I'm doing Marvel's dirty work and I'm not happy about it.

But I'm going to keep doing it, anyway.

I have no idea what Moon Knight is about.

I mean, ok, we’ve got some Oscar Isaac, and there are dramatic fisticuffs happening. I’m a simple girl, I don’t really need much more than that, especially when I know it’s coming from Marvel. At this point, over umpteen movies and several TV shows, they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt with me. From a viewership perspective, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know what Moon Knight is because Marvel has already done the groundwork to pique my interest.

And I feel like they’re counting on that, which makes me want to not watch. Because I hate being taken for granted.

Let me pause here for a second to say that while I was very into X-Men comics for a while, I haven’t read anything regularly since the 90s. Everything I know about Marvel comes from the MCU. I’ve seen every movie (most more than once) and watched all the shows. To say the oeuvre is uneven is like saying that Jeff Bridges should never again attempt a Boston accent, but there have been more hits than misses as far as I’m concerned. My point, though, is that if you’re here to tell me that if I’d just read this or that, or everything can be found at this Wiki or other, save it.

Now, if I should choose to investigate that Wiki or compilation or whatever, I should come away feeling more energized and informed, not like I’ve acquired the bare minimum necessary to make sense of what’s going on in a trailer that, let’s not forget, is meant to get me to want to watch whatever this is. That’s its entire raison d’etre. If it also happens to make comic fans squee with delight, then that’s great, but unless Marvel is happy to simply preach to its choir, the trailer needs to get people like me on board. And folks, it’s not trying hard enough to do that.

To be fair, it’s hard for a single trailer to provide enough context and back story to make everything clear for a show about a new superhero. It’s a TV show, which means there will likely be a lot more exposition and context than would be provided in a movie, and it’s not someone associated with the Avengers et al, so there’s a heavier lift to get salient details across.

So, yeah, it’s a really tough thing to pull off but I can’t help but feel like Marvel is just sort of shrugging and leaving the work to the folks they know will rock up on day one (guilty as charged). We’ll be the ones talking about it, saying if the show is worth watching or not, discussing this, that, and the other character and explaining to others what the thing is actually about.

I know all of this and I will play my part. Not willingly, but begrudgingly because, if I’m being honest, Marvel’s TV efforts thus far are pretty ho-hum. The movies? Yeah, totally, I’m super into them, but the shows are…meh. My enjoyment of Loki had as much to do with his hair flip as it did the actual story, and while I loved the bromance of Falcon and Winter Soldier, the plot was so forgettable I’ve genuinely forgotten it. (A girl was mad about…something and so she and her friends took super serum? That sounds right.) Wandavision…sigh. Nope. Sorry, but nope.

So if I know they’re counting on me and that annoys me, all I have to do is not watch, right? Or not join in the discourse when it happens. I know that. I also know that I’m a sucker, and it’s going to take a few more whiffs before I stop doing Marvel’s work for them.