'Captain America 3' Writer Christopher Markus Wants MODOK In A Marvel Movie
Understandably, Captain America 3 scribe Christopher Markus hasn't been very forthcoming about the overall plot of the new film. But he has been happy to discuss a certain baddie he really wants to introduce to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even if he willingly admits it's not likely to happen.
Asked about Captain America characters he hoped to use, Markus singled out MODOK — as he has been doing for the last three years. Hit the jump to read the quote, and get the details on his long and loving history with the oddball villain.
I don't know if there's anybody that we had in the wings that we couldn't pull off. There are people that I'm always wanting to bring in. I want to put MODOK into something, but you can't just drop a giant floating head in! It's not like "Oh, we have to go talk to this guy – there's something I should tell you about him first..." [laughs]. Suddenly the whole movie needs to take on that structure in order to accommodate him. I never win that fight!
Some fans may be surprised to hear MODOK being name-dropped here, since he's a character who — for the very reasons Markus points out — would be challenging to fit into the MCU as it exists now.
But those fans just haven't been paying attention. Because Markus is a man obsessed when it comes to MODOK. Here he is talking to Comic Book Movie last month about which villains he wanted to introduce in future Cap films.
That's a little tricky because some of them are theoretically very good. Some of them have great concepts but are really tough to pull off visually. Like Flag-Smasher who wants to destroy nations, and that's a terrorist and seems like a guy you could work with, but he literally has a cape and flies on flying skis, and then you're like, 'Ok, do we take away everything?' and then he's just a guy and we're not fully portraying the character. They're tricky to bring across. I always wanted to do MODOK., but it seems like we're leaving our grounded political arena way behind when you've got a giant floating head on a rocket chair.
Moreover, this isn't a new obsession. He was banging the MODOK drum — specifically, the Peter-Dinklage-as-MODOK drum — as early as three years ago, following the release of Captain America: The First Avenger.
I love MODOK and I think you could make a terrifying movie with MODOK but nobody seems to be on my side at the moment. I will win you over to Peter Dinklage as MODOK. If he came around the corner and you saw him floating there you would be terrified. It would be amazing.
MODOK is one of the wackier favorites in the Marvel stable. For starters, he looks like this. He used to be an ordinary technician named George Tarleton, but got all distorted when A.I.M. transformed him into a bio-mechanical "living computer" with superhuman intelligence and psionic powers.
He went nuts, killed his superiors, declared himself the Scientist Supreme, and changed his code name from MODOC (short for "Mobile Organism Designed Only for Computing") to MODOK (the same thing, but "Killing" instead of "Computing.")
Like I said, not the kind of character that would seem to gel with the more grounded Cinematic Universe that Marvel Studios has painstakingly constructed over the years. Then again, that universe now includes this bunch of A-holes, so who knows?
For now, Markus continues to fight for MODOK, at times sounding a bit like a budding supervillain himself. "I'll do it one day, I'm telling you people!" he declared last month. We can't confirm that he shook his fist and swirled his cape while making the statement, but it's way more entertaining if you imagine he did.
So until that day comes, enjoy this bit of MODOK goodness from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"Like a frost giant's head on an infant's body," indeed. Captain America 3 opens May 6, 2016, MODOK or no MODOK.