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Moon Knight Producer Reveals Bizarre Way Marvel Picked Villain’s Name
Moon Knight executive producer and head writer Jeremy Slater explains the bizarre way they picked the name for Ethan Hawke's cult leader/doctor.

Warning! Contains major spoilers for Moon Knight episode 6

Moon Knight executive producer and head writer Jeremy Slater reveals the bizarre way Marvel comic books helped name the series’ villain. Marvel Studios’ latest Disney+ series just spent its first season introducing a slew of new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Oscar Isaac’s titular protagonist. Moon Knight follows the two alters of Isaac’s character, Marc Spector and Steve Grant, as the latter learns the truth about his Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and his ties to the Egyptian moon god Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham). Moon Knight also stars May Calamawy as Layla El-Faouly, the late Gaspard Ulliel as Anton Mogart, and Ethan Hawke as Arthur Harrow.

The series’ antagonist is Harrow, a cult leader determined to resurrect the Egyptian goddess/demoness Ammit and, in turn, rid the world of pain and suffering by preventing evil before it can happen. Hawke was allowed a fair amount of creative freedom in his depiction of Harrow. While “Dr. Arthur Harrow” is a minor character in Marvel Comics, that character is completely unrelated to the Harrow in Moon Knight.

In an interview with The Direct, Slater talked about the conception of Moon Knight’s Arthur Harrow. Originally, Slater and his team considered villains such as Raul Bushman, Stained Glass Scarlet, and Zodiac. However, rather than adapt an existing villain, they ultimately “[grabbed] a name” from a list of “every villain who has ever appeared in a Moon Knight comic,” and used it to create someone new. Read the full quote below:

“And we really looked at all of the sort of classic villains. There was a couple that we talked about; Stained Glass Scarlet, and you know, Zodiac, and different characters like that. No one really kind of fit the parameters of the story we were telling, so we were just like, ‘You know what, can we just introduce a guy, and we’ll grab a name from some’—you know, they gave me a list of [like] every villain who’s ever appeared in a Moon Knight comic. I just went through and went like, ‘Arthur Harrow, that sounds like a cool villain name, let’s go with that.’”

Marc Spector’s comic book nemesis Bushman was in the first couple versions of the script and was almost the show’s main villain. There’s even a mention of the name of Marc’s mercenary commander, Bushman, in episode 5. Before the show’s fifth episode, Moon Knight alluded to the desert incident and murder of Layla’s father by Marc’s unhinged partner, which many assumed was either another alter in his DID system, or, Bushman. The latter theory proved correct but the Bushman didn’t make the cut due to Slater being uncomfortable with how the character was developing and wanting to avoid comparisons to Black Panther‘s Killmonger.

When it was revealed that Hawke would be playing Harrow, the online fandom was very confused given the name’s insignificance in the comics. Naturally, this only added to the hype surrounding the series and allowed Slater and company to create original characters that best served their story. Unfortunately for Hawke and Harrow, Moon Knight’s post-credits scene sees Khonshu and Jake Lockley pay the former cult leader what appears to be a fatal visit.