MODOK in Animation - A Retrospective

[RoyalRubble]

With MODOK scheduled to appear on the upcoming Avengers Assemble cartoon*, I figured it would be a good time to look back on his previous appearances in animation throughout the years. There's not really that much to talk about this time, but I hope you all enjoy reading it! All images in this post appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age.

MODOK debuted in the comic book Tales of Suspense #93 (from September 1967), and was created by the team of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Originally a technician for the criminal organization AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics), George Tarleton was the inventor of the Cosmic Cube. He was later exposed to advanced mutagenics by AIM scientists, who wished to alter him into a super-intelligent creature in order to study and improve the artifact.

And thus MODOC (an acronym for Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing) was born. Among his new abilities gained via this mutation MODOC now had superhuman intelligence and psionic powers which enabled him to mentally control people, and generate force fields around himself. The headband he wears allowed him to focus these mental power into a devastating beam. As a side effect of the mutation process though, his head grew to the point his body couldn't support the weight anymore; he was given an exoskeleton and a hover-chair (equipped with a variety of weapons) by AIM to compensate for these drawbacks.

However the creature becomes more and more ambitious and kills his former masters, now calls himself MODOK (with the K standing for Killing) and takes over leadership of AIM, leading to his first confrontation with a super-hero, Captain America. While initially only a recurring foe to Cap, MODOK over the years has become an enemy to various other heroes of the Marvel Universe, including the incredible Hulk and the invincible Iron Man.

His first animated appearances were on the Iron Man animated series which started airing in fall of 1994. This series aired in syndication, paired with a new Fantastic Four cartoon, inside a block named the Marvel Action Hour. The stories were more or less faithful to the comics but the character designs and animations were pretty bad, making the first seasons of both these shows hard to sit through. MODOK here was much smaller than he was initially in the comics; he was present in every episode, acting sort of like the Mandarin's second in command, and was voiced by Jim Cummings.

Each episode Mandarin come up with a (usually ridiculous) plan to get his hands on Tony Stark's technology and steal Iron Man's armor for himself, but every time he was thwarted by the armored avenger and his team, the Force Works. To battle the super-hero team Mandarin put together his own team of villains to help him carry out his plans, but never actually completed any missions successfully.MODOK was primarily a goofy villain on this show - he never really came across as threatening or menacing, or very intelligent for that matter. He always aided Mandarin in his quest for world domination but never did anything too memorable during the course of the series.

The most notable exception is the episode titled "Enemy Within, Enemy Without", which reveals MODOK's origin and even gives a reason for his loyalty to his leader. In this story Mandarin's minions prepare to steal one of Stark's newest inventions and set up a trap in a cove where a famous model was having a photo-shoot. MODOK recognizes the woman, she was his wife until he became what he is today. He goes against the Mandarin's orders and asks Iron Man and Force Works for help to rescue the woman he loves. We get a short origin for MODOK through a flashback, which I thought was pretty cool.

We see that the Red Ghost was responsible for his mutations, after he learned they both loved the same woman. As a bonus, we also get some kind of motivation for his alliance with the Mandarin: apparently the green-skinned villain knows how to change MODOK back to human form and has the power to do it, in exchange for his loyalty. It's definitely the best MODOK story this show had. The few origin stories from this series were the more memorable and enjoyable episodes.

The second season of this Iron Man animated series premiered in fall of 1995 and just about everything about it was better than the first season. It was especially nice seeing characters that have been presented rather poorly in the first 13 episodes get some well deserved character development and actually become more interesting. Unfortunately MODOK was not featured as much in this season, apart from the season premiere (where his alliance with Mandarin ends), and a few other episodes towards the show's finale.

After Mandarin has spent the majority of the season searching for his lost power rings, he is reunited with MODOK in the episode "Empowered", which is basically a clip-show featuring scenes from the previous episodes as the two villains gather information on what Iron Man has been up to since the last time they encountered him.

In "The Hands of the Mandarin", the two-part series finale, Mandarin uses the Heart of Darkness, a crystal which emits an anti-technology field to cleanse the world of all technology. This threatens not only Tony's life, but also MODOK's: the former requires to recharge his chest-plate to continue living, while the latter's life-support system is failing.

