Biography - Page 12
Before arriving back in New York, Marc contacted a private psychiatric clinic. Marc Spector had long ago concluded he was suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder because of his time operating as 
Marc, Jake, Steven and Moon Knight. He was hoping the clinic could provide him some treatment or management protocols to cope with his disease. Instead, psychiatrist Elisa Warname told him he didn't have DID at all. She pointed out that one can't simply “catch” multiple personalities by pretending to be someone else, otherwise actors around the world would develop it.
Warname had made her own studies of Khonshu, and found evidence that the God of the Moon traditionally came in four aspects: Pathfinder, Embracer, Defender and Watcher of overnight travelers, those who moved under the light of the moon. Warname posited that Marc really was resurrected and sculpted by Khonshu, driven to fulfill the four aspects of the god's mission. His 
mind tried to cope with these drives by formulating new identities to express them, such as Jake Lockley, Steven Grant, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Captain America and even his Moon Knight identity itself. Doctor Warname diagnosed Marc that he wasn't mentally ill; he was brain damaged because an extra-dimensional intelligence had colonized his mind and organized his thoughts into a foreign pattern.
As he tried to adjust to this new view of his circumstances, Marc returned to New York as Moon Knight. He chose not to reconnect with Marlene, Jean-Paul or others at this time. Instead, he made use of a series of self-driving or piloting vehicles for transportation. He saw or communicated with Jake, Steven and Khonshu as before, although this aspect of Khonshu was much less bloodthirsty than the last iteration he dealt with. Moon Knight created an identity as “Mr. Knight,” a concerned citizen consultant who existed as a legal fiction for his old friend Detective 
Flint to consult with Moon Knight without explicitly condoning his vigilante activities. Marc embraced his role as protector of those who travel at night, concerning himself with various street level crimes like serial killers and kidnappings, as well as more exotic crimes like special forces assassinations, ghost rituals gone awry and violent dream studies following in the footsteps of Morpheus. In each case, Moon Knight adjusted his attire and persona to fit the aspect of Khonshu he was channeling for that situation. [Moon Knight (7th series) #1-6]
After embracing this new path, Moon Knight was surprised to find himself at odds with Doctor Warname. He intercepted an assassin trying to kill General Aliman Lor of the African nation Akima on her orders, catching her calling the killer for an update. On his next mission, Moon Knight confronted a terrorist at Freedom Tower, coordinating with Detective Flint to end the threat before 
the federal authorities took over. Moon Knight succeeded but, in shifting from his Grant persona to Lockley, he coldly maimed the lone terrorist for even daring to make such a move at WTC. Doctor Warname transmitted the video feed from Moon Knight's scarab drones to the public, and reported to Flint as Spector's psychiatrist that he was a dangerously unstable violent psychotic. Spector lost Flint's support as his ally was suspended from the NYPD and the FBI tried to arrest him. [Moon Knight (7th series) #7-8]
Marc Spector confronted Doctor Warname about why she betrayed him, and she explained her history with General Lor through a shared hypnotic session with Spector. Decades prior, she said, General Lor was in an Akiman militia who attacked her village and killed everyone except her. 
Warname wanted revenge but, while Spector sympathized, he wasn't willing to just kill a man in cold blood on her command. Warname wasn't appealing to Spector, however... she was appealing to Khonshu. Her story resonated with Khonshu's motives of vengeance and the protection of travelers at night. The Khonshu aspect left Spector's mind and bonded with Warname, giving her supernatural support for her quest for vengeance. Marc awakened to find the influence of the Moon God absent from his mind. He barely escaped Doctor Warname's office before the bomb she set exploded. [Moon Knight (7th series) #9]
The influence of Khonshu seemed to heighten Doctor Warname's skills as a psychiatrist. She was able to infiltrate the security detail for General Lor's visit to the United Nations as an FBI consultant and behaviorally program one of the security officers to try to kill the general. Marc Spector arrived just in time to prevent the assassination, but he was arrested afterwards for charges related to the Freedom Tower incident and the bombing of Doctor Warname's office. Locked in a black box prison, Spector communed with Khonshu and warned his god that Warname's agenda was suspicious, and she shouldn't just be taken at her word about her desire for righteous vengeance. Khonshu relented and provided some enhancement to Marc so he could escape and verify his concerns about Warname's story. [Moon Knight (7th series) #10-11]
On the run, Marc contacted the reporter Joy Mercado and provided her with a few leads to check into and verify Warname's account. It turned out Warname was the governor's daughter of Akima under the previous administration, child of the corrupt colonial warlord who committed the atrocities against the Akimian people that General Lor started a revolution to end. And, while Lor was responsible for the death of Warname's family, what she really wanted was the hundreds of 
millions in stolen treasure that was appropriated from her family estate after the revolution. Assassinating the new dictator Lor on foreign soil would have thrown Akima back into chaos, allowing her to re-enter the country she was exiled from in order to find the money. Doctor Warname lost her nerve as Khonshu retracted his influence, as the Moon Knight rose to stop Warname from killing Lor and starting a new civil war. Mercado's story got Flint reinstated and some of the heat off of Marc Spector, although he was still labeled a dangerous vigilante and had to abandon many of his current holdings. [Moon Knight (7th series) #12]
