Supervillains — they’re just like us! They’re insecure. They struggle with work-life balance. Their kids are a handful. They can focus their thoughts into deadly energy beams.
Okay, the last part probably doesn’t apply to you (and if it does, please don’t call me), but it does apply to M.O.D.O.K. Marvel Comics has been creating and assimilating heroes and villains since 1939, and M.O.D.O.K. is … certainly one of them. You can be excused if you’ve never heard of him. He was created in 1967, the period known as Marvel’s Silver Age, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as a foil for Captain America. George Tarleton, a technician at shady tech company Advanced Idea Mechanics, was injected with mutagens designed to increase his mental capacity, transforming him into the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. The drugs grew his cranium and shrank his body, so he is forced to live in an armored hover-chair of his own design. He immediately used his superior intellect to take over A.I.M. and launch various schemes for world conquest, which must be thwarted by whatever Marvel superhero is in need of a punching bag at the moment.
While it produced some of the most eye-popping art comics have ever seen, Marvel’s Silver Age is so called because it wasn’t a Golden Age. To call M.O.D.O.K. a C-list character is being generous. He kind of made sense in the psychedelic ’60s when drawn by super-genius artist Jack Kirby, but he never really got past his innate ridiculousness. On nerd culture website IGN’s list of the “100 Greatest Villains of All Time,” M.O.D.O.K. was No. 100. At least he made the list! But it’s like he built this army of atomic super-soldiers for nothing.
In other words, M.O.D.O.K. is perfect for comedy, and in this dark age where no Marvel IP can long go unexploited, Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum have given him the perfect vehicle: a sitcom. It’s not the first time the Marvel juggernaut has crushed the hoariest of TV genres; WandaVision married the blockbuster and I Love Lucy to fine results. But M.O.D.O.K. on Hulu gives the Silver Age the slapstick treatment it deserves, thanks largely to Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the stop motion animation house behind Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken. Seth Green’s evergreen comedy was created to put his action figure collection into surreal and hilarious situations. It has evolved into a weekly visual tour de force that pushes the limits of the oldest animated form. M.O.D.O.K. takes these skills to the next level, incorporating motion capture performances and even the occasional live action shot into the mix.
Oswalt stars as our floating head antihero, and the comedian takes to it like he was born to play the part. M.O.D.O.K.’s bulging intellect is overshadowed by his Trumpian vanity. When yet another extremely expensive battle with the Avengers ends in failure, he learns A.I.M. is broke. After a night of clubbing and flattery by tech CEO Austin Van Der Sleet (Beck Bennett), he agrees to sell the company to tech giant GRUMBL. Playing second fiddle inside the organization he conquered with his mind doesn’t sit well with the most self-involved brain in the multiverse — especially when they replace his torture chamber with a day care center. As the season progresses, his schemes to regain control lead to escalating super-science conflict with his work frenemy Monica (Wendi McLendon-Covey). He steadily loses status until he’s only head of the mail room.
Meanwhile, at home, M.O.D.O.K.’s wife Jodie (Aimee Garcia) is a mommy blogger whose new book Jodify Your Life is climbing the bestseller charts. M.O.D.O.K.’s jealousy tears the family apart leaving daughter Melissa (Melissa Fumero) and son Lou (Ben Schwartz) stuck in the middle.
Making comedy out of burdening comic book characters with real-life emotions and failings isn’t a new concept. The stamp of The Venture Bros. can be seen frequently in the dysfunctional families of obsessed heroes and villains, such as when M.O.D.O.K. is thrown out of the hip villains-only nightclub, The Soho Lair. The writing is archly funny, delivering a couple of authentic laugh-out-loud moments in every 22-minute episode. It also helps that Oswalt’s reputation brings in a slew of high-powered guest voices, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Fillion, Jon Hamm, Chris Parnell, Alan Tudyk, and Bill Hader. The biggest attraction is the stunning animation. If you’ve been sleeping on films like the magnificent Kubo and the Two Strings, you’ll be shocked at how stop motion has progressed in the digital age. If everything has to be Marvel, I ask for more like this, please.
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is streaming on Hulu.