After the recently reformed Force Works team help Iron Man and War Machine to escape and defeat the villains, MODOK is confronted by the heroes who question his loyalty to the Mandarin - to which the villain humorously answers that he sticks with him only because he makes him laugh. In the end Mandarin looses pretty much any chance to wear his magical rings ever again, while MODOK and the rest of the former minions are sent to jail.

All in all, MODOK wasn't all that great on Iron Man: TAS. Apart from his origin episode and the fact he had a great voice, there's not much to mention as he was for the most part a generic villain (which can be said about pretty much every other bad guy in this show.

Next part: MODOK on Iron Man: Armored Adventures and The Super Hero Squad Show!

*(Slightly off-topic: Any suggestions for future Avengers-related retrospectives? Black Widow? Falcon? Hawkeye? War Machine?)

 

[Kaijukurt]

Good write-up, MODOK always did intrigue me.

And as for future suggestions, Hawkeye!

 

[Venom Melendez]

War Machine would be great!

And great MODOK write up! He has always been one of my favorite villains!

 

[RoyalRubble]

Part Two

Iron Man: Armored Adventures premiered in 2009, originally airing on Nicktoons Network. This show presented Tony Stark and most of his supporting cast, as well as some of his enemies as teenagers. For a change, this show a lot of neat story-arcs usually focusing on specific characters, most of which end up combining and become more narrow as the show goes on. Building up to MODOC's introduction, a few episodes of this series offered some hints that foreshadowed what was about to happen.

First in the episode "Ready AIM Fire!", the organization AIM is first seen as well as Basil Sandhurst (who'll later become the Controller). Sandhurst is a gifted chemist who was hired by AIM to help them complete work on the MODOC project but he was more interested in getting Tony Stark to help him with his own project, the mind control disks. Later, in "Panther's Prey" Iron Man and Black Panther team up to stop Moses Magnum from delivering stolen Vibranium to AIM - the metal was supposed to be used to create MODOC's harness.

MODOC is finally activated in the episode titled "Designed Only for Chaos". In this story AIM sends the Ghost (probably the coolest villain on the show) to retrieve the Living Laser from SHIELD custody, planning on using the latter's energy signature to fully activate their newest creation. Arthur Parks became the Living Laser after using stolen tech from Stark making Iron Man think he's responsible for his condition. After trying to help him on various occasions, each time with Laser thinking Iron Man is trying to hurt him rather than aid him, Laser ended up in a cell aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier where his condition grew worse, and it is revealed that he's dying. Tony wishes to help, but during his experiment to save Laser's life, the Ghost strikes. Laser if brought to the AIM headquarters where the Scientist Supreme drains his energy to bring MODOC to life.

Considered their crowning achievement, a mental organism designed only for conquest (which explains why the "K" in his name was changed to a "C"), MODOC is the perfect symbiosis of biology and science, having the processing power of the human mind combined with the cold efficiency of a machine. Although initially supposed to lead their organization to world domination and create a new world in the image of science, once online MODOC (voiced by Lee Tockar) turns on his creators, both Sandhurst (because after reading his mind, he noticed he was about to betray AIM), and the Scientist Supreme (because his incompetence lead to Sandhurst's betrayal), and declares himself leader of AIM.

Iron Man is unable to stop him - MODOC's mental blasts are too much for the armored avenger, and on top of that, the villain is able to read Tony's mind, learning all his technical knowledge and even his true identity. The Living Laser uses the last of his powers to attack MODOC, and manages to damage his memory - resulting in MODOC needing to flee the base, and Laser dying (although he did come back once more in the second season). All in all this was a great episode, with MODOC introduced as an almost unstoppable enemy. Sadly, his next appearances while still good, won't be as memorable as this one.

He is next seen in "Uncontrollable", where Sandhurst (now calling himself the Controller) tries using his mind control disks to recruit the strength of the Hulk, in an attempt to get his revenge on AIM. As the title implies, Hulk proves to be uncontrollable so the Controller settles for having Iron Man on his side - wearing his Hulkbuster armor, no less. MODOC tries resisting the attacks of both Iron Man and Hulk, but is ultimately defeated. He manages to flee safely away once again, before Controller places one of his disks on him.

