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When Hunters Moon takes over the Midnight Mission, he shows that he has skills that the original Moon Knight could never control.
WARNING: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Moon Knight #8, on sale from Marvel now!
Until recently, Moon Knight had always been a hero defined by his startling lack of control over the connection between him and his god Khonshu. Ever since he rejected his former god, he’s become significantly more stable and led to him building the strong community he’d been looking to be a part of for most of his life. But when Moon Knight’s ripped away from his community during the “Devil’s Reign” event, his replacement steps in and accomplishes the one thing he never could.
Moon Knight #8 (by Jed Mackay, Alessandro Cappuccio, Rachelle Rosenberg, and VC’s Cory Petit) revealed the astonishing strength of the connection between Hunter’s Moon and Khonshu, far surpassing the one he had with Moon Knight. When he’s fighting a superpowered version of Stained Glass Scarlet that’s basically become a young god, Hunter’s Moon called upon Khonshu and multiple previous incarnations of Moon Knight to help him defeat her. They make short work of her, both showing the moon god’s awesome power and showing Hunter’s Moon’s devotion.
Before the current series, Moon Knight had always been in a push-and-pull relationship with Khonshu. He was always incredibly devoted to the moon god. But it was always somewhat contentious, eventually leading to Moon Knight breaking away from Khonshu in this series. When Moon Knight summoned Khonshu during the “Age of Khonshu”, the god was controlling him to do his bidding. Hunter’s Moon, while also doing Khonshu’s bidding, is not entirely controlled by him because he’s devoted himself completely and never questioned him. Moon Knight did the things he did because he felt compelled to do them. Hunter’s Moon did them because he wanted to.
In Moon Knight #2 (by Jed Mackay, Alessandro Cappuccio, Rachelle Rosenberg, and VC’s Cory Petit), Moon Knight faced a villain in a similar circumstance to Hunter’s Moon’s confrontation with Stained Glass Scarlet. Instead of calling upon Khonshu to help him, Moon Knight relied on his irreversibly changed mind to create a gigantic version of himself that made the villain catatonic. Because he has given up worshiping the moon god, Moon Knight instead views himself and his heroic identity as his new idol of worship. If he would have been facing Stained Glass Scarlet, Khonshu would have assuredly offered him help only if he promised to commit himself fully to the moon god. Meanwhile, Hunter’s Moon is the type of character who would never think to not follow Khonshu’s orders.
The dichotomy between the two is only exacerbated when looking at how much their approach to fighting crime differs from one another. Moon Knight now relies almost exclusively on his learned skills and the community he’s built around the Midnight Mission. Instead, Hunter’s Moon relies on the skills Khonshu has “downloaded” into his brain, not the ones he’s learned through experience. When the duo fought, Moon Knight defeated Hunter’s Moon because he was a “doctor dancing in borrowed shoes.” The two seem to be learning from each other though, as evidenced by Hunter’s Moon being willing to fill in for Moon Knight. He has slowly started to open up to the rest of the world, even being willing to work with Reese who he initially tried to kill early on in the series.
Moon Knight and Hunter’s Moon are two heroes with similar power sources but wildly different life experiences have led them to come to blows. But their connection could possibly change one or the other for good, pushing Moon Knight to return to Khonshu or Hunter’s Moon to question his commitment. Ultimately, as Hunter’s Moon said during his first meeting with Moon Knight, the two are brothers with the same father and they’re forever connected even if they do approach the same problem in radically different ways.
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