MODOK, the character of Marvel Comics whose name is an acronym for the Mental /Mobile /Mechanized Organisme Design Only for Killing, has never appeared in any officially produced live-action projects. But the bizarre-looking character actually came close: he appeared almost as a villain Agents of SHIELD, but Marvel once again ended the show’s permission to use it before they could work on the series. Read below the comments of the showrunners about this MODOK Agents of SHIELD connection that never came.
Agents of SHIELD picked up his likely run this week, bringing the show to an end after seven seasons. There’s a great offseason interview at The AV Club with showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen en Jed Whedon and executive producer Jeffrey Bell, and although I highly recommend hardcore fans to read this way and the full article, there’s one segment of the conversation I want to highlight here just for the “WTF” factor: MODOK was almost a villain in a primetime American network series.
‘We had a lot of ideas where we were – and I’ll say this, it does not matter to me – we originally got the green light to use certain characters from Marvel, and started breaking the story based on those characters -[Coughs.] MODOK – and then they withdrew it, ”Bell explained. “That there were a few things that were going to be a bit of a batshit that were above our pay, in terms of the toys we were allowed to play with.”
Just in case you are not a big comic and do not understand the scope of what we are talking about here, MODOK looks like this:
Imagine your grandparents blowing through the channels on a Wednesday night and randomly watching a live-action version of dat on her TV screen. Man, I wish we lived in that world.
And it sounds like we got really close – until Marvel pulled the carpet out of the basement Agents of SHIELD showrunners and gave back his permission to use the character. The big question is: what has changed her mind? Is it just because of the MODOK animated series still in development at Hulu, starring Patton Oswalt? Or is it because the company has plans for the character somewhere else in a capacity for live action?
In the comics, MODOK has clashed with the likes of Captain America and Ms. Marvel, and although it would be hard to imagine Marvel Studios getting this character in the coming Mrs. Marvel series, it’s just as difficult to paint a picture of a scenario in which Marvel execs were ever OK with the idea of a giant floating head appearing on a mainstream network’s TV series. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes and if we’ll ever see this guy in live action, but that MODOK Hulu series is expected to debut this year.
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