Moon Knight is Marvel's first superhero with a "Middle East cultural background", and this is also the first superhero in the "post-Reunion era" in the "fourth stage" of Marvel's true "restart". From the perspective of where Marvel's superheroes can go after the reunion, the early announcement to the launch of the first episode, "Moonlight Knight" has actively spread the cultural connotation of Marvel's superheroes and is seeking to re-start.

01. "Superhero" inflation

The series production and launch plan of "Moon Knight" was announced at D23 hosted by Disney in 2019. At that time, when the "Avengers 4" hit the end, Marvel's superhero image urgently needed to beiterated on the screen.

The superhero screen image represented by the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the best footnote of the rapidly globalized American film industry in the 2010s. Human beings all over the world are happy to see the stories of individual heroes with outstanding abilities, fighting for the public interests that transcend individuals and even their own races. The huge influence and commercial demonstration effect have made many commercial blockbusters that were originally non-superheroes gradually "super-heroic".

But by the time of the collective superheroization of commercial blockbusters in the past two years are brought to the big screen, we will face a new era composed of epidemics, economic downturns and extremely uncertain international political relations. The heroic framework of the 30-year peace era and the era of great economic globalization seems to be unable to respond accurately to real problems. As a result, most of these commercial blockbusters did not achieve the expected great success.

Marvel has the same problem.

02. The stunning debut of "Moon Knight" 

After the first episode of "Moonlight Knight" was launched, the audience may also be able to perceive that this is not a "Batman". In fact, the superhero image brought by Steven is quite special, not quite like the superhero image that has existed on the screen in the past. He is very shy, has no sense of existence, and is often difficult to be responsible for his own behavior.

However, the follow-up content of the series did not continue the existing characteristics of Steven, and created a charming superhero with him as the core. There are even many lapses in the problems that "Moon Knight" claims to be trying to solve before the launch.

How to make a film and television work with less cultural appropriation and colonial perspective, "Rami", which tells the story of Egyptian-American Muslims, may be a good reference. Unlike the Moon Knight, "Rami" portrays a complex character whose words and deeds are relatively divided. The drama presents a different Egypt, and it does not start with the stereotype of Egyptian culture, but puts the city in that city. The cultural life of young people in the Middle East is "beautiful".

The series "Moon Knight" seems to have no intention to reflect the drastic changes in social life in the "post-epidemic era"; it has laid out threads on many topics such as Egyptian culture, colonial history, and spiritual issues, but it has not followed any one of them to the real depths.

03. Anticlimactic in the era of streaming media

The disappointment of such high expectations may not have occurred. Looking back now, a lot of expectations actually came from the too wonderful settings of the first episode of "Moon Knight".

Will such a feature be the style and hallmark of shows in the streaming age? We seem to be seeing a lot of great first episodes, great story suspense, or great backstory all the time, but it's really uncertain where the story goes after that.

The on-demand mode of streaming media will indeed change the type of stories/episodes/films that prevail in an era. The on-demand mode itself will break the concept of schedules in the TV era. Coupled with the crowd-focusing effect in the era of streaming media and social media, we may indeed find it harder to wait. A superhero figure who can lead the consensus emerges.