As is often the case, I’m late to the party on both of these shows. Full disclosure, I have no knowledge of the Moon Knight character whatsoever, all I knew was that he existed, because Wizard magazine once made a joke about him being mistaken for Space Ghost, but otherwise, I went into the show with absolutely zero knowledge of the character, at all. As for Ms. Marvel, this is a lot of gray area, because in the comics, Ms. Marvel is Carol Danvers, which movie goers have already been introduced to as Captain Marvel, so again, I went in blind to the adventures of Kamala Khan, the teenager.
By virtue of living under the rock of parenthood, I’ve been fortunate enough to have avoided the vast majority of chatter when it comes to both of these shows. I’d only heard bits and pieces, like subjective opinions of Moon Knight, and I knew that Ms. Marvel has been somewhat completely re-imagined to feature a teenager, and a Muslim one at that, but neither really deterred me from going into them, because as a fan of the MCU, I still feel that it’s somewhat necessary to watch every piece of Marvel programming that is released, with the expectation that the knowledge will be useful when they converge storylines in the future.
Going in chronological order, I finished Moon Knight before going into Ms. Marvel, and I have to say that in more ways than one, one of these is very much not like the other. One show I thought was good, entertaining and refreshing, while the other one was completely horrendous, and I would dare say be arguably one of the worst editions into the entire MCU, and all of its extended reaching properties.
If you guessed that Moon Knight was the steaming turd, then you’d be correct. This show was absolutely fucking horrid. I think I would definitely rank this below the Black Widow movie as far as core Marvel/Disney productions go. I would even rank this beneath Jessica Jones and Iron Fist’s second seasons as far as extending out the MCU is concerned. And shit, I would even consider this to be a worse show than Cloak & Dagger, which is about as far reaching MCU as it gets.
The main reason for it ranking so low, aside from it being dreadfully boring and mind-fuckingly painful, is that I just don’t see the point of why this was made. If the modus operandi of MCU is to tie things together for eventual crossovers, I have no fucking clue to why Moon Knight was made. I admit already that I have zero familiarity of the property, so perhaps I don’t see it, but there’s literally no hints, references or clues to how this can tie into any other existing Marvel property/storyline.
I even went on the internet afterward to look up to see if I missed any post- or mid-credits scenes that would show how this might work its way into a future series, but nothing at all that really shows much potential for the future except for more Moon Knight. And the worst part is, if they release a second season of Moon Knight, I know I’ll still watch it, because of the aforementioned stigma that there’s going to be some clues or hints or knowledge to know, going into a future crossover event.
But ultimately, it just wasn’t good. Moon Knight as a property was about as scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as available properties are concerned. It felt more like trying to find something for Oscar Issac than it was trying to make something that will serve a purpose in the bigger picture. I almost abandoned the show until it finally had something interesting happen in the third episode, and I toughed it out towards the end, but it got really convoluted at the end, and by the time I finished the series, I was relieved it was over, and feeling really in need of a palette cleanser.
Fortunately, this means that Ms. Marvel accomplished such, and was a refreshing change of pace, compared to horrendous Moon Knight. Maybe it was a ploy by Disney+ to help boost Ms. Marvel, by serving up a shit sandwich right before its release, so that it would seem leaps and bounds better by virtue of being served, a shit sandwich right before it. Or maybe I just have the sensibilities of a teenager, and that this coming of age, geared towards younger audiences plot easily grips my attention.
All the same though, Ms. Marvel was a faster paced, refreshing gear shift from the, shit sandwich that was Moon Knight. I think they had some clear lofty goals with the series, trying to appeal, educate and present a lot of variables that have a tendency to trigger or turn off white people, which was to have a show starring a gen-Z teenage girl that also happened to be Muslim, but I think that the show did a very masterful job of presenting everything with an even-keeled hand that accomplished most of what they were trying to do, without being overbearing or forceful.
I think they do a great job of presenting Pakistani and Muslim culture in manners that glorifies a lot of the positive aspects, while not entirely ignoring some of the more controversial ones, like the rampant sexism. And they definitely address and present the show in a creatively executed manner that is meant to be appealing to the tech savvy kids of tomorrow.
Overall, I found Ms. Marvel to be entertaining and enjoyable, and there’s a very clear and understandable path for the series to continue as well as transition Ms. Marvel into a future season or crossover. And the mid-credits scene delivers a pretty heavy-handed hint or something to come in the future, which is definitely something that shitty Moon Knight completely failed to capitalize on.
Either way, glad to be somewhat caught up on the MCU, as far as the supposed core series go. I can’t say that I’m going to bother watching any of the Groot series, but I am already liking the first two episodes of She Hulk, in spite of what negative shit I’m hearing from scuttlebutt about the series. Internet going to complain about every series no matter what, which is precisely why I avoid reading things about anything and try to go into as much as I can, as blind as I can.
