M.O.D.O.K

It's M.O.D.O.K week comic fans! With Dark Reign in full effect, we'll be seeing more old characters come out of the woodwork. This means even the lame ones are going to come back in a more serious manner, like the "Mental Organization Designed Only for Killing."  If you're familiar with the Marvel villain, then you probably know how pitiful this revitalization of the character is going to be. If you're not, then you're in for a good laugh. 

For the sake of transience, i'm going to call this character by his "human" name: George. I know it's not that nefarious sounding, but he changed it to M.O.D.O.K after his (amazing? no, probably not) transformation. He used to be a lowly employee at Advanced Idea Mechanics, or A.I.M if you like acronyms you can pronounce (which they happen to really like) and then after they created him into a weapon he became their "Master." A.I.M is a terrorist organization that can be compared to Hydra in the way that an autistic twin is to his un-afflicted older brother. Created as a side-branch of Hydra by monocle wearing Baron von Strucker, it became somewhat of a running joke to fans and writers. Hell, even artists had fun drawing those funny yellow bee-keeper suits. 

                              Yellow is SO gaudy!

Granted, the creation of A.I.M was in the 60's in issues of Tales of Suspense, but I think it might have been savvy and timely to maybe reshape the group to make them more threatening players in comics. Agents of A.I.M use ray-guns and fight in huge groups, normally taking on, and failing, to beat one hero that breaks into whatever branch they may be located. Their epic war cry? "I just joined for the dental plan," as their teeth are smashed in. The only thing they have to be proud of are their inventions, sans the giant floating head with limbs like twigs.

Despite fellow creations like the Super-Adaptoid (sounds lamer than he is), the Cosmic Cube of enormous power, George is just goofy and has yet to actually kill anyone. I take that back, M.O.D.O.K once killed another A.I.M creation M.O.D.A.M (Mental Organism Designed for Aggressive Maneuvers), formerly, and I can guess why: S.O.D.A.M. Who was just a female mutated agent. Somehow A.I.M couldn't think of any way to better improve their first creation, except to ADD EXTENDING METAL ARMS, super innovation A.I.M! Yet despite all that genius work, it failed to even kill the West Coast Avengers, another group that became a joke of it's own to readers and writers alike. The team was located in L.A. which, despite amount of shallowness, moral depravity and lack of intelligence, is normally devoid of super-villains.

 "You're welcome for saving your butt, Michael Bay, now I want to show you an idea I had for a movie, which would require no thinking at all, just cool special effects. Yes you say? I knew you'd be interested."

I'm just not sure how M.O.D.O.K can stay a very pliable villain in the Marvel U. Despite being #100 of IGN's top comic book villains, he still actually needs a floating wheelchair to even be in range to attack. The guy isn't even high profile enough to make an alliance with cool villains, one time he actually made machinations with a guy named Rocket Racer and a girl named Nightshade, which sound more like a blaxploitation film than a comic book character. Once, M.O.D.O.K was captured and used as a tool by the U.S. Military, which makes him one of the only villains to ever loose to less than one superhero. When most take on a whole team at once, he was threatened by humans. Amongst the others who defeated him, there was the Serpent Society (they said "because he ssssssssssuckssss." i'm sorry I really had to. That group is a joke too), Iron Man, Captain America, Namor, Dr. Doom & Ms. Marvel. Deadpool actually took him once, but M.O.D.O.K later forfeit to aid Deadpool in saving Cable, which is just odd. 

Quintessentially, M.O.D.O.K is just a satire of that brainy kid in high school you wanted to beat up for always knowing the answer in class. He's even got the bowl cut to top it off. Unfortunately, I feel like beating George up is a hate crime, no matter how advanced it is, it's still a wheelchair! So I salute you, Marvel writers, who still think this character should be taken seriously! Try as you might, the second I see that giant grin, i'll not be able to hold my own back!