MODOK is possibly the strangest character ever created by the folks at Marvel.
An evil giant head with arms and legs, MODOK is bent on taking over the world, and he's
also incredibly goofy.
So will we ever see him battling the Avengers in a Marvel movie?
Well, let's find out.
Originally created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, MODOK first appeared in 1967's Tales of Suspense
#94 as a foe for Captain America.
At his core, he's exactly what his name says he is - a Mobile Organism Designed Only for
Killing.
As for his origin, George Tarleton had signed up to work for the acronym-loving science-terrorists
of Advanced Idea Mechanics, only to find that he was the dumbest guy in the room.
Admittedly, there's a significant chance of that happening when the room is otherwise
full of mad scientists, but George had the opportunity to get a little smarter by letting
AIM experiment on him.
The original intent was to turn him into MODOC, with a C instead of a K - the Mobile Organism
Designed Only for Computing, whose genetically augmented brain could help AIM with data processing.
Unfortunately, he became way more aggressive than they'd anticipated, which earned him
a more accurate acronym, and took the position of Scientist Supreme.
In the process, George was physically transformed, with his head growing so massive that his
body could no longer support it, requiring a floating rocket chair to move.
The trade-off, though, came in the form of mental super powers.
“MODOC will have power beyond anything man has ever seen.
His very mind is a weapon!"
Over the next few decades, MODOK would be a perennial foe in the Marvel Universe, with
AIM becoming a sort of utility player supervillain organization that could reasonably go up against
almost any hero.
A group that's entirely devoted to mad science for the sake of mad science, directed by the
incomprehensible whims of a giant floating head, can show up pretty much anywhere.
Through it all, MODOK was at the center of AIM's advanced ideological machinations.
"MODOC CONTROLS AIM.
NOW AND FOREVER.
A few of his most memorable exploits during this period involved creating a giant robot
body that was properly proportionate to his own giant head so that he could fight the
Hulk, a plan with so many problems that you really start to understand why "computing"
wasn't really his forte.
He also once teamed up with the Headmen, a group of D-list villains united by the fact
that they all had weird heads, in an attempt to take over the world.
That's the kind of story that MODOK was winding up in, and it would only get weirder from
there.
The life of a MODOK is a lonely one.
When one is designed only for killing, can they ever truly know ... love?
If MODOK's past is anything to go by, the answer is a resounding "no," but that's never
stopped him from trying to create some kind of Mutually Attracted Technological Entity
to ease those lonely nights of plotting world domination.
The first attempt at a M.A.T.E. came when S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist Kate Waynesboro was
transformed into the imaginatively named "Ms. MODOK."
She didn't last long, turning against her creators and eventually stumbling into some
kind of reverse-MODOK-ifying machine that undid her transformation.
The second was slightly more successful, by a set of very specific standards for "success."
A woman who was originally thought to be Hank Pym's dead first wife, Maria, underwent a
similar procedure to George Tarleton.
The difference was that it only caused her brain to balloon to the size of a small zeppelin
and not the rest of her head.
Since she wasn't "Mobile," she was initially designated a Specialized Organism Designed
for Aggressive Maneuvers or SODAM.
Eventually, though, she finished a complete MODOKification, and having been granted her
own rocket chair, she became MODAM.
Perhaps surprisingly, MODAM and MODOK never really hit it off.
As you might be able to tell already, MODOK found his way into some of the Marvel Universe's
weirder stories.
In fact, he would eventually come to be a symbol of the weirder side of Marvel himself.
Maybe it was the purple and orange design that made MODOK look like a malevolent Easter
egg.
Maybe it was the innate hilarity of the phrase "designed only for killing."
Maybe it was that he sometimes seemed like the one villain who was allowed to be incredibly
silly while still being presented as a deadly mastermind.
Whatever the reason, he went far beyond your average weirdo villain and became a true cult
favorite, inspiring fanzines like the pseudo-scholarly Journal of MODOK Studies and occasionally
wrangling his way into a starring role.
With all that in mind, what are the chances that he'll show up in a Marvel movie someday?
Well, they're probably better than you think
MODOK has never really been the go-to villain outside of the comics, but that hasn't stopped
him from making a handful of appearances in slightly more mainstream media.
He's appeared on a lot of the Marvel animated shows, albeit with some notable changes, starting
back in the '90s with the Iron Man cartoon that made up half of The Marvel Action Hour.
Aside from changing the "K" in his name to stand for "Konquest," the big difference there
was in size.
Rather than just being a gigantic head perched precariously on top of a comparatively tiny
body, he was shrunk down, with the end result being that he was about as big as your standard-issue
toddler with a head the size of a basketball.
Why they changed it remains a mystery, but given that the shows of the era were heavily
tied into toy lines, it might've been that a slightly smaller-sized MODOK was easier
to make as an action figure that could fit on the same size card as the rest of the line.
Regardless of the reasons, it gave us the very memorable scene of a genocidal supervillain
going undercover and being pushed around in a baby carriage.
