr. Knight:               “Of all the…  Misty was supposed to be my date.  Well, if you consider a night of binging Ancient Aliens with my famous lime-drizzled fish tacos and guac loaded with ghost peppers an actual date.  Here I thought we had a connection with the name thing…”

Khonshu:                   “Enough of this confounded prattling!  This is what I get for taking on a five-for-one avatar.  Horus, take me now.  Anywhere.” 

Jake Lockley:            “The Deftones are playing the Stone Pony in Asbury tomorrow.  Just saying.”

Moon Knight:            “My Lord, the details are cloudy, but I do recall running into Sekhmet on the astral plane.  I was summoned by Anubis to meditate after I knocked the teeth out of this worm dung trying to jump an old lady down in the Garment District.  Anubis advised I may have used a bit of excessive force.  That’s when I seem to remember Sekhmet interjecting.” 

Khonshu:                   “You mean exchanging energies, the polite way of putting things, my once-loyal embodiment.  Sekhmet is not easily appeased, fair warning.”

Moon Knight:            “I don’t know what you’re getting at, my Lord, but Sekhmet approved of the brutalizing.  In fact, she offered to sanction me to the Council.  We have chimera to thwart, plus vampires, renegade griffin, those K’un-Lun rejects calling themselves the Red Right Hands, skin walkers dressed like Amazon Prime drivers, even unholy Apep once a week.”

Jake Lockley:            “Apep’s become such a slacker.”

Marc Spector:            “So that’s why I wanted a steak so bad tonight.  I’m not usually a cravings kind of guy and I take my meat cooked medium.  This one was done rare, and I ate it in minutes, even without A-1.  I never eat a steak without A-1.  Something’s shady.”

Moon Knight:            “Yes, Sekhmet mentioned the steak.  She was offended you never gave her an offering, Spector.  It was bone-in ribeye, what were you thinking?  Sekhmet says it’s possible to stay in her graces by leaving a pint of Guinness milk stout at her ka statue in Migdol.  Her consort, Lord Ptah, also requests an homage paid in beer, though he prefers an IPA.  Or a summer wheat.  He’s less picky.”

Jake Lockley:            “IPA?  There’s just no accounting for taste, even amongst the gods.”

Marc Spector:            “In Egypt?  Are you insane, Moon Knight?”

Steven Grant:            “That’s speculative.”

Mr. Knight:               “Define insane.”

Jake Lockley:            “Insane is drinking IPA.”

Moon Knight:            “My ba and my akh need serious modification before the Maat Kheru ever takes place.  Ammit the Devourer will eat me before the scales ever pass judgment at this point.”

Khonshu:                   “Need I remind you, Spector, with great power comes…”

Steven Grant:            “Careful, great Lord, I smell infringement.”

Marc Spector:            “I heard the same spiel from that Parker kid a year ago.  You see where ethics gets him in this city.”

Khonshu:                   “Sigh…there’s hardly enough opium in Saqqara to put up with…  Tread carefully, Marc Spector.  I can take that which I have given.”

Marc Spector:            “Why is this always about me, for Christ’s sake?”

Jake Lockley:            “Aww, now you’ve done it, bringing up His name…  Get me my yarmulke, quick.  Is tomorrow Saturday, by chance?”

Mr. Knight:               “Now am I right to insinuate that you…or, rather, we, were shaking sheets with The Mistress of Dread earlier tonight?  If so, one, I wish I remembered it.  Two, is Ptah pissed off?  I’m in the middle of building a wooden bird feeder for all the robins which keep showing up.  They pound seed like Lockley does a rum runner…or six.”

Jake Lockley:            “Eff you, Snowball.”

Mr. Knight:               “Three, if you’re doing it with something that’s human in body and a lioness in the head, is that still considered bestiality?”

Khonshu:                   “Set, I just know this is your doing…” 

Moon Knight and all his images and various personae are owned by Marvel Comics.

This farce is written with longtime love and respect for the multifaceted world of Marc Spector, along with his chroniclers and devotion to an Egyptian pantheon which prodded Ray Van Horn, Jr. to roast at their expense. Blessed be…