Ms. Marvel Should Continue Moon Knight’s Best MCU Decision

One of Moon Knight’s biggest successes was how it avoided too many MCU references – and Ms. Marvel should do the same to nail the hero’s origin story.

While each of these series has been affected by the events of the wider MCU, they have also each addressed these plot points to differing degrees. Both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier were pivotal to the events of Avengers: Endgame and referenced them repeatedly. On the other hand, shows like Loki and Hawkeye, while undoubtedly set within the MCU’s universe-616, used the wider events only in the background of their original stories.

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Comparatively, Moon Knight is the first Marvel show that appeared to be able to stand alone, not needing to rely on wider MCU events to support its narrative. This was one of the greatest successes of the series. By removing many of its assumed ties to the franchise, Moon Knight focused uniquely on Steven Grant, Marc Spector and their relationship with their powers. This model stands apart from the rest of the MCU and sets a standard of unique storytelling that the franchise should aim to repeat in the future. The next Marvel series to air on Disney+, Ms. Marvel, would undoubtedly benefit from taking a similar approach to Moon Knight and focus on introducing its central hero rather than creating ties to the MCU. The Ms. Marvel trailer already demonstrated that Kamala Khan’s powers would be different from her comic book presentation, making it even more important that it is the hero’s origin that takes the greatest focus in the series. If the show focuses too heavily on the external MCU events surrounding the story – as was apparent in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – then Khan’s introduction risks being overshadowed by references and cameos, which will subsequently damage the hero’s reception going forward.