M.O.D.O.K. is a weird fringe villain in the Marvel pantheon who is so silly and so odd looking that he will probably never appear in live action and that’s just the way that this series rolls.
This stop motion series, drawn from the same vein as Robot Chicken, is full of the kind of humor that is paradoxically called “adult” and “immature” at the same time. There’s potty humor, gore, cursing, a little blasphemy here and there. Basically, if you like Robot Chicken, you’re going to like M.O.D.O.K..
But there is more to M.O.D.O.K. than just diarrhea jokes and Marvel references. M.O.D.O.K. is one of the few times that I’ve seen a series or movie make a villain a protagonist while keeping them decidedly villainous. M.O.D.O.K., while a bit of a joke, never loses his edge as a comic book bad guy and I respect that choice.
At the same time, M.O.D.O.K. is injected with just enough humanity that he is still someone you can root for. He’s got inner conflict, he struggles, he learns, he grows, and he regresses. Patton Oswald is truly one of the most underappreciated voice actors working today.
The stories told by this series are both entertaining and relatable, stretched out across multiple episodes in a way that you never quite know when they’re going to pop up again or resolve themselves. Amazingly, not a single one of them grew tiresome as if writers knew just how much was needed.
While I’m sure the style probably won’t win over everyone, I found M.O.D.O.K the most surprisingly enjoyable new debut I’ve seen this year.
Jason Gaston 