Unless you’re an uber-Marvel nerd (like myself), when you see the title of Hulu’s upcoming animated series, “M.O.D.O.K.” your first question is likely, “What the fuck is a M.O.D.O.K.?” Well, the short answer is that M.O.D.O.K. is one of the strangest, unintentionally funny Marvel villains to ever grace a comic book panel. The longer answer? Well, you gotta watch the trailer for the new Hulu series, and maybe that will help.
The trailer for the stop-motion animated series, “M.O.D.O.K.” does a good job of quickly explaining who the character is. He’s a weird character whose codename is actually an acronym for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. He’s appeared in hundreds of comics over the decades and has been everything from a major villain of the Avengers to the butt of a ton of big head jokes. And in the new Hulu series, he’s just a dad in a loveless marriage trying to raise a couple of kids in the suburbs. Oh and he’s also trying to take over the world.
“M.O.D.O.K.” stars the vocal talents of Patton Oswalt, Melissa Fumero, Aimee Garcia, Ben Schwartz, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Beck Bennett, Jon Daly, and Sam Richardson. Clearly, judging by the cast filled with hilarious people and the footage seen in the trailer, “M.O.D.O.K.” is not your run-of-the-mill Marvel series. Honestly, it’s unlike anything else the studio has released on TV or in films. The closest comparison would obviously be something like “Robot Chicken” but even then, that only played around with superhero tropes, whereas this is a full-on comedic look at the Marvel Universe, complete with an Iron Man cameo and all (though, in “M.O.D.O.K.” the character is voiced by Jon Hamm, not Robert Downey, Jr).
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All that to say, “M.O.D.O.K.” looks hilarious and will be a welcome reprieve from the typical Marvel formula that has dominated superhero projects for over a decade. “M.O.D.O.K.” arrives on Hulu on May 21.
Here’s the synopsis:
In “Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.”, the megalomaniacal supervillain M.O.D.O.K. (Patton Oswalt) 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!
