Villain Profile: MODOK

 Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, and Comedy.

I had a long day, so let’s talk about something incredibly silly. The Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, MODOK and his history. The grotesque floating head rides the line between being grotesque and terrifying, to being just too damn silly to be taken seriously. Sometimes he’s a homicidal maniac that’s barely able to contain himself. Other times, he’s the butt of every joke. But, who is the man behind the giant floating head? Let’s investigate it.

 

Yeah, he had no chance of being good.

MODOK began life as George Tarleton. George was a technician in the Advanced Idea Mechanics, aka AIM. AIM is a group of scientists and engineers that outfit the Marvel universe’s various evil organizations with weapons, vehicles and other tech. His father, Alvin Tarleton, founded the group in the main Marvel continuity. While not being the most stellar beekeeper in the hive, yes that’s a joke about their silly yellow hazmat suits, George was the one that finally cracked the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) that could grant the wielder phenomenal cosmic power. In order to better understand and optimize the Tesseract, George was selected to undergo a process to transform him into the ultimate super intelligence. He was put through a mutagenic prosses that basically turned him into a floating head with tiny arms and legs. The process massively increased his intellect and granted him psychic powers, so there were a few upsides. He was originally designated as the Mental Organism Designed only for Computing, MODOC with a C, upon his completion. MODOC spent some time studying the Tesseract and making improvements on it and its containment matrix, before deciding a being of his superior intellect really should be the one running things around here, killed his creators and put himself in charge of AIM, changing the C to K in his name after slaughtering them all.

 

As AIM is in the black market arms business, albeit the crazy, SciFi branch of it, he is mostly a mercenary villain. I use this term for bad guys that don’t have a specific hero that they fight against regularly, the Green Goblins or Red Skulls of comics, and instead fights any hero that they cross paths with. He’s gone up against the biggest names in Marvel, though, like Captain America, the Hulk, and Iron Man. He’ll also cross paths with, and get on the shit list of, other villains. MODOK has a habit of making big promises and reneging on them, or cheating his customers out of money for various reasons. He has had at least one major beef with Dr. Doom himself, when the King of Latveria was interested in getting his iron gloved hands on the Cosmic Cube. But, as far as I’m aware, there’s no one hero that he has a particular beef with. He hates them all equally as inferior intellects to himself. Oh yeah, he’s always going on and on about how damn smart he is and how all other minds pale in comparison to him. He has a love/hate relationship with AIM, in that he loves using the group for their resources, tech and disposable minions, but hates them for failing him repeatedly. The AIM scientists also have love/hate relationship with MODOK, as he’s a fantastic computer when they can make him work right, and a homicidal maniac with no regard for their lives when they can’t. AIM has killed him twice and used his mostly brain-dead body for projects before reviving him on multiple occasions. Basically, if there’s an evil group that needs a lot of complex math done, MODOK is usually on their speed dial. The current MODOK is in fact a clone of the original that dubbed itself MODOK superior upon its activation.

 

This was funnier than people gave
it credit for.

As George Tarleton, he was just an above average scientist and engineer. Sure, he could work on a super Sci-Fi level, but he was no Tony Stark. After being horribly mutated, though, he gained real power. At the cost of significant atrophy to his human body, MODOK gained the world’s largest brain, along with several psychic powers. MODOK’s ability to understand patterns, computation, and gather data gives him a mind that can predict strategies and tactics so well it boarders on precognition. He wears a headband that greatly increases his psychic powers, allowing him to fire telepathic blasts, shoot a deadly beam of energy and generate force fields to protect himself from anything up to a minor nuclear blast. His atrophied body and enormous skull require him to wear an exosuit and remain in his flying “Doomsday Chair” to get around. The Chair can hover and is equipped with a variety of weapons that MODOK can deploy with a mental command. Most adaptations I’ve seen of him have him favor buzzsaws that can extend from the back. When he’s in good with AIM, he also has access to their moderate sized army, intelligence network, and technology to use as he sees fit.  

 

MODOK is a moderately popular Marvel villain. He has appeared in a number of TV shows and most recently was one of the antagonists of Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Like I stated in the opening paragraph, his depictions range from the extremely threatening to down right stupid.

