If you're living your life right, you've already finished
every episode of Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt's Hulu series "Marvel's MODOK."
Across 10 episodes, the show brings viewers into the life
of the man described as comics' most iconic Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing,
and draws the curtain back on his problematic approach to finding a work-life balance.
This take on MODOK is a reimagining far removed from his usual appearances in Marvel Comics.
Sure, there's cackling and a healthy dose of super-science machinations,
but his villainous behavior is presented less as an alien philosophy and more like
the pursuits of a guy in his 40s who's still trying to make it as a stand up comedian.
MODOK might have noble intentions but they're rooted in the same delusion
that turns otherwise capable adults into starry-eyed monuments to arrested development.
"For the millionth time, it won't work. You can't have it all."
"Yes I can — I'm very special."
His moral gradient is black and white: There are good people, like MODOK's mom,
who told him that he was special. Everyone else falls into the same
category as the bullies who beat him up. Their behavior will need to be corrected.
"Hey, we're people!"
"Not to me!"
It's a flailing, simplistic worldview, illustrated by MODOK's dramatic,
all-or-nothing way of dealing with, well, literally everything.
Throughout the show's 10 episodes, MODOK takes the baby steps appropriate for a
man of his head-to-leg ratio, thanks in large part to his forced reckoning
with family life. Here's how "Marvel's MODOK" wraps up, and what it all means.
As the series progresses, little by little, MODOK makes a gradual transition towards
being a better father. He's still not great in the end, but you know what? He's okay.
He dances with his son Lou at his bar mitzvah, acknowledges his shortcomings to his wife Jodie,
and even elicits a positive emotion from his daughter Melissa, which is difficult
when you're parenting any teenage girl, let alone one with a dominant supervillain gene.
But MODOK is still haunted by the man he was 20 years ago, and in this case, it's literal:
the time-displaced MODOK from the past finds his present self and reminds him of what he
wanted to be. Past-MODOK shows his older self all of the futures that could occur:
deaths at the hands of every Avenger, toilet heart attacks, and, presciently,
that one potential outcome that sees MODOK become the ruler of a utopian, unified Earth.
"You're a supervillain. You hate the world!"
"No I don't. I just want to change it."
It's a strange setup that calls back to Doctor Strange's Infinity War scenario of "one chance in
14 million for victory," with one dark difference. In the Infinity War, Tony Stark has to come to
terms with how much of himself he'll sacrifice, while MODOK can succeed only if he sacrifices
others -- specifically, the family that he worked so hard to deserve. The key word there -- the one
that cemented the family's doom -- is "worked."
It's unavoidable that "Marvel's MODOK" is going to be compared to Adult Swim's
"Rick and Morty," as they both have science fiction elements, pop culture references,
and self-serving cartoon geniuses. So it's fitting that a line from Rick and Morty can
sum up the general theme of MODOK season 1. "The thing about repairing, maintaining, and
cleaning is, it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work."
That's the conundrum at the center of "MODOK": take the exciting, destructive, dramatic path,
or keep working at the day-to-day aspects of life. It's the ol' "Kill Iron Man,
or clean your apartment" conundrum. One option means that MODOK's mother
was right, and he's a very special boy. The other means doing the work,
and, if his younger self is to be believed, never becoming what he dreamed he would be.
Melissa's earlier attempts to teach her old man how to take the subtle, effective route echo
through his decision, and MODOK stands at the same proverbial fork in the road as every dad that's
ever thought about just getting in the car and driving away from it all, with the slight addendum
of a dozen rockets being fired at his kids. Then comes the flash forward: MODOK chose
the first option. Like Doctor Horrible before him, MODOK has everything he's ever wanted,
at the cost of the lives of the people he loved. Yes, he's keeping his younger self tethered
to a torture device, using his chronocrystal facial bedazzling to look back on what he lost.
But wanting his family back doesn't mean that he fixed the part of himself that threw them away to
begin with. Untold years and a few dozen Avenger deaths later, and grand, dramatic gestures are
still MODOK's only approach to problem-solving. Like the darkest possible iteration of Murphy
Brown, MODOK declares that he will have it all. How that'll pan out remains to be seen. Series
co-creator Jordan Blum has hinted that a second season is already planned out,
so fans should get excited for more "MODOK" misadventures in the (hopefully near) future.
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