Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. Series Will Include A-List Characters Including X-Men
Over the past few days, Marvel fans have been treated with photos, footage, and details regarding Hulu’s stop-motion animated Marvel series M.O.D.O.K. While some fans don’t really care about the series, there are those of us that think it looks like it could be a fun and amusing show!
Patton Oswalt stars in the series that he helped develop, and he will be taking on the role of the megalomaniacal supervillain, M.O.D.O.K., who “has long pursued his dream of one day conquering the world. But after years of setbacks and failures fighting the Earth’s mightiest heroes, M.O.D.O.K. has run his evil organization A.I.M. into the ground. Ousted as A.I.M.’s leader, while also dealing with his crumbling marriage and family life, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is set to confront his greatest challenge yet: a midlife crisis!”
During a virtual panel for NYCC, Oswalt was joined by co-creator Jordan Blum along with actors Ben Schwartz, Melissa Fumero, and Aimee Garcia. During this panel, Oswalt revealed that the series will include some A-list Marvel characters including members of the X-Men. He didn’t say what characters they would be, but he did say:
"I cannot believe the Marvel toybox stuff they let us play with. We pitched some characters, some even in the X-Universe, we were like 'We don't know if they're gonna say yes to this,' and they were like 'Yeah, go ahead. Again, I don't want to say who, but there were a couple Jordan and I were thinking 'Oh, I don't think they said yes to. Let's write this but have backup because they'll realize,' but no, we got them."
Blum went on to talk about how he and his team got lucky with this show, saying:
"We got lucky because our show is its own animated world. It's a satire of all the stuff that's come before it, like the comics and movies. We kind of took an attitude that was similar to Into the Spider-Verse or LEGO Batman, where it all counts and let's pull what we need for the stories and then carve out our own little section with AIM and MODOK and Marvel was great about giving us a lot of the toys.
"Like Patton was saying, we have A-listers, D-listers, and people you would have to dig deep in the Marvel Handbook to even find existed. With all those characters, there's so much comedy built into them and using them in these big sci-fi stories that are kind of grounded in these very human relationship stories."
It was explained that series will explore M.O.D.O.K.’s home life and how he tries to find a balance between running AIM and his demanding family. Aimee Garcia (Lucifer) plays his wife Jodie, Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) plays his oddball son Lou, and Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) plays his daughter Melissa, who shares her father's striking appearance.
In the series, “we learn that M.O.D.O.K. has been a very neglectful husband of late. As M.O.D.O.K. flounders at work, Jodie has found success through her mommy blog-turned-lifestyle brand. This disconnect forces them to reevaluate their relationship, especially after an incident in the pilot captured in the image below.”
Things aren't going any better at work either, because “A.I.M. is on the verge of bankruptcy due to his lackluster leadership. Thus, a Google-like Silicon Valley company named GRUMBL swoops in to acquire M.O.D.O.K.'s evil organization. At first, this seems like a great idea because GRUMBL promises to let M.O.D.O.K. continue what he's been doing — you know, killing henchmen on a whim and fighting the Avengers as much as he wants. Unfortunately, that's not what actually happens because M.O.D.O.K. must now deal with things like a board and H.R.”
M.O.D.O.K.’s main adversary in the series will be Austin Van Der Sleet (SNL's Beck Bennett), GRUMBL's "post-merger-integration-consultant” at A.I.M who elicits quite the reaction from M.O.D.O.K. in the image below. "Even though Austin always kind of smiles and spews corporate jargon at him, [Austin is] constantly gaslighting and manipulating him as M.O.D.O.K. falls further within the organization. He's a much more worth adversary than even Captain America for M.O.D.O.K. because it's a battle of wits between the two."
There’s no release date for this series yet, but I love everything I’ve heard and seen from it, and I think it’s going to be a super entertaining show!