Moon Knight Provides Another Perspective On Superheroes’ Loneliness And Uniqueness

Even Heroes Have Personal Struggles

By Culture SlatePublished 2 years ago • 3 min read

This article contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Marvel Studios Moon Knight on Disney+.

Steven Grant in Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight on Disney+ is a Marvel character who finds it challenging to find companionship. Steven is portrayed as a lonely man who is a recluse, but not by choice. This is very similar to Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger and Sprite in the Marvel Studios production, Eternals. Each character has their own challenges in finding romantic partners. Steve Rogers suffers from being too scrawny, asthma, and chronic colds, while Sprite is trapped as an immortal in a child’s body. Steve Grant sleepwalks, is forgetful, and ignores detail. Steve Grant is unique from the other two characters because he suffers from a mental health disorder known as dissociative personality.

Steven Grant is a person who feels he must follow a particular nightly routine to feel comfortable going to bed, so his bedtime routine is filled with reading books and playing games, but he still has trouble sleeping. Steven’s routine is so because he is totally unaware of his disorder. He thinks he sleepwalks when he lives another person’s life in his own body.

In this story, Steven Grant speaks to a golden London busker who sits in silence in downtown London to express his worries over feeling alone and his sleeping habits. He even brings up the date he has coming up with a woman named Dylan. He does not remember asking her out on a date but is very excited about going on a date. Unfortunately, the date turns out to be a debacle because Steven shows up to the date on Sunday, not Friday making him two days late. Dylan is irate and tells him to never call her again. At this point, Steven is very concerned and confused. He is unaware that he has lost two days of his life because of his dissociative personality. This also makes Steven’s story very tragic.

Here we see that Steven is alone because he has bad luck and cannot function properly. Steven is not an irresponsible person or forgetful even. He is just not aware of his conscience because he is living the lives of others. Steven eventually discovers that Marc Spector is one of those lives, but Marc is there to support and take care of him, lucky for Steven. Another personality that Steven is unaware of also enables Steven to experience what he thinks are dreams.

Marc Spector is unique because he is Moon Knight, a vigilante who sometimes protects Steven Grant. Hence, Steven’s isolation from others is due to his dissociative personality. In this mental health disorder, those other personalities live in another part of his mind that he cannot see but maybe will allow him to live with some companionship and peace. At the end of the first episode, Steven meets Marc Spector, who saves Steven from the fierce creature from one of Steven’s other personalities.

It will be interesting to see how this character unfolds. Knowing that Steven Grant suffers from a mental health disorder makes the character more unique and gives storytelling a new dimension not typically seen in the past. It will be intriguing to see where Steven Grant/Marc Spector’s adventures and Moon Knight go. At the end of the second episode, we see Marc Spector being tormented by Steven Grant, who vows not to let him live in peace, the opposite of what was happening in the premiere episode. Marvel also has taken akin to the fact that they display the mental health disorder, dissociative personality disorder, positively. The first two episodes of Moon Knight have aired on Disney+ by now. So tune in and see what’s happening in Steven Grant’s reclusive life.

Thank you for reading our article today. If you want to keep up to date with our latest stories, please consider becoming a pledge or, alternatively, please consider leaving a tip. This will help us continue to keep bringing new and interesting content. You can also check out our video content on the following YouTube channels, where you can subscribe to keep up to date: Star Wars Culture, Eye On Canon, The Star Wars Underworld, Chatter Squadron, The Roll Out, Meg in the Morning.