MODOK is one of my favourite Marvel characters ever, purely because of the way he looks. He's a giant evil head that floats around in a chair/body? The entire idea of MODOK is hard to take seriously - but that's why he's so cool!
Recently MODOK has been popping up a lot with appearances in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, The Super Hero Squad Show and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, so I thought it would be appropriate to go back and review MODOK's little-known limited series MODOK's 11.
For those of you who have no idea who he is, or if you think you don't know enough about the guy - don't worry. The book tells you pretty much everything you need to know about MODOK's relatively simple origin. How A.I.M turned employee, George Tarleton, into a big head with a brain millions of years more advanced than any human. Originally meant to help A.I.M, MODOK went rogue. There's your origin right there, and the book wastes no time telling it - getting it out the way fast to focus on the real story.
This book sees MODOK recruiting a bunch of other forgotten C-List super villains from the Marvel Universe to pull off a heist of incredible proportion, while all the super-heroes of the universe are preoccupied fighting World War Hulk.
The story was a lot of fun to read and I'd recommend it to any Marvel fan, particularly the ones who like more obscure characters. Using these forgotten characters and viewing the story from the villain's perspective makes this comic feel very fresh, new and somewhat unique. Not only this but the amount of betrayals, double-crossings and twists in this book not only reminds you that these characters are villains, but it also makes it an exciting read full to the brim with surprises.
Plus, the great thing about using unknown characters is that you have a fairly blank canvas, and Fred Van Lente uses that to great effect, setting up some interesting back stories and personalities for many of the characters. It's just a shame this series wasn't slightly longer, to see these stories develop further.
Another flaw about this series is that the story does take a couple of issues to really get going. The first chapter and a half are enjoyable enough however it doesn't really hit its stride until issue three, which is disappointing as the story is only five issues.
I should also say that while this book is a lot of fun, if you want a meaningful, or dark read then this is completely the wrong book for you. MODOK's 11 is really for people who want to have fun reading a comic. This series doesn't have any great life lessons or morals to teach, it just wants to ensure you have a good time reading it and it succeeds.
Lente made the right choice in not taking this book too seriously, it allows itself to poke fun at the characters with a script that genuinely made me laugh on some occasions.
The artwork in this book by Francis Portela is nice and colourful fitting well with the book's light-hearted tone.
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