Over the past 15 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown into the largest franchise in the history of Hollywood. With over 30 different films, streaming series and other materials existing under the broad umbrella of the MCU, there are bound to be some that stand out more than others. The year of 2022 was one of the biggest for the franchise yet. With eight different MCU projects released during the calendar year, it was the second-busiest year in the history of the MCU, only behind 2021, which had nine projects. Some of the new MCU material released in 2022 was great; some of it…wasn’t the best. Throughout all of this new material, there was one release that stood head and shoulders above the rest: Moon Knight.
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The six-episode Disney+ series ran from March 30 to May 4, following a three-month break after the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home and the conclusion of Hawkeye on Disney+. As the first new MCU project to be released in 2022, expectations were high for the new Moon Knight series. Like any comic-book character, Moon Knight has his die-hard fans, and the new show was hotly anticipated because the character is one of the darkest (and strangest) to be introduced into the MCU yet. The story of the series was told across six episodes, and it ended up being one of the most well-constructed and gripping that the Marvel franchise had to offer this year.
The immensely talented creative team, led by Jeremy Slater and Mohamed Diab, crafted a Marvel series that is unlike anything else that the franchise has offered yet. It’s a complex and ever-shifting narrative with real implications for the universe at-large and creative ingenuity that differentiates it from the immense backlog of the rest of the MCU. Here’s how Moon Knight has held up as the best new material the MCU has produced in 2022:
An Engaging Story
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Moon Knight sees Oscar Isaac star as both Steven Grant and Marc Spector, the two sides of a man who lives with dissociative identity disorder (DID). The story begins from the perspective of Steven, an innocent man who is living as simply as he can while working at a museum gift shop in the U.K. He’s vainly trying to jumpstart his romantic life; he likes to study and read up on Egyptian mythology and legends, and just generally he’s a guy trying to carve out a decent life for himself. However, Steven’s grip on reality is far from the strongest. He often finds himself waking up in strange places with people he’s never met, sometimes with days having passed by. On top of that, he often sees strange things that nobody else does, which causes him to further question his own sanity. He’s never entirely sure of what’s happening or what is real, and nothing he tries seems to help, even tying his ankle to his bed to stop himself from wandering off in his sleep.
Unbeknownst to him, all of these strange happenings are the doings of Marc, the other person sharing his body who has been quietly taking control and getting them into all sorts of dangerous situations. To make matters worse (and even more comic-booky), Marc doubles as the avatar for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu, who has tasked Marc with stopping the return of the goddess Ammit, thereby saving the world as they know it. It is with this thread that Moon Knight is interwoven with all sorts of ties to the gods and deities of Egyptian mythology. It embraces a child-like fascination with the ancient mythology, and it frequently applies it in unexpected and dark ways.
That alone gives the series a different personality than much of the other MCU content. Moon Knight is significantly darker and more supernatural than pretty much anything else that the franchise has offered yet. Even further, as the series unfolds from the perspective of Steven and Marc, the audience is never fully sure of what’s real and what’s not. The two characters make up one unreliable narrator who himself is just a pawn in a much larger game that started long before he entered it. This concept of a questionable reality within the show is doubled down on in the later episodes of the series, as everything the audience thinks they know about the characters and plot is suddenly thrown into question with a twist we won’t spoil here. Moon Knight is a show that keeps its viewers guessing, and each new episode had something new to offer, which is more than can be said of most of the other Marvel Disney+ shows, which have been consistently front-heavy with lackluster finales.
Oscar Isaac and the Rest of the Cast
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On top of a considered and mature story that puts much of the rest of the MCU content to shame, Moon Knight also boasts some of the best casting and performances that have been seen in any entry in the series. Most obviously, is Isaac as the lead character of the series. Isaac is one of the finest actors of his generation with a myriad of phenomenal performances to be found throughout his filmography, ranging from Ex Machina to Dune and Inside Llewyn Davis. When given a complex and meaty character that he can sink his teeth into, Isaac can always be relied on to give an exemplary performance. His work on Moon Knight is no exception.
Isaac is perfectly cast in the lead role, and he delivers a manic performance that stands tall as one of the best to come from any MCU project. His casting as this character is one of the all-timers for the franchise, right alongside the likes of Chris Evans as Steve Rodgers and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. In this role, Isaac is able to really flex his acting chops, as he not only is asked to portray the meekness of Steven and the mental instability that the character struggles with, but he’s also responsible for portraying Marc, the more traditional adventuring hero type who has significantly more nuance and emotion to him than one would expect at first glance. That’s not even to mention both characters’ alternative personas they take on when they embrace the powers of Khonshu, as Marc becomes the Moon Knight and Steven becomes the dapper Mr. Knight (though notably, it’s not the same take on the character from the comics).
Surrounding Isaac in Moon Knight is an outstanding supporting cast that is led by the legendary Ethan Hawke, who, after years of Marvel naysaying, was convinced to join the franchise with the cult leader villain of the series, Arthur Harrow. In the role, Hawke expectedly turns in one of the most chilling and compelling performances from any antagonist in the MCU to date, as his dedication to the goddess Ammit and his charismatic ability to entice a mass following with his zealotry keeps the audience on edge and uneasy throughout every scene he’s in. Beyond that, Moon Knight also serves as the introduction of May Calamay to the MCU, whose instant likability in the role of Layla hopeful ensures a long and bright future for her in the franchise. There’s also the inclusion of the legendary F. Murray Abraham as the voice of Khonshu, which is a major highlight of the series from the first moment he speaks.
Compared to the Rest of the MCU’s 2022
Moon Knight is a great example of the kind of high-quality content the MCU can produce when the creative team behind a story is given the free rein to tell a unique story and take risks with the source material. It’s definitely a top-tier MCU entry, and it thoroughly earns its place on any top ten MCU list. When it comes to 2022, Moon Knight is easily the best thing the franchise produced this year, though, admittedly, that may not have been a very difficult task. Despite being one of the MCU’s busiest years since launch, 2022 was one of the weakest years the franchise has had yet, so there really wasn’t much genuine competition to challenge Moon Knight for that top spot. Phase Four has been the most divisive and underwhelming of any era of the Marvel franchise so far, and when looking at their releases in 2022, it’s easy to see why.
There were two other Disney+ series produced by Marvel this year, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. While both of those series introduced exciting and engaging new characters into the overall MCU franchise, the stories they were both placed in weren’t the strongest. There were also the two new “Special Presentations” released on Disney+, which both served their purpose well as fun holiday celebrations for the MCU, but they were both simply too brief to put them in the running for the best MCU project of the year. As for the film side of things, that’s where the MCU situation just gets even more depressing. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had some great horror elements, thanks to the direction by Sam Raimi, but the overall experience was incredibly uneven. Thor: Love and Thunder was a comedy that just failed to be funny on a few too many occasions. And Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, while it was undoubtedly the best MCU movie of the year and a fitting tribute to the series’ late star Chadwick Boseman, the film itself relied a little too heavily on previous franchise tropes which stopped it from making the same kind of immense impression as the first Black Panther.
As the result of all of this mediocrity and forgetful material that the MCU produced in 2022, Moon Knight holds its place as the best of the bunch almost by default. It outraces all the rest simply because it’s the only one that was genuinely great from start to finish. It’s the only new MCU Disney+ series in 2022 that felt like must-watch TV. It brought a new story and personality to the MCU that felt fresh and exciting. The series introduced plenty of unexpected changes into the franchise, and it wasn’t afraid to play with the expectations of its audience. There was a lot of potential in nearly every MCU project produced in 2022, but Moon Knight was the only entry to really live up to its promise.
