The following story contains light spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
After 31 feature films and eight television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, things are starting to get a little weird. If you would’ve told most Marvel Comics fans in 2008, when Iron Man was first hitting theaters, that 15 years later we’d be seeing the character M.O.D.O.K (which stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) in a live-action film, they probably would’ve laughed in your face. But here we are.
Part of the disconnect between some of the comic book/superhero adaptations of the early/mid 2000s was that while many comics are meant to celebrate the colorful, absurd, and exaggerated worlds of superheroes, many films tried to reign in this very spirit. Think about the first X-Men movie, when all the X-Men wore matching dark uniforms and the whole vibe of the movie just was “dark realism.” That movie is not horrible, but it doesn’t quite fit the vibe that most X-Men fans fell in love with when reading, say, writer Chris Clarement’s legendary run on the mutant team.
We’ll get another big screen take on the X-Men soon enough. But where some of those early 2000s films failed, the MCU era has largely embraced the big, silly, fun that sometimes goes into comic book and superhero stories. And Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which has a Star Wars-esque vibe and takes place int he mysterious and tiny Quantum realm, really spends some time leaning into that.
And it in particular leans into the camp when dealing with the character of M.O.D.O.K., who has a storied past in the comics but has never before been depicted in live-action. Quantumania changes M.O.D.O.K.’s backstory, and while the charater’s look may just be a touch too bizarre for some (and it’s certainly quite bizarre!), the movie certainly lets it just be as campy, weird, and funny as possible. It’s just a big weird floating head!
Let’s talk a bit more about M.O.D.O.K.
Who is M.O.D.O.K. in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?
If we’re thinking about Quantumania in terms of Star Wars, the version of M.O.D.O.K. that we meet is essentially a Boba Fett to Kang the Conqueror’s Palpatine/Darth Vader. Once Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lily), Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfieffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) are accidentally sucked into the quantum realm, it takes them a moment to fully get their bearings. But we hear reference to an ominous figure, “The Conqueror,” who turns out to be Kang.
And we eventually learn that Kang has commissioned “the hunter” to come after Janet—whom Kang had already met when she was stuck in the quantum realm—and, perhaps most surprisingly, that “the hunter,” a nickname given to M.O.D.O.K., is actually a Marvel Cinematic Universe villain we’ve met before: Darren Cross, a.k.a. Yellowjacket from the first Ant-Man film.
How did Darren Cross become M.O.D.O.K.?
Darren was Hank’s former protege and Scott’s eventual rival in the first Ant-Man film, and during their climactic, end-of-film fight, he ended up smushed and, seemingly, destroyed. But, as we find out in Quantumania, he was actually sucked into the quantum realm, his body totally mangled. There was actually a small easter egg in Season 1 of Loki, with the Yellowjacket helmet floating around in frame.
Eventually, though, Kang found Darren, and souped him up, turning him into the MCU’s version of the killing machine M.O.D.O.K. Scott, Hank, Cassie, and just about everyone are completely and utterly surprised to see Darren at all, letalone like this. He looks ridiculous, but it kind of plays into the point of the character. It’s a fun time.
Who plays M.O.D.O.K. in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?
