With the upcoming release of The Avengers, Marvel is as popular as ever. They have a large stable of popular characters that are making for hit movie after hit movie. We're also getting a Spider-Man reboot, but I can't help but think of other characters that are getting the shaft in place of more sequels and reboots. These characters have strong stories that would make for a heck of a movie. Some of them have been in other movies, but have either been weakly portrayed or didn't get enough screen time. So far, we've had Gambit at #5, and Doctor Strange at #4.
The mid-point of our list belongs to…
#3 Moon Knight
Moon Knight is, in my opinion, one of the coolest designed super heroes that Marvel has. A movie about Moon Knight would be part Jason Bourne, part Batman, and part Tony Stark — and I'll tell you why as I describe what a Moon Knight movie might be about.
Moon Knight's real name is Marc Spector, a materialistic man with a huge ego. He was a heavyweight boxer, amazing athlete and acrobat, a U.S. Marine, and finally a CIA operative. He is a master of hand-to-hand combat and is trained with a variety of weapons.
At the CIA, many events take place that shapes the future for Marc. The main villain for a first (if there's going to be multiple) Moon Knight movie would Crossfire. Crossfire was a CIA interrogation expert known as William Cross, and he worked with Marc at the CIA. Well, Cross developed ultrasonic brainwashing technology for the CIA, and he eventually stole the technology and disappeared by faking his death; it cost him his left eye and left ear, which he replaced with cybernetic implants. There's more to come from our villain later.
So Marc continues to work at the CIA, and there's shady stuff going on — Jason Bourne-type stuff. Marc recruits his brother Randall into the CIA, but Randall's not exactly a stand-up guy. He betrays the CIA and Marc by selling weapons to two opposing sides during an altercation. When Marc's lover, Lisa, finds out, Randall kills her… with a meat cleaver. Nice guy, huh? Marc hunts Randall down and beats the sh*t out of him, injuring Randall so badly that Randall goes psychotic. How many people do you know that can beat someone psychotic?
Ya know that rule of three? Well here's the third thing that happens at the CIA. Marc befriends fellow CIA agent Amos Lardner, but unknowingly turns him over to a CIA project designed to control its agents' minds. This was the last straw for Marc, and he left the CIA. He became a mercenary for several years, and even though he tried to be on the side of what he believed in, he ended up just fighting for whoever paid him the most.
He became friends with a French mercenary named Jean-Paul DuChamp, and nicknamed him “Frenchie.” The next part of our story places Marc and Frenchie working for Raoul Bushman, a savage terrorist. During a mission in Sudan, Bushman assaults the town of Selima seeking information about Dr. Peter Alraune's discovery of an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb containing gold. Marc warns Bushman when Dr. Alraune is about to stab him from behind. Instead, Bushman bites Alraune in the neck with his steel teeth, killing him.
Needless to say, Marc is rethinking his mercenary lifestyle and grows a conscience. Marc helps Dr. Alraune's daughter, Marlene, escape Selima. He sees Bushman executing the people of the town, so Marc attacks him and is ultimately defeated by Bushman. He leaves Mar in the desert to die. Being the fighter that he is, Marc drags himself through the desert to the tomb that Dr. Alraune found. Marlene and her servants find him there and bring him into the tomb, placing his body next to a statue of the moon god, Khonshu. Marc dies, but as Marlene is crying of his body, he wakes up, alive again. He believes that he is the avatar of the Khonshu and that he was brought back to be the moon's knight of vengeance. By the way, it turns out he becomes stronger with different phases of the moon.
He takes a cloak from Khonshu's statue, and Marc Spector returns to the town and destroys Bushman's forces in Selima. Bushman escapes, but we have our hero now. Remember how Tony Stark escapes from the facility he's being held in in the desert? That's how I view this sequence.
Since he is now the moon knight of vengeance, he returns to New York with Marlene and Frenchie. His plan is to hone his abilities and wage war on crime. He creates the identity of a New York millionaire named Steven Grant, using his mercenary profits to mingle with influential people. He also creates the identity of a Manhattan cab driver named Jake Lockley to make contacts with people on the streets. He assumes the roles of these people, and Moon Knight, suppressing his identity as Marc. Marlene becomes his lover and keeps him grounded in his own psyche. She also designs his costume.
Moon Knight uses gadgets and an array of weaponry to fight crime — throwing darts, nunchaku, and truncheons among them. A lot like Batman, right?
The movie needs an ending, though — enter Crossfire. Crossfire resurfaces with the technology he stole in the beginning. He is plotting to turn people against each other via ultrasonic mind control (in the comics he turns super heroes against each other, but it'd be weird to introduce other heroes into the movie at this point). In a final battle, Moon Knight defeats — not kills — Crossfire, ruining his diabolical plan.
A strong director and the perfect casting of Moon Knight could make this an amazing movie. While Moon Knight is not as well-known as Batman, there's plenty of similarities, and the differences actually make Moon Knight unique. The fact that he's out for vengeance after all the horrible things in his past, and not revenge, makes this refreshing.
Tomorrow, we will give you our #2 Marvel character that needs a movie. Until then, salivate over the thoughts of a Moon Knight movie.
You can follow Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ
