Warning: Spoilers ahead for Ultimate Invasion #3! Moon Knight has always had an edge to him as a fractured man serving an unscrupulous god. But a new version of the character takes both his potential for villainy and his divided self to a new level.
This Ultimate Universe version of Moon Knight is literally multiple people serving multiple gods, but, like Marc Spector, Stephen Grant and Jake Lockley before them, it's unclear where one person ends and another begins with these new Moon Knights. In Ultimate Invasion #3 by Jonathan Hickman, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Alex Sinclair, and Joe Caramagna, readers are introduced to the two "Lords of the Upper and Lower Kingdom," one representing Ra and the other the full moon of Khonshu.
With only one Lord ever speaking at once, as determined by time of day, these two characters really do feel like one person.
Marvel's New Moon Knight Reinvents His Alternate Personas
Ultimate Invasion follows the Maker, the evil Reed Richards of the Ultimate Universe (aka Earth 1610), as he uses time travel to remake the newly introduced Earth 6160 as he sees fit. As revealed in Ultimate Invasion #3, The Maker and the representatives of this world’s seven major geopolitical superpowers have been faking wars and political conflicts between each other to ensure a state of relative peace where their reigns won’t be challenged. This council of villains includes both newcomers like these Moon Knights and versions of classic heroes - like the Hulk and Sunfire.
By making Khonshu and Ra’s (presumed) avatars act like two halves of one person, they actually mirror the classic Moon Knight’s fractured personalities. Instead of Marc Spector’s literal Dissociative Identity Disorder, this is a figurative alternate persona: two people acting as halves of a whole. The question that isn’t answered in this issue is whether the two Lords have their own personalities or if they’re part of a gestalt. With only one of these characters speaking at once, there could be a psychic connection between the two, or — since one represents Ra and the other Khonshu — this could represent the balance of power in the Egyptian pantheon.
This Moon Knight is also only one example of duality as a theme in Ultimate Invasion. Many characters in this series either come in pairs or have different halves. Most obvious is the Maker, the cracked-mirror version of the original Reed Richards of Earth 616, who actually considers the Maker his greatest foe. Similarly, the council introduced in Ultimate Invasion #3 features a new Captain Britain who wields both the Sword of Might and the Amulet of Might, the mystical artifacts that represent the two usually separate paths a Captain Britain can take. Moon Knight might be more than one person in this reality, but they fit perfectly in a series where everyone has an equal opposite.
Check out Ultimate Invasion #3, available now from Marvel Comics!
