We Finally Know Who The Villain Is In Marvel's Avengers
There's a lot of buzz around the upcoming Marvel's Avengers game. Not all of the publicity has been positive, but people seem excited for a AAA title starring the Avengers. After the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the timing for a mainstream superhero game has never been better.
What we already knew about Marvel's Avengers was enough to pique fans' interest. On what should be a day of celebration, the Golden Gate Bridge and a large chunk of San Francisco are destroyed in a sudden attack. Also, Captain America dies — but probably not really, because comics. The Avengers are blamed for the destruction, and in a twist that feels strangely familiar, superheroes are outlawed.
That's how the game starts. Then we get an Endgame-esque five year time skip before Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel, gets the band back together to fight a new threat.
What we didn't know was who that threat would be. Taskmaster leads the attack that kicks off the action, but he's not really the "secret conspiracy to get rid of all superheroes" type. A leak of the game's achievement list spilled the beans a while ago, but thanks to official confirmation from the recent Marvel's Avengers War Table livestream, we now know that the (literal) head of the operation is the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, more commonly known as MODOK. (Sometimes the M stands for Mobile or Mechanized instead.)
The new trailer revealed during the livestream shows MODOK promising to fix the damage that "the Avengers" caused during the attack on the Golden Gate Bridge, and vowing to get rid of all superpowers forever. Exactly how MODOK plans to do that isn't clear, but it apparently involves using robot armies and lots of drones to hunt down superheroes.
Even if you're not into comics you might have heard of MODOK before. He's never been in anything as huge as the upcoming Marvel's Avengers, but he's appeared in a vast assortment of other media. He's been in everything from Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to the unintentionally hilarious version of him that appears in Superhero Squad. But even if you've seen MODOK before, you probably still have some questions. Who is he? What are his powers? Why is he a giant flying head?
How exactly he goes from average guy George Tarleton to MODOK changes depending on which version of him you're talking about, but his abilities stay fairly consistent. As you might expect from a character who's nothing but a big head, MODOK's two main qualities are his intelligence and his ego. He's so smart that he can take in and remember huge amounts of information, solve almost any math problem nearly instantly, and predict outcomes of events so accurately that it seems like precognition. He's also packing a small arsenal of psychic powers, including telepathy and the ability to mentally project force fields to protect himself. His physical abilities, on the other hand, are practically non-existent.
MODOK is also the self-appointed Scientist Supreme of AIM — which, in this case, doesn't stand for AOL Instant Messenger. AIM is Advanced Idea Mechanics, a group of scientists dedicated to conquering the world using technology. While the short trailer didn't show off exactly what powers and abilities this version of MODOK would be packing, AIM was front-and-center in the action.
How did he get this way? Again, there are as many origin stories as there are versions of MODOK. The Marvel's Avengers version of him was exposed to Terrigen, a mutagenic substance that is one of many ways ordinary people have gotten superpowers in the Marvel Multiverse. Terrigenesis, the process of getting powers from terrigen, often has unfortunate side effects. In this case, they seem to include slowly turning him into a gigantic head.
That's what we know about the baddies in Marvel's Avengers: it's going to be MODOK at the head (ha) of AIM's robot army. It seems that other villains will be making appearances, as well. We already know that Taskmaster leads the initial attack, and presumably he'll show up again at some point. The trailer also briefly shows Abomination, whom you might remember as the villain from 2008's The Incredible Hulk. And, of course, there will be countless mechanized enemies that you don't need to feel bad about tearing through with Kamala's super strength and expandable limbs.
It remains to be seen who else might make an appearance. For now, though, don't let MODOK's ridiculous name and appearance fool you: he's a serious threat, and a worthy mastermind for the events of Marvel's Avengers.