No longer able to use his mansion, Marc moved into an old abandoned hotel to hide his activities. As a protector of night travelers, however, he found himself able to see the ghosts of wayward souls who passed through the hotel and died, providing another avenue for his pursuit of vengeance. He continued to fight in the name of Khonshu, and even performed retribution in the name of Anubis at Khonshu's request. But when Moon Knight confronted a grotesque creature 
terrorizing children at night, Khonshu withdrew his blessing and his guidance. Khonshu would not explain his motives, but only counseled Marc that he would not support vengeance in this case. Marc nevertheless felt he was right to pursue this threat, and armed himself more heavily than usual to compensate for the absence of Khonshu's blessing. It was a hard fight, but Marc Spector won. As the creature lay dying, however, it revealed that it too was a follower of Khonshu's. [Moon Knight (7th series) #13-15]
Moon Knight discovered more "acolytes" worshipping Khonshu or other gods in New York, but using this worship as an excuse to hurt or abuse others. At a shelter where the poor and homeless were being used as tithe collectors or sacrifices in the name of Khonshu, Marc found a "priestess" claiming to be doing the bidding of the moon god. The priestess claimed Khonshu was a god of whims, who changed with the phases of the moon, hunting night travelers at some times while protecting them on others. Moon Knight rejected her gospel as someone unfamiliar with the true ways of Khonshu. He beat the priestess in combat and burned her mission to the ground. Before he left her, the priestess questioned how his faith could be so narrow-minded, but Marc remained convinced that Khonshu was what he needed him to be. [Moon Knight (7th series) #16-17]
In time, Marc Spector found himself in an insane asylum, mentally adrift and unable to remember his own life clearly. He was told he had been a resident of the asylum since he was twelve years 
old, and suffered delusions about various other identities, including the "vigilante hero," Moon Knight. Other residents of the asylum included Marlene, Jean-Paul, Gena and Crawley, all of whom Doctor Emmet told Marc he had incorporated into his fantasy life. In the dead of night, through the haze of the drugs or the pain of the electro-shock therapy, Khonshu still spoke to Marc. He told Marc he wasn't really in an asylum. Indeed, wasn't on Earth at all. Rather, he was in the Othervoid, the conceptual realm from which the Egyptian gods first crossed over to interact with humanity. He was a prisoner of Ammut and other lower deities acting in the name of Seth. Marc had to free himself, for he was still the Knight of the Moon. [Moon Knight (8th series) #1]
In his more (or less?) lucid moments, Marc could see the Gods and their agents for what they really were, and having the hood of Moon Knight on focused him more than anything. Crawley also saw some of what Marc did, and they resolved to escape with Jean-Paul, Gena and Marlene. Doctor Emmet – Ammut – and her Jackal-headed orderlies tried to stop them, but Moon Knight was emboldened by having his friends by his side. They escaped the asylum through underground tunnels into what some of them, sometimes, perceived as Manhattan. There were losses along the way, though. Crawley bartered his soul to Anubis for safe passage through Othervoid, while Jean-Paul was killed by a crocodile god and Gena chose to remain behind in the representation of her diner.
Marlene and Marc pressed on towards the Egyptian pyramid inexplicably resting in the center of 
New York. They were confronted by Moon Knight when they arrived, leaving Marc questioning his own identity again. Marc overcame Moon Knight and unmasked him, revealing the face of Khonshu himself. It seemed Khonshu was responsible for much of what Marc had seen and experienced, only simulating the threats of Seth and Ammut in order to drive his avatar onwards. Khonshu needed Marc's mind more focused than it had become, rededicating his body to Khonshu's will. In fact, Khonshu asked Marc to give up his body, allowing Khonshu to be born into the world while Marc would finally be "at peace." Marc rejected this, and fled from Khonshu's temple. [Moon Knight (8th series) #2-5]
Marc experienced several different lives, remembering or reinventing himself as cabbie Jake Lockley, movie producer Steven Grant, masked vigilante Moon Knight, even a new Marc Spector serving as "Moon Knight" for an exiled human race living on the moon in defiance of Lupinar and his werewolves, who conquered Earth. Marc recognized he was losing himself in his various 
personalities and identities, despite how helpful they proved on occasion. Marc met with Steven, Jake and the Moon Knight to bring them back into his mind as a part of him, rather than continuing as separate parallel lives. This unifying experience quieted all the voices in Marc's head. Except one. He knew now that he had to kill Khonshu in order to end the moon's influence on his mind. [Moon Knight (8th series) #6-9]
Moon Knight decided he needed to return to the asylum to complete his quest to find Khonshu. He stopped by Gena's Diner to say good-bye, and saved Anput, bride of Anubis, to barter Crawley back from the Jackal God. Still, the final trek into the asylum was something Marc needed to do 
himself. Marc met with Khonshu at the asylum and on the literal landscapes of his mind. Khonshu again demanded greater devotion from Marc, up to and including figurative death of the self. Marc instead rejected the stress Khonshu placed on his mind, whether as an other-natural parasitic entity colonizing his brain or as a metaphorical cause for justice whose needs strained him to the breaking point. He made peace with his own mind and the various actors at work inside it. Marc Spector would act as one being, for his own reasons, not at the whims of another force.
Whether anything chronicled above literally happened, on any plane of existence we would recognize, is irrelevant. It happened to Marc Spector. And it meant something. [Moon Knight (8th series) #10-14]