WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Avengers #37 by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, Jason Keith, and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.

Moon Knight is a street-level hero with a unique dilemma - he struggles with mental illness. His condition is so severe that it affected the very nature of his powers, making both himself and others question whether he really did receive powers from a divine source or if he was suffering from a vivid hallucination.

But in Avengers #37, Moon Knight finds himself in the most important moment of his life. He held infinite power and the affect it had on him made him realize a horrible truth: that he had truly lost his mind. But this realization, while harsh, helped him at least temporarily in his struggle against his mental illness.

In Avengers #37, Moon Knight was in possession of more power than he had ever had previously. Having already stolen the powers of various heroes, he was strong enough to kill Mephisto on his own. But now he had also become the new host of the Phoenix Force, giving him god-like power. And in that moment, he realized he no longer needed Khonshu, the god initially responsible for transforming him into Moon Knight. Turning on his benefactor, Moon Knight knocked Khonshu back into space before resuming his conflict with his former allies, the Avengers.

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Moon Knight

With the all the power he now had at his disposal, Moon Knight made quick work of them. He tossed aside the likes of Captain Marvel and Iron Man like they were ragdolls. But once the fighting had stopped, he observed the Earth from the skies above. Seeing the conflict and all the petty reasons behind it, Moon Knight contemplated unleashing the full power of the Phoenix Force upon the Earth. It would wipe away humanity and its various issues and whatever new life came from the ashes would be free of the sins of the past.

In that moment, Moon Knight realized that he had lost his mind. He was actually contemplating genocide and convincing himself that the extermination of an entire planet would make him a hero. Seeing that the Phoenix Force was worsening his already unstable mind, Moon Knight made the crucial decision to do nothing as Thor unleashed the full might of Mjolnir upon him, with the resulting impact bringing Moon Knight back down to Earth and freeing him of the Phoenix Force.

RELATED: Avengers: A Future MCU Hero Just Turned Into the Phoenix

Moon Knight's battle with mental illness has always been a key part of his characterization. In his earliest days, it was ambiguous whether or not his patron, Khonshu, was even a real entity. Later stories would show that Khonshu was an undeniably real god, but this was not the end of Marc Spector's history of mental instability. Though Moon Knight can speak with Khonshu, occasionally he will simply imagine conversations with his deity, further muddling his understanding of what Khonshu wants from him.

His mental illness has manifested itself in other ways too. Like most gods, Khonshu has many different facets, different domains that require his attention and rule. To better serve these different aspects of Khonshu, Moon Knight's mental illness has manifested as dissociative identity disorder. But interestingly enough, even though the Phoenix Force tends to corrupt its hosts, it provided Moon Knight with a moment of clarity that allowed him to conquer his inner demons. It may not be a permanent victory, but in that moment Moon Knight had the power to end worlds and he decided that someone in his mental state should not have that kind of power.

KEEP READING: Marvel's Avengers Fight Each Other to Determine The Phoenix Force's Next Human Host