HOW'S YOUR HEAD?
MARVEL’S M.O.D.O.K. SEES THE DISEMBODIED FLOATING HEAD FINNALY GETTING THE SPOTLIGHT HE THINKS HE DESERVES!
AMONG THE GRAB BAG OF THOUSANDS of Marvel Comics characters waiting to get called up to fulfill their TV or cinematic destinies, M.O.D.O.K. has always been a bit of a head-scratcher. The creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the disembodied head/supervillain debuted in Tales Of Suspense (1967). Visually, George Tarleton (who was mutated into M.O.D.O.K., the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) has always been the Kirbiest of creations, and his outsized looks and temperament have always made him a tough fit for any grounded adaptations. He’s never played well with others, in any sense.
It just took 50 years and writers Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum to figure out that M.O.D.O.K. really can’t share the stage. He’s got to be front and centre; when you humiliate him with petty, everyday people problems, that’s when his story gets very interesting, relatable and funny. That’s essentially the premise of Hulu’s new stop-motion animated series, Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.
“It’s grounded heart with absolute Marvel insanity,” co-creator/showrunner Blum tells SFX, on a call from his office in Los Angeles. The 10-episode first season sets up M.O.D.O.K./GEORGE Tarleton as a supervillain who’s run his evil organisation (AIM) into the ground, having to sell it to a tech company to keep it afloat. His home life’s just as messy, with a fed-up wife, Jodi (Aimee Garcia), and their two distanced teens Melissa (Melissa Fumero) and Lou (Ben Schwartz) ready to throw him out too.
“We wanted to tell the story about a control freak who loses control of every element in his life,” Blum says of bringing M.O.D.O.K. down to mortal level via real-life problems. “Suddenly, this egomaniac who’s lost his way has to figure out what’s actually really important to him, and that sets him on his journey. It’s basically a midlife crisis for a supervillain, and we decided that’s going to dictate our stories and where it will take the season. But it is a Marvel show, so a story about him trying to connect with his son is gonna take him to a giant war in Asgard.”
As avowed comic book fans their whole lives, Oswalt and Blum had a mutual friend who worked at Marvel TV, and took the opportunity to pitch some ideas for a new comedy series in the Marvel Universe. One of those ideas was this contemporary take on M.O.D.O.K.
“The fun of pitching to Marvel is they know their catalogue, and they got it right away,” Blum says of the reaction to their premise.
“They saw the humour in it. And they really responded to what we wanted to do with the character, that stayed true to the original Stan Lee/jack Kirby version, but also found this comedic angle that humanised him. We were able to build out his world and make him maybe a lot more relatable than most people would think a giant floating head is.”
Perhaps surprisingly, that generosity also extended to the array of high-profile Marvel superheroes that Blum and Oswalt pitched as guest characters in the show. “There’s certain characters that were worked into the initial pitch, like Iron Man or Wonder Man. They were characters we always knew would be a bigger part of the story,” Blum says. “Then there were other characters who would be funny. We got no pushback on the A-listers, but we would ask for, like, Stilt-man or Paste-pot Pete and be told, ‘Oh no, they aren’t available’.
“But we could use Iron Man!” he laughs. “It was really funny. Other than that, Marvel was so great about opening the doors. They knew we were going to be respectful of the characters, and we had no interest in breaking the toys. Even though we were treating them in a more comedic light, they were usually like, ‘Go for it. That sounds great. That’s hilarious’.”
Even their unconventional pitch for the season’s main adversary got the okay. “Every Marvel show has a ‘big bad’ for the season,” Blum explains. “And if you’re telling a story about a midlife crisis, what’s a better villain than your younger self time-travelling to the present to tell you how disappointed he is about what you’ve become?” Which is how M.O.D.O.K. came to be M.O.D.O.K.’S ultimate pain-in-the-ass antagonist for the season.
The overall aesthetic of the show is in keeping with the show’s alternative take, too. After reviewing test looks with several animation houses, including a 2D and stop-motion pitch by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (known for long-running stop-motion series Robot Chicken), the best choice became clear.
“We were just so blown away by the stop-motion,” Blum enthuses. “It looked so different than anything else out there. It just seemed so much more glossy and cinematic and unique.” Considering the busy landscape for animation series, with competition for eyes
We were able to make him maybe a lot more relatable than most people would think a giant floating head is
on many different streamers and cable channels, Blum and Oswalt saw stopmotion as a way to stand out from the crowd of 3D CGI and 2D offerings.
“And I think it lends itself to M.O.D.O.K. in particular, where you get that Jack Kirby design, fully rendered and alive,” Blum continues. “Plus, [Stoopid Buddy Stoodios] developed this handheld vérité that’s in-camera, where the camera is motioncontrolled and moves to get that handheld feel. That really spoke to what we were trying to do with the story, which is giving you this behind-the-scenes glimpse at M.O.D.O.K.’S life at work and life at home. Shooting it that way makes it seem so personal, like you’re there in the room with him. All these elements added up to us being like, ‘This is perfect. This is unique and different, and a really a cool way to look at the Marvel Universe’.”
With these choices came some alternative ways of having to write and plan the series, to give them a longer runway to make and deliver the finished episodes. “We wrote all the scripts in 20 weeks, then we had table reads, and then we had animatics made,” Blum says. “It was very segmented in that way, which is great, because it means you’re not committing to something that you want to change later. We knew the scripts were locked before even a single frame was drawn, and the animatics are then heading into stop-motion [production].” Each of the sets was then built by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, and all of the episodes were hand-animated to achieve the unique look that helps define the show.
Blum says that something that’s equally important in what makes Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. special are the vocal performances of the actors who make up the Tarleton family, as well as the extended ensemble of George’s co-workers and superhero adversaries.
“A lot of the guest stars were down to the luck of Patton having really cool friends,” Blum laughs. “They all said yes. There were no second choices on the show, which I have never experienced.” Getting actors of the calibre of Jon Hamm to voice Iron Man, or Bill Hader to voice the Leader, was literally just
a matter of Oswalt asking them.
“Then there were other people we didn’t expect to say yes, like Whoopi Goldberg [as Poundcakes], who had such a good time doing the show,” Blum adds. Nathan Fillion also came aboard as Wonder Man, making right a prior cinematic erasure. “The interesting story behind his casting is that he was cast in that role for background gags that they shot for Guardians Of The Galaxy. That was James Gunn’s idea, that I happily stole,” he laughs. “And he’s brilliant. You can’t do better than him for Wonder Man.”
As with all superhero stories, looking towards the horizon is part and parcel of planning any stories, and Blum reveals that the finale of M.O.D.O.K. leaves the door wide open for a second season. “We do have a plan for it. It was one of those things where I think I had an easier wrap-up in mind for the finale, but the writers’ room and I stumbled upon this idea that immediately terrified me.
“But the more I thought about it, it actually ended up being the most interesting way to go. I’m hopeful that people like it. I won’t say we wrote ourselves into a corner, but we definitely have a place to start in season two.”
All 10 episodes of Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. are on Disney+ (UK) and Hulu (US) from 21 May.