It shouldn’t surprise anyone that people out there are making Moon Knight memes — his new Disney Plus TV series has brought the obscure Marvel Comics character to a much wider audience than it was a month ago. Fans meme the grumpy bird god Khonshuthe villainous Arthur Harrow, the super serious Marc Spencer and the unfortunate Steven Grant.
But Moon Knight was a memelord years before his TV series, thanks to one of those weird ideas that just pop up at the right time and place. One day the internet woke up and decided that Dracula owes money to Moon Knight.
Dracula, you big #$%&in’ nerd
Image: Moon Knight-Core on Facebook via Marvel Comics
Image: Roger Stern, Bob Hall/Marvel Comics
Of all the edited comic panels that have risen to memetic importance, Moon Knight’s rivalry with Dracula might be the easiest to believe to be real (I mean, barring the prominent swear word). Unlike Batman slapping Robin in the face, or Doctor Doom doing a big horn, or a pterodactyl trying to turn humans into dinosaurs, the idea of Dracula owing Moon Knight some sort of sum of money is practically banal. Marc Spencer used to be a hired mercenary, and after all, Dracula is a Marvel Comics character of some importance given his public domain.
Dracula had a comic book series of the same name at Marvel for seven years, The Tomb of Dracula, and has since become a reliable villain for all manner of Marvel superheroes including the Avengers, the X-Men and of course Blade. And if Dracula is a regular Marvel Comics character, like all other comic book characters, he can be equipped with rivals and nemesis. Why couldn’t Moon Knight, a nocturnal superhero, take on the Vampire Lord?
And so the eternal (as of 2018) rivalry between Moon Knight and Dracula continues as a meme cottage industry of its own. Moon Knight hates Dracula. Dracula tricks Moon Knight into calling the Avengers. Moon Knight hurls “random nonsense‘ on his enemies. He is trying Making people believe he’s the Silver Surfer. This memetic version of the Marvel Comics hero is big enough to make it onto Jimmy Fallon and widespread enough to reach the creators of the show.
Unfortunately – perhaps absurd considering they’ve shared a setting for half a century – Moon Knight and Dracula… don’t have a common Marvel Comics continuity worth talking about. To be clear, Dracula and Moon Knight have no particular animosity or debt between them. But I’m not here to destroy your dreams of Moon Knight’s secretly insane Marvel Comics existence. But on the contrary.
We don’t have to invent weird Moon Knight panels. Actual Moon Knight panels already contain many, many gems.
Image: Gerry Duggan, Mike Deodato Jr./Marvel Comics
Image: Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev/Marvel Comics
Image: Matthew Rosenberg, Szymon Kudranski/Marvel Comics
Image: Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev/Marvel Comics
It just goes to show: there’s nothing stupid you can think of about comics that can be weirder than half a century of professional writers throwing every idea against the wall.