Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. premieres new episodes Friday’s on Disney+, in the US episodes air via Hulu. The series stars Patton Oswalt in the titular role. Oswald is joined by a who’s who of comedy actors including Aimee Garcia as Jodie, Ben Schwartz as Lou, Melissa Fumero as Melissa, Wendi McLendon-Covey as Monica Rappaccini, Beck Bennett as Austin Van Der Sleet, Jon Daly as Super Adaptoid and Sam Richardson as Gary.
Synopsis
Supervillain M.O.D.O.K. runs his evil organization AIM into the ground and is forced to sell it to the tech company GRUMBL. As the megalomaniacal M.O.D.O.K. struggles to regain control of AIM he risks losing something even more important… his family!
Review
The story of Marvel Television is well documented. The company birthed mega-cult hits like Agent Carter and the long-running Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. whilst also masterminding the Netflix hits Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. But that same company also brought us Inhumans and the poorly executed team-up series The Defenders.
With M.O.D.O.K. it seems that Marvel Television was unshackled and allowed to create a series that brings a truly unique insight in to the wider Marvel world. The series takes a Robot Chicken style approach to storytelling and animation. Is it masterful puppetry? Or is it some incredibly well executed CGI? Either way M.O.D.O.K. is buckets of fun to watch in its first episode out of the gate.
The series takes a dual approach to storytelling which puts some focus on character in addition to presenting some intense comic book action. This episode opens with a flashback to a seminal moment in M.O.D.O.K.’s past. It’s an unexpected opening which perfectly communicates the series intention to unconventional storytelling. From here M.O.D.O.K. transitions to something more straightforward as the villain and his team from A.I.M. take on S.H.I.E.L.D. and Iron Man (not a spoiler, he’s in the trailer!).
The series comes in to its own with its dialogue. The humour is brutal in its unwavering attack on the audience. Almost every line of dialogue is punctuated with a punchline. Some of the humour is straightforward and comfortably predictable. Other moments – a Mary Berry/Great British Bakeoff reference springs to mind – is so far off the wall that it lands somewhere between comedy genius and just plain weird.
I dare anyone to suggest that M.O.D.O.K. is exactly what they had anticipated. It blends family drama and comic book villainy in the most original of ways. Patton Oswalt brings a hapless humanity to M.O.D.O.K. which paints him as the unsuccessful supervillain. He’s a failure at work and, as this episode discovers, he’s equally a failure at home with his family falling apart. It makes the character a relatively compelling lead in a series which is clearly experimenting with its boundaries.
The 26 min runtime is absolutely packed and it’ll take a number of watches to unpack all of the references and subtext. But on the face of it Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is a brilliant glimpse in to Marvel Television’s plans to start an animated universe of shows.
Verdict
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. blasts out of the gate as a truly unique take on the Marvel Universe. Off-the-wall humour takes centre stage in a Marvel Television series which shows that the company was capable of when the shackles are removed.
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