Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Juan Santacruz
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99
Marvel Adventures is Marvel’s latest line of all-ages titles, previously known as Marvel Age. Like the regular line (and the Ultimate line) they have titles featuring Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, only they’re actually suitable to give to children.
But you don’t want to know about that.
You’ve seen the cover. If you’re a fan of a certain age, or a certain mindset, you’ll probably be jumping up and down at the prospect of what’s happened – the Avengers have been turned into MODOKs!
On the other hand, if you’re not that kind of fan, or you’re a casual browser who doesn’t know much about these sorts of things, you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on.
Like many of the coolest-looking characters in comics, MODOK was created in the sixties by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. His name is an acronym standing for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, and he is an insane supervillain. Over the years, there have been various bizarre versions of MODOK, including the female version, MODAM, a dream combination of MODOK and the Red Skull called MOSKULL and, most recently, in the pages of Nextwave, Elvis MODOKs. Coming later this year is a MODOK miniseries, MODOK’s 11, and the last wave of Marvel Legends figures from Toy Biz came with the component parts for you to build your own MODOK*. Basically, MODOK looks weird, and so people like him.
Now, back to the comic. The Marvel Adventures version of the Avengers (Captain America, Storm, Hulk, Spider-Man, Giant-Girl, Iron Man and Wolverine) are assaulting the base of the supervillain group AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics – acronyms are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?), when they are assaulted by a brainblast from MODOC. Yes, MODOC. As it’s an all-ages comic, he’s been Designed Only for Conquest. Still, it sounds the same when you say it.
So, MODOC captures our heroes, and manages to make them all just like him. Shortly after, Boston is attacked by an army of Atlanteans. Thankfully, there to defend the city are the MODAVENGERS, a team consisting of CAPDOC, STORMDOC, SPIDOC, HULKDOC, GI-DOC, IRONDOC and WOLDOC. They defeat the Atlantean army and their giant monster, take over Atlantis and then set out to do what they do best – as described by a slightly rubbish AIM agent called Karl, “It looks like they’re still fighting crime… in a more conquery sort of way.”
Frankly, if you’ve made it this far through the review and are still wondering if the issue was any good, you haven’t been paying attention. Take another look at that cover. Think about it. The Avengers get turned into MODOKs (Fine, MODOCs), and fight an army of Atlanteans and a giant monster – and that’s just the halfway point. That’s not enough? OK, how about this - it just gets better from there! Is that good enough for you? This may well be one of the most enjoyable comics ever published. If all the Marvel Adventures titles are this much fun, count me in.
Further MODOK reading.
*If anyone out there got all of the figures from that wave but didn’t want to build their own MODOK, and would like to donate them to me as an incredibly charitable gesture, it would be greatly appreciated.
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Russell Hillman was born in London but now lives in Coventry. His hobbies include precious little. He doesn’t get out much, but thinks reading a lot of comics makes up for it. He’s wrong.