Moon Knight: Who Is Arthur Harrow? Powers and Abilities Explained
Moon Knight has already premiered on Disney+, finally giving fans a taste of the show’s tonality, the various struggles of Marc Spector, and a look at the villain of the series, Arthur Harrow – but who is he?
The MCU resumes its expansion as the Infinity Saga has finally met its end, and for its much-anticipated Phase 4, it’s doing most of the things differently. Apart from the films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now covering various TV shows that link to the movies directly and the rest of this connected universe. Over the past two years, it has had enough shows to stream.
Moon Knight stars actor Oscar Isaac in the titular role. Moon Knight reveals the origin story of Marc Spector, who is a mercenary living with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Spector goes on to become the conduit for Khonshu (Egyptian Moon God) after an almost near-death experience. After this, Marc is drawn into a deadly mystery that involves Egyptian gods with his various identities, like Steven Grant, and Spector is seen struggling with not knowing if something is real or just a part of his own wild imagination. Moon Knight is now available on Disney+, and following the pattern of earlier MCU TV shows, it has a total of six episodes.
Who is Arthur Harrow?
Arthur Harrow is a character from the pages of Marvel Comics, where he is a doctor with a rather dark past. He was selected for the Nobel Prize in medicine due to his work in pain theory, however, another fellow doctor, Victoria Grail, got suspicious of Harrow’s work. His papers where he had carried out some research on animals were discovered by Grail who got suspicious as his work was really advanced.
Grail traced his documents and found his relation to the secret experiments by scientists in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and raised an objection to his nomination. These secret documents were initially ordered to be destroyed by the Nuremberg Tribunal but they disappeared mysteriously and an organization called O.M.N.I.U.M. was after them. Grail believed that Harrow was continuing these experiments in México and she followed him there. However, she ended up becoming one of his subjects later.
Arthur Harrow’s Powers In Marvel Comics
While Arthur Harrow doesn’t possess any supernatural powers in the Marvel comics, he does have genius intelligence, as he’s a scientist and a very talented surgeon – after all, there has to be a reason behind his Nobel prize nomination.
What Arthur Harrow actually has, however, is a prolonged weakness: trigeminal neuralgia, which is a long-term pain disorder, affecting the trigeminal nerve. This is the same nerve responsible for sensation in the face and motor functions like chewing and biting. This condition left him completely paralyzed on the left side of his face, with his mouth’s left side pulled into a permanent snarl, causing him a lot of pain constantly. It’s not very surprising that he used his own intelligence to research pain theory, however, we have to agree that his methods weren’t the right ones.
How MCU’s Moon Knight Changes Arthur Harrow’s Powers & Origin
The scales tattoo that Arthur Harrow has on his arm shows who is good and who is bad, as he uses the staff of Ammit as his means to channel its powers. Those who are referred to as bad by Ammit are subsequently killed by Hawke, as he drains them off their life force. The overall criteria behind his choice is quite simple but flawed: if someone has done anything evil in the past or even the future, then the tattoo shall turn red. This proves that Arthur Harrow is Ammit’s apostle on this planet, despite the fact she is imprisoned.
In the Marvel comics, Arthur doesn’t use any magic. His only ability is his intelligence. So, it’s quite clear that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has changed a lot from its comic book villain counterpart to properly match him up against the powerful Marc Spector in the Moon Knight series.
