Today, we discover when Moon Knight was first depicted as having multiple personalities rather than just having multiple secret identities.
In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
My pal Tom suggested this to me recently, and reader Rodrigo suggested it THREE YEARS ago, but I've been planning on eventually spotlighting this one for even longer than that (my earliest notes on it are from around 2017). It's just a bit of a tricky subject, so it wasn't until Moon Knight actually receives his own Disney+ series that I figured it was worth detailing it all. So here we go!
WHEN DID WE FIRST MEET MOON KNIGHT'S DIFFERENT ALIASES?
When Moon Knight was introduced in Werewolf By Night #32 (by Doug Moench and Don Perlin), he was plainly just a mercenary named Marc Spector (Actually, he's called "Mark" at first)...
He is then hired to become the Moon Knight (don't worry, future features will explain how this was later retconned)...
When Moon Knight was just an antagonist for Werewolf by Night (Jack Russell, who it is pretty funny that he doesn't really have a true name for his werewolf version, as it is not like people actually CALL him "Werewolf By Night," ya know?), then he didn't really need anything deeper about him, personality-wise, but when Marvel Editor-in-Chiefs Len Wein and Marv Wolfman thought that the character could stand to get the hero treatment, Moench and Perlin had to give the character some greater depth. Moench then turned to a concept that had been used decades earlier in the Shadow pulp fiction novels, which is to reveal that Moon Knight doesn't just have ONE secret identity, he has MULTIPLE aliases that he can use in different ways. Marc Spector is still his "real" identity, but he used the money he made as Spector to create a millionaire playboy named Steven Grant and he then also adopted the identity of a cabbie named Jake Lockley.
An underling of the villain of the issue points these identities out in Marvel Spotlight #28 (by Moench and Perlin)...
We then see it in action as Spector turns from his "Steven Grant" identity to his "Jake Lockley" identity...
and then back again...
During a quick change later in the issue, Spector remarks to himself that he feels "schizo" doing these identity changes...
He makes the same joke in the following issue...
Now, I don't think I have to tell you that in 2022, people don't understand mental health very well, but in 1980, they REALLY didn't understand mental health very well, so the idea of describing something as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) wouldn't even SLIGHTLY occur to a comic book writer in 1980, so schizophrenic, while obviously not remotely applying to this situation, would be how most writers would refer to this sort of thing. It was wrong then, it's still wrong, but it was ubiquitous, so it wasn't like this was just a Moench mistake.
When Moon Knight received his own series in 1980, the other aliases were front and center on the cover...
And again, Moench continues to deal with the oddity of Spector playing all of these roles, like in Moon Knight #6 (by Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz and Klaus Janson), when he assures he doesn't actually forget that he is just one guy playing multiple roles...
In a special text piece to inform new fans about the history of Moon Knight when the series went direct market only with #15, Moench first involved DID, but by specifically explaining that Moon Knight DIDN'T HAVE DID...
He wrote, “Perhaps I created the guy too soon after reading Flora Schreiber’s SYBIL, but nevertheless, that sums up Moon Knight in a nutshell: four men in one: mercenary, cabbie, millionaire, super hero… Any man fleeing from his past and seeking to become a new and better man — verily, a super-hero — would logically be prone to role-playing. I’ve merely tried to stretch the ancient concept to further limits… while still keeping the character sane.” Sybil, of course, was about a woman with DID, but Moench here (perhaps unfairly or at least unreasonably bluntly) says that Spector is different, as he is sane and "just" role playing.
WHEN DID MOON KNIGHT'S DIFFERENT ALIASES BECOME DISTINCTIVE PERSONALITIES?
In an amazing piece of irony, it was a fill-in issue by comic book writer Steven Grant (who Moench did not meet until after he had named Steven Grant the comic book character) in Moon Knight #27 (art by Joe Brozowski and Kevin Dzuban) that the personalities were shown as distinct, with Jake Lockley discussing the Steven Grant personality as a separate person...
Then Lockley discusses Spector as very much a distinctive personality...
So this is really the answer, but I think it's worth noting that when Moench came back to the title in the following issue, he didn't write Moon Knight that way at all, even when Grant did ANOTHER back-up story (with Kevin Nowlan artwork) where the various personalities even interact with each other...
Moench soon left the book, though, and Marvel, so he had no say over the whole DID aspect of Moon Knight, which was now here to stay, even though various writers would ignore it almost all of the time, only turning to it on occasion. It wasn't until the 21st century that it became more of a prominent part of Moon Knight's depiction.
Thanks for the question, Rodrigo and Tom! If anyone else wants to know about an interesting comic book first, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!