Moon Knight broke me

 Marvel Studios Moon Knight came out of left field for most people. Everything about the choice struck an odd chord. For me personally, I owned maybe a comic or two, and had him show up in other character's comics from time to time. I knew very little about his history as a character. I likely read something about him way back when during Marvel Comics' run of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe. And I may have played him as a character in the Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game.

There was some things going against the character, that may have kept me at bay. I had often heard this was Marvel's Batman. I heard he had multiple personalities. I heard he was incredibly violent. He was an anti-hero. Etcetera , etcetera, etcetera. Some of these had something to do with jumping in on a character that was so incredibly complicated that it would take years to even understand what was going on. I was too late to the party.

With Marvel Studios, we are all in on the ground floor. Years of continuity for the studio doesn't really go that far back so getting caught up on anything is very easy. So in that way, I was excited to be jumping in on something I had very little history with. I could enjoy the show as it unfolded, not being able to predict anything that was coming, surprised completely by every twist and turn and watch it completely free of expectations.

This show is so different. The writing, the execution, the acting, the cinematography has left me completely off-balance. In some ways this is blending what I love about comics with what I love about books. I tend to like my books dark. Or at least I used to. Or at least, that was all I read when I was in my own darkest of places. I avoid those things now, because they are triggers to bad memories and bad times, when I was alone, when I was a freak, when I was an outsider. I like my friends. I like my family. I like that my life has moved on from that dark, dark place I used to be in.

I haven't really gone back to the books I used to read, the ones I wore like a warm, sad blanket. This show is dark, like that time of my life. And it kind of scares me. I feel for Mark/Steven. And as his story unfolds every week, as we drug down deep into his psyche, I feel like him, and I feel that pain he is going through. Episode 5 was the lowest point of this darkness, touching on many of my own fears, marking some of my own insecurities as a human being... as a dad... as a son.

How is it that this character that I knew so little brought me to these emotions in such a short span of time? Relevancy and execution. I almost want off of this ride, but I do need to see this through, I do need to know how our lead character finds himself, how he saves himself and the world.

Martin Scorcese and a few other directors have voiced their disproval of Marvel. Popcorn movies without a soul. I wonder how they would react to this series. Would this get validation from them. Does this go dark enough for them. Does this show enough humanity?