 

MODOK was one of several recurring villains in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This version is in charge of AIM, or at least of the various cells of the organization. He’s behind the technology of several villain groups, but most often allied with HYDRA. It was him and his team that transformed Simon Williams into the ionic energy being known as Wonder Man. Tony Stark had bought out his company and, while enraged, he’d sought out his brother Eric for help. Eric, aka the Grim Reaper, took him to MODOK. Brother of the year right there. It’s around this point that we learn that AIM is researching the Cosmic Cube for HYDRA. Well, sort of. They’re running the project, but no one believes it'll work and MODOK admits that it’s just a ploy to embezzle funds from HYDRA. That is… until they think it might work. MODOK tries to give the money they’d taken from HYDRA back, saying the project was a failure, but HYDRA doesn’t buy that. Everything comes to a head in “Hail, Hydra!” where AIM and HYDRA start an all out gang war in the middle of New York. AIM is rushing to finish the Cosmic Cube and HYDRA is rushing to steal it. Both groups are ultimately defeated, and the Cube deemed a failure as it didn’t grant villain Wolfgang von Strucker’s wish to conquer the world… but it’s implied that Cap’s touching it at the same time caused the Cube to burn out all it’s energy reviving Bucky Barnes. That’s the last we see of MODOK in the main light but he’s a background character in several episodes. This MODOK actually still goes by MODOC, but the C here stands for Conquest.

 

MODOK had a short-lived Hulu series named after him. This version of MODOK, played by Patton Oswalt, has a family and is trying to balance running AIM after a takeover by another evil corporation, Grumble, and being a dad/husband. His family consists of his wife Jodie, and children Melissa (looks like MODOK but in pink) and Lou (human but with a big head.) The series began with MODOK losing control of AIM to Grumble in an attempt to keep the group from going bankrupt, and with Jodie divorcing MODOK for not being a good spouse/parent. The majority of the shows plots revolve around either MODOK trying to get AIM back, or Jodie back and occasionally both at once. It never works out for him. I thought it was funny, but I guess it didn’t jive with general audiences since it only got the one season. But still, I’d say check it out for Gary alone. Gary is an AIM scientist whom is distinctive because ins the first episode, MODOK blew his arm off in a tantrum, so he’s the one armed AIM guy. He’s extremely chipper despite his severe injury and wants nothing more than to be MODOK’s BFF.

 

Of all the evil floating heads, I want
this one dead the most.

MODOK mad his big screen debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. This version is in fact Darren Cross from Ant-Man. Turns out, after Scott Lang shrunk himself down to slip through the atoms and sabotage his Yellowjacket suit, he shrunk down into the Quantum realm. There, he was discovered, deformed, by Kang the Conqueror. Kang outfitted Darren with his armor, hover chair, and weapons, dubbing him MODOK. He serves as Kang’s main attack dog for the movie. It’s revealed that he was the one that picked up Cassie Lang’s quantum realm probe and used it to track her and family down and drag them all into the Quantum Realm. He has an intense hatred for Scott Lang and is hell bent on killing him for most of the film. He’s also routinely beaten by Kang, who clearly sees his usefulness as a minion but could care less about his personality. Basically every character that meets him has the same reaction. They see his face, “Darren? What happened!” and yeah, he’s a joke for most of the movie too.

 

Oh, and he’s one of the newest cards in Marvel Snap. Play him and he’ll destroy your whole hand. It’s a particularly useful combination with guys like Morbius, who gets increased power with discards, and Apocalypse, who returns to your hand but with more power. What? I like Marvel Snap.

 

MODOK is one of the weirdest concepts for villain in Marvel history, and that’s saying something. An evil psychotic floating head with the mind of a supercomputer but the general personality of a man. He’s visually quite iconic, with his head that size of a truck, little arms and legs and floating gold body. And he’s just so… inconsistent with how he’s presented. About half the shows I’ve seen him in have him as a true threat, a being of incalculable power and one that is more than willing to slaughter thousands to get his goals. And the other half he’s an idiot. Like… legitimately stupid. He can make mechanical marvels, technology far beyond what most humans could dream, but falls for a lot of really simple reverse psychology tactics when they’re used against him. Sure, those are usually in comedies like MODOK¸ but few villains could fit into a comedy mold as easily as MODOK does. Having psychic powers would be neat, but I can’t say that its worth it in MODOK’s case. Being turned into a head to get a super brain is just… lame. Folks that are complaining that the Quantumania version is somehow uniquely bad for him being mostly the butt of jokes and occasionally being threaten really need to watch more Marvel. The dude has been far more comedic and stupid than he was the altered form of Darren Cross, all I’m saying. Have a good night!

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