Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is a Supervillainous Family Sitcom
By Alec Bojalad
In Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. on Hulu, Patton Oswalt voices a Marvel villain with a severe inferiority complex.
Back in 2019, Hulu announced a whole host of offbeat Marvel series including M.O.D.O.K., Hit-Monkey, Tigra & Dazzler Show, and Howard the Duck.
Like Netflix’s The Defenders, these lesser-known Marvel characters would team up in their own show called “The Offenders.”
Eventually all of the Hulu Offenders projects were canceled...save for one.
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is the last Offender project at Hulu and it’s not hard to see why it was spared the axe. M.O.D.O.K. is one of Marvel’s most effective characters.
The man once known as George Tarleton was an Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) scientist whose mutagenic experiments gave him an overdeveloped head and a small body.
M.O.D.O.K. would then use his enhanced abilities and special hover chair to become a frequent villain for heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man.
M.O.D.O.K. was even a major antagonist in Square Enix’s 2020 video game Marvel’s Avengers.
To bring the story of M.O.D.O.K. to television, creator and showrunner Jordan Blum employed help from Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (of Robot Chicken fame) to create a distinct animation style.
Like its would-be Offenders peers, Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is a comedy, incorporating elements of workplace and family sitcoms.
In the show, M.O.D.O.K. soon discovers that supervillainous deeds cost a lot of money, requiring him to sell A.I.M. to a Silicon Valley titan that introduces proper HR practices.
Meanwhile, things are falling apart for M.O.D.O.K. in his home life while he focuses his attention on taking down Marvel’s A-list heroes.
Combine all of that with a high-profile voice cast of Melissa Fumero, Aimee Garcia, Ben Schwartz, and Patton Oswalt as the titular villain, and M.O.D.O.K. has some real potential.
And that’s fitting for the poor, perpetually upstaged M.O.D.O.K.