His final appearance on the show was during the second season, in the episode titled "The Hawk and the Spider". In this story Iron Man tries regaining the Stark User Interface Chip from Obadiah Stane's office. The chip is stolen by the team of Hawkeye and Black Widow, but they in turn lose it to Titanium Man (Justin Hammer).

The duo reluctantly teams up with Iron Man to get the chip back, and they all infiltrate Hammer's building where they have to face high-tech security systems. Hammer then activates his newest "acquisition", which just happens to be MODOC - it's revealed that his men found him at the bottom of the East River; Hammer spent many months and lots of money to rebuild and improve MODOC so he can use him against his enemies. Iron Man manages to defeat MODOC this time by simply putting the new UI chip on the villain's head; since the chip wasn't tuned to MODOC's brainwaves, it deactivated him. And that's the last we see of MODOC on this show.

Overall, MODOC on Iron Man: Armored Adventures was pretty great. Even though he was only awesome in his first appearance, his next episodes weren't that bad either.

The Super Hero Squad Show premiered in 2009, and originally aired on the Cartoon Network. It was based on the Marvel Super Hero Squad action figure line from Hasbro, which portrays all the characters in the Marvel Universe in a super-deformed-style, and was aimed at a younger generation. The show featured a lot of characters from the Marvel Universe, but primarily focused on a team of heroes including members of the Avengers and the X-Men. It was mostly a parody of super hero shows, and I doubt it ever wanted to be taken too seriously. The story-arc for the first season was about the "Squaddies" trying to stop Doctor Doom's Lethal Legion from collecting the Infinity Fractals, shards from the broken Infinity Sword, which Doom plans on using to rule the world. MODOK here was voiced by Tom Kenny and was a member of Doom's Legion - somewhat similar to how he was one of Mandarin's minions on the 90s Iron Man cartoon.

MODOK (with the "K" in his name standing for "Kicking-butt") was usually paired with Abomination on his missions. The duo was fun to watch though MODOK's high-pitched squeaky voice did get annoying at times. They were sent on various wacky missions to gather the Infinity Fractals for their leader, often teaming up with other villains, but each time they were thwarted by the Squaddies. MODOK was present in pretty much every episode from the first season, but only a few episodes actually focused on him.

For example, in "Tremble at the Might of MODOK", one of the Infinity Fractals gets stuck in his headgear, making him all-powerful and he takes over Doctor Doom's role as leader until he is stopped. In "Mental Organism Designed Only for Kisses", thanks to Amora the Enchantress' magic love lutefisk, Ms. Marvel falls in love with MODOK. In "Tales of Suspense", he and Abomination face off against Wolverine and Reptil in a game of golf. The stories didn't really make much sense, but they were amusing enough. Also, each first season episode had a scene during the opening credits where the Hulk transformed into something else thanks to a Fractal - and some of the episodes featured him turning into a MODOK like being, apparently called MODOH (with the "H" standing for "Hulking").

Thanos became the main villain for the first part of the second season of the show, and the Squaddies now had to stop him from gathering the Infinity Gems. Falcon and Scarlet Witch joined the group of heroes, among others. As a result Doctor Doom and his minions (including MODOK) didn't appear as often in this batch of episodes. And when he did show up, I don't remember him doing anything special.

The episode titled "1602" is about Scarlet Witch traveling to a parallel dimension set in the year featured in the title, where she confronts pirate versions of MODOK, Doctor Doom and Abomination. I haven't really watched any season two episodes in a while so I might have missed some of MODOK's appearances, or if he had any defining moments throughout the series. Considering the overall tone of the show, I kind of doubt it.

All in all, MODOK on this show was pretty good - his voice got annoying at times but for the most part the episodes featuring him were fun to watch. Next part: MODOK on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man!

