Marvel has seen its share of strange villains (remember Dormammu or Gargantos?), although the MCU may be getting its weirdest bad guy yet with the reveal that MODOK will appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
In Marvel comics, MODOK (Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing) is depicted as a giant head housed in a floating hoverchair of a body. He’s the leader of the evil association known as A.I.M, and Marvel even made a short-lived animated series dedicated to the infamous villain.
MODOK will make the jump to the MCU in Phase 5 as trailers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania have revealed he will appear in live-action. But how does he fit into Ant-Man’s story?
Peyton Reed told Gizmodo Australia in an interview that an obvious thought occurred during development that gave them a way to authentically involve MODOK in the movie.
“We’ve always talked about MODOK around Marvel and what a bizarre and grotesque character he is in the comics. He’s a giant floating head that’s transformed into a Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing. It’s ludicrous,” Reed said. “We liked the idea of, is there a way we can work MODOK into the story?”
In the comics, MODOK is a man named George Tarleton, but there’s reason to believe it might be someone else behind the mechanised mask in Quantumania.
Eagle-eyed fans seem to have spotted the warped face of Corey Stoll’s Darren Cross in trailers for the film. Cross, who was the antagonist Yellowjacket, was last seen shrinking to an unidentifiable size in 2015’s Ant-Man, so having him potentially appear as MODOK would certainly be a twist on the source material.
“As we started to develop the story, a very obvious thing occurred to us, which is what we ran with in this movie,” Reed teased. “He’s got a very specific function in this movie. MODOK has an arc in this movie.”
“To me, it is one of the great thrills of the movie that we decided to do it,” he added. “What does a photo real version of MODOK look like?”
Audiences will find out when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania releases in Australian cinemas on February 16.