"It's as you feared.
They know."
"I fear nothing, Hypnosha!"
Beyond that, MODOK's most surprising appearance probably came in the world of video games,
when he was added to the roster of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds as a playable
character.
You might think that being a giant, easily targeted head with comparably tiny arms and
legs would put him at a distinct disadvantage in a game about punching people in the face,
but it seems like he's a Mental Organism Designed Only for K.O.s
Out of all MODOK's various media appearances, the strangest might be the one where we find
out he already technically exists in the MCU.
Okay, when we say that MODOK is technically already a part of the MCU, the word "technically"
is doing a significant amount of heavy lifting.
He has indeed made an appearance in an official installment of the MCU, but it's not one that
most moviegoers would know about.
He's in Iron Man 3: The Official Game.
To be fair, the video games are dubious at best when it comes to tying into the actual
MCU.
After all, the games aren't so much "contradicted" by the movies as they are completely ignored
by them, but they do give a few underrated characters a chance to get a little closer
to the MCU than they would've otherwise.
The Captain America tie-in games, for instance, have some really great deep cuts, like Diamondback
and the militant anarchist forces of U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M.
As for MODOK, the version that shows up in the game has an interesting twist to him.
Instead of George Tarleton, this version of MODOK is Aldrich Killian, the mastermind behind
Extremis who dies at the end of the movie.
Apparently, he had a contingency plan, which involved backing up his brain and then becoming
a MODOK to get his revenge.
However, the biggest factor working against MODOK's chances for showing up in a film is
that he's actually getting his own TV show.
It's an animated sitcom starring Patton Oswalt in the title role, and it will focus on MODOK's
home life with his wife and kids as he faces a midlife crisis.
No, really.
That's happening.
It'll be on Hulu later in 2020.
The setup of the show is that after failing to conquer the world despite many, many attempts,
MODOK has lost control of AIM.
Facing a forced early retirement, he now finds himself without a purpose in life, because,
you know, he's literally designed to do one thing.
In addition to Oswalt, the show's cast should be pretty familiar to fans of TV comedy.
Aimee Garcia, whose previous comic book-themed credits include playing crime scene investigator
Ella Lopez on Lucifer, will be playing MODOK's wife, Jodie, who runs a mommy blog.
Their two kids, high school senior Melissa and tween Lou, will be voiced by Melissa Fumero
of Brooklyn 99 and Ben Schwartz, who may be best known for his role on Parks & Recreation.
Originally, MODOK was set to be part of its own bizarre shared universe of animated shows,
alongside fellow Marvel Universe oddballs Hit-Monkey, Howard the Duck, and Tigra and
Dazzler as "The Offenders."
That deal wound up falling through, but MODOK will continue on regardless.
All right, let's say that Marvel Studios does in fact want to work MODOK into their universe,
but they don't want to use him as a villain.
Maybe they're worried that having a bad guy with a giant head fighting a superhero was
the one, singular fatal flaw that turned audiences off of the Green Lantern movie.
So how do they bring him in?
As always, the comics have provided an answer.
As the success of Suicide Squad proved, audiences can get behind a heist story about a bunch
of misfit supervillains.
If they're looking to do their own villain-centric action-comedy romp, then the MCU movies could
do a lot worse than lifting the plot of Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11.
As you might expect from the title, MODOK's 11 involves MODOK putting together a team
of C-list villains for a job that involves stealing a massive, potentially catastrophic
power source called the "hypernova."
None of the other characters involved have been in the films, but the basic idea of reuniting
the MCU's surviving villains under MODOK's commanding cranium could make for a super
fun movie.
It could be the perfect vehicle to bring back minor characters like Batroc or the baddies
who've been on ice due to a lack of sequels, like the Abomination.
Let's say Marvel Studios wants to go a different way and fully embrace all the weirdness that
comes along with a rocket-propelled giant head that wants to take over the world with
his brain powers.
There's a comic they could draw on from that, too, and it might just be the single greatest
MODOK appearance of all time.
It happened in the pages of the kid-friendly Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #9.
The premise of the story is simple.
When the Avengers raid AIM's headquarters, MODOK uses his brain powers to lure them into
a chamber that turns them all into MODOKs.
The problem is that they're still the Avengers, so they break out in their own rocket-powered
hoverchairs and continue doing Avenger things.
The funniest part is that while they carry on being superheroes, the public is completely
weirded out by it, and everyone reacts with less cheering and more with just quietly being
disturbed.
Eventually, Wolverine's mutant power counteracts the MODOK transformation, and he's able to
reverse it for the rest of the team before they decide to take over the world to run
it more efficiently.
Let's be honest.
This doesn't seem likely to make it into a live-action MCU project, but consider the
following.
Given how eager they were to finally move on from their rigorous, time-consuming Marvel
roles, having Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. come back to voice computer-animated MODOK
versions of themselves might be the only possible way to get those guys back for another MCU
appearance.
"Whatever it takes."
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