Warning! There are huge spoilers in this episode of Moon Knight.
Moon Knight executive producer and lead writer Jeremy Slater discusses how Marvel comic books helped identify the series’ antagonist. The first season of Marvel Studios’ newest Disney+ series introduced a plethora of new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Oscar Isaac’s eponymous protagonist. Moon Knight follows Isaac’s alter egos, Marc Spector and Steve Grant, as the latter discovers the truth about his Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and his connections to the Egyptian moon deity Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham). May Calamawy plays Layla El-Faouly, the late Gaspard Ulliel plays Anton Mogart, and Ethan Hawke plays Arthur Harrow in Moon Knight.
Harrow, the series’ antagonist, is a cult leader seeking to revive the Egyptian goddess/demoness Ammit and, as a result, cleanse the world of sorrow and misery by preventing evil from occurring. Hawke was given a lot of creative license in his portrayal of Harrow. While “Dr. Arthur Harrow” is a minor character in Marvel Comics, he is unconnected to the Harrow from Moon Knight.
Slater discussed the inspiration for Moon Knight’s Arthur Harrow in an interview with The Direct. Slater and his crew first contemplated villains such as Raul Bushman, Stained Glass Scarlet, and Zodiac. Ultimately, they “[grabbed] a name” rather than adapting an existing villain “from a list of “every villain who has ever featured in a Moon Knight comic” to create someone fresh Read the whole quote below:
“We really looked at all of the iconic antagonists.” We discussed Stained Glass Scarlet and Zodiac, as well as other characters. Nobody matched the limits of the tale we were telling, so we were like, ‘You know what, can we just introduce a person, and we’ll pluck a name from some’—you know, they handed me a list of [like] every villain who’s ever featured in a Moon Knight comic. I basically read through and said, ‘Arthur Harrow, that’s a fantastic villain name; let’s go with it.'”
Bushman, Marc Spector’s comic book foe, was nearly the show’s major villain in the first two drafts. In episode 5, the name of Marc’s mercenary leader, Bushman, is even mentioned. Moon Knight referred to the desert event and death of Layla’s father by Marc’s insane companion before the fifth episode, which many felt was either another alter in his DID system or Bushman. The latter notion was right, but the Bushman didn’t make the cut because Slater was unhappy with how the character was evolving and wanted to avoid similarities to Black Panther’s Killmonger.
The internet community was perplexed when it was discovered that Hawke would be portraying Harrow, considering the name’s insignificance non the comics. Naturally, this increased the series’ excitement and enabled Slater and team to design fresh characters that best fit their tale. Unfortunately for Hawke and Harrow, Khonshu and Jake Lockley pay the former cult leader what seems to be a deadly visit in Moon Knight’s post-credits sequence.
