Yahoo Movies Ant-Man 3 brings back a former villain
We knew to expect the unexpected in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and it sure delivered with a surprising villain twist.
Eagle-eyed Marvel fans had already spotted this particular reveal, which also resolves a long-running MCU mystery, in the final trailer for Quantumania. However, everybody else will have been taken back by MODOK and his actual identity.
But just who is MODOK and how the hell did it come about? We're about to delve into major Quantumania spoilers, so look away now if you haven't seen the movie yet.
Who is MODOK in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania?
Since Quantumania's first footage aired at San Diego Comic-Con, the internet was abuzz with confirmation the villainous MODOK would have a part to play.
As an acronym for 'Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing', MODOK is about as iconic as they come in terms of Marvel villains and has a complicated history with the MCU.
Originally set to appear in Iron Man, MODOK was then cut from the final draft of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage was supposed to play him.
Finally bringing MODOK to the MCU is a big deal, but in terms of his villain origin story, there's one of those typically MCU-esque revamps.
Rumours were already swirling that Ant-Man's Corey Stoll would be playing MODOK – and that turned out to be exactly the case. Yep, Darren Cross wasn't as dead as we thought he was and he's back for vengeance against Ant-Man.
For those who need a refresher, Stoll originally played Cross in 2015's Ant-Man, taking on the villainous persona of Yellowjacket. Cross didn't die in that movie – technically – because his regulator malfunctioned and he was infinitely shrunk to a subatomic level.
In Quantumania, we see after the events of the first movie that Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) found Cross's crumpled body in the Quantum Realm. He then gave Cross a serious upgrade and turned him into MODOK, who became a "hunter" much feared in the realm.
For the majority of the movie, MODOK retains this villainous edge, but after being schooled by Giant Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) and told to not be a "dick", he sees the error of his ways and fights back against Kang.
It does lead to his death though, but at least he got to die an Avenger – or so he thinks. And who knows, maybe in the same way that Cross surprisingly returned, MODOK could also make a comeback somehow.
In the comics, MODOK was originally known as George Tarleton and was a former employee of Advanced Idea Mechanics. Tarleton underwent mutagenic procedures that massively increased his intelligence but left him with MODOK's signature oversized head.
AIM appeared in Iron Man 3, leading many to think Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian would have become MODOK – although it never happened. More recently, MODOK's place on the team of villains known as the Intelligencia led us to believe he could pop up in She-Hulk.
Again, it was another bust.
We'd already predicted Yellowjacket's return thanks to a giant version of his helmet appearing in the background of the Void in Loki, however, few expected it to be like this. MODOK purists might be annoyed they've fused two characters instead of getting a comics-accurate creation, but at least he looks the part.
It's also great news that MODOK is officially in the MCU, as the Patton Oswald-led MODOK series for Hulu was canned after just one season.
We've seen legacy villains like Red Skull and Loki return, and with us never having seen Cross die, it's a clever twist on the source material to make him MODOK.
MODOK is typically a Captain America villain, but with Captain America: New World Order stacked with the likes of Sharon Carter/Power Broker and the Leader, it makes sense to revamp him for Quantumania.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is out now in cinemas.
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