 

[RoyalRubble]

Part Three

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes premiered in fall of 2010 on Disney XD. The first five episodes of the show were split into 20 micro-episodes which were released online prior to the shows' premiere on television. MODOC here was voiced by Wally Wingert (the same person who voiced Henry Pym and his many superhero identities on this show) and first appeared in the episode "Iron Man is Born!"; he's briefly seen as an inmate in the Vault, the super-prison designed to hold technological-based super-villains and their technology. The "C" in his name once again stands for "Conquest", similar to his Iron Man: Armored Adventures incarnation.

MODOC's first major appearance on the show was in "Everything is Wonderful", where he uses an experimental Zeta Beam which will transform Simon Williams into an all-powerful being of ionic energy. Simon wanted revenge on Tony Stark for taking over his company (although Tony was just trying to help). His brother, the Grim Reaper took him to AIM knowing they would be able to help him get super powers. There's also a neat little scene where Grim Reaper asks MODOC about the status of the weapon Baron Von Strucker requested AIM to build - the Cosmic Cube, which will play an important role later on during the series.

Meanwhile Thor and Wasp are chasing some AIM drones throughout the city, and manage to follow them to their facility where the aforementioned experiment was taking place. Once inside the two Avengers come face to face for the first time with MODOC, and a big fight between them and AIM follows, with the occasional joke about the size of MODOC's head - some of them hilarious, especially Thor's reactions to seeing him. One of MODOC's mental energy bolts hits the Zeta Beam and changes the frequency of the ionic energy, resulting in Simon becoming Wonder Man who flies away to get his revenge on Stark. MODOC boasts about how successful his experiment was but is soon defeated by Wasp and Thor, after they shatter the crystal on his headgear. The villain orders a retreat, and the lab they were inside is revealed to be a giant rocket ship which blasts off, escaping from the Avengers for now.

All in all, this was MODOC's best appearance on this show. The next episodes that feature him are pretty awesome as well, but don't really focus on him as much as here.

In "Widow's Sting", Hawkeye is trying to find Black Widow (whom he believed has betrayed SHIELD and joined the bad guys) by following HYDRA around; he crashes a meeting between HYDRA and AIM - where MODOC asks Grim Reaper for more money in order to finish building the Cosmic Cube. Hawkeye manages to defeat most of the villains there, though their leaders get a chance to escape. The rest of the episode is all about Hawkeye and a few of the Avengers on their mission to find and destroy HYDRA island.

MODOC is briefly seen again towards the end of the episode, where one of his scientists informs him that the Cosmic Cube might actually work; apparently they only started working on this weapon for HYDRA as a "smoke-screen", to keep HYDRA busy and get enough money from them for other experiments. But now, MODOC plans on keeping the Cube for himself. In the end, Baron Von Strucker meets with MODOC, who claims the Cube was a failure and returns some of his money and promises to contact him soon for another project. Von Strucker suspects MODOC is lying, which leads to the events of the next episode.

MODOC's final appearance on the show was in the episode "Hail Hydra!", where Baron Von Strucker declares war on AIM, resulting in an all-out attack on the streets of New York. The Avengers find themselves trapped in the middle of the fight, with Black Widow joining them and explaining how she was only infiltrated HYDRA as an undercover SHIELD agent. The Cosmic Cube is almost complete, and the winner of this war would claim it as his prize - the cube apparently has the power to change reality itself; all one has to do is touch the Cube, and it will alter the world as its "master" desires.

MODOC does get some neat scenes in this episode, for example mind-controlling and sacrificing one of his AIM scientists to protect him by flying his ship in front of a missile headed for the ship he was aboard. The climax of the episode takes place in an old abandoned warehouse where MODOC is confronted by Von Strucker and his mechanical Dreadnaughts, which appear to be more than a match for MODOC's powers. The battle ends when Captain America appears and fight Von Strucker, their battle ending when they both touch the Cosmic Cube at the same time. In the end the villains (including MODOC) are taken into SHIELD custody.

AIM does appear or is at least mentioned in future episodes (most notably during season two, in "Alone Against AIM", and during the Skrull Secret Invasion story-arc, where the Scientist Supreme was replaced by a Skrull agent), though MODOC is nowhere to be seen. Overall, MODOC was pretty great on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. He wasn't used too much but when he did appear he was lots of fun.

Ultimate Spider-Man premiered in April 2012 on Disney XD and is currently airing its second season. The show features Spider-Man as a hero-in-training for SHIELD, working alongside a group of other teenage heroes (Iron Fist, Nova, Power Man Luke Cage and White Tiger). Supposedly aimed at a younger audience and focused more on comedy than action or drama the show has some good moments but most of the time isn't anything special.

MODOK has only had two short cameos on the show (at least, so far). In the episode "Doomed" MODOK's picture can be seen in the SHIELD database for the most wanted criminals. And in "Beetle Mania", we see a short security footage video of how the Beetle freed MODOK from prison.

Neither of these cameos required a voice actor; and also no mention of how his name is spelled on this show.

And the most recent Marvel toon to feature MODOK is Avengers Assemble. While the show hasn't officially premiered yet, a preview consisting of the first two episodes aired this past weekend on Disney XD. Here MODOK is voiced by Charlie Adler and is introduced as an ally to the Red Skull. His design is different from any of his past animated incarnations - he is now bald, and his powers have been upgraded as well: he now possesses technopathic abilities.

In the first part of "The Avengers Protocol", he helps Red Skull escape from Iron Man after the two villains apparently destroyed Captain America (though in reality they only teleported him to their base). Iron Man reforms the Avengers to avenge Cap's apparent death and locates the villains somewhere in Antarctica where it's revealed that MODOK has created a mind transfer machine, to transfer Red Skull's mind into Cap's tougher body. The heroes manage to stop the HYDRA army and defeat the villains, while also reversing the mind transfer process, bringing everything back to normal. MODOK uses his powers to take Iron Man's armor off, and giving it to Skull making him the Iron Skull.

In the second part, Tony Stark recovers once they return to Avengers Mansion where new-commer Falcon saves his life by plugging him into the mansion's power generator. MODOK reveals that he has sent some of his microbots aboard Black Widow's car, which once activated they allow MODOK to mind control the Avengers into fighting each other. Tony dons a new armor and saves the day by sending an electro-magnetic pulse which disables the microbots, but also MODOK who has infiltrated the mansion in the meantime, alongside the Red Skull. MODOK is then left at the mercy of the Hulk, until he manages to escape when the Avengers have to stop the mansion's Arc reactor from exploding. In the end the Red Skull and MODOK send out invitations to other villains of the Marvel Universe to join their own team, the Cabal to fight the Avengers.

Judging just by these two episodes, MODOK seems pretty cool. I think his power upgrade makes him a little more interesting, and menacing. He'll probably appear more throughout the series, since it seems his alliance with the Skull isn't over yet. This thread will be updated from time to time if he'll appear more or does something especially interesting on the show.

 

[LexHugo86]

you forgot MODOK from Marvel vs Capcom

 

[TheVileOne]

I don't think videogames count otherwise this can get quite long.

 

[RoyalRubble]

Updating this thread, to include MODOK's appearance in the Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel special from last month. The first official crossover between Marvel characters and Disney characters, Mission Marvel was great - it's mostly a comedy (no surprise there since Phineas & Ferb is a comedic series) but I thought pretty much every joke worked here, as opposed to the current Marvel cartoons. I haven't watched the show in a while but I used to really like it, and made sure to catch this special episode.

When Dr. Doofenshmirtz accidentally steals the powers of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk and Thor the heroes travel to the Tri-State Area to get them back, followed closely by their enemies (Venom, MODOK, Whiplash and their leader Red Skull). While Phineas and Ferb try to help the heroes recover their powers, the villains team-up with Doofenshmirtz and cause havoc through the city (in the most amusing ways) until the villains decide to betray their "friend" and announce their plans to destroy the world. They are stopped by the combined forces of the recently-recovered superheroes and the main characters of the show.

MODOK here was voiced by Charlie Adler (I'm guessing in an attempt to make this special in continuity with the Avengers Assemble show) and his design looked pretty neat - nothing special but he fit right alongside the others. He didn't really get to do that much here and most of the jokes concerning him were about how he can't fit through a door. He was also described as looking like a giant chicken egg with a face, which I though was kind of funny.

All in all, this special was lots of fun - and it was nice to see MODOK here since I guess they could used just about any other villain.