How does M.O.D.O.K. differ from his comic counterpart in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?’

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania sees Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne fight new foes, but now with the added twist that their whole family is finally together. Naturally, the new foes are villains from the comics making their way to the MCU. Alongside the return of Kang the Conqueror, a second villain has entered the scene in the latest MCU instalment.

After countless rumors and endless speculation, the trailers revealed that M.O.D.O.K. is going to play a role in the third Ant-Man film. This film will be the villain’s MCU debut and it will be interesting to see how he fares in the Quantum Realm. However, it seems like this version of M.O.D.O.K. will be taking a different approach compared to the comics.

MCU M.O.D.O.K. vs. comic M.O.D.O.K.

It’s no secret that Marvel Studios tends to change the origin stories of their characters, and this seems to be the case for this MCU villain. In the comics, George Tarleton is M.O.D.O.K.’s real name, and he was a skilled technician before joining a radical scientific group named A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics). Tarleton was mutated to the point where he became a superintelligent being but his cranium had become too heavy for his body. The reason why he became a villain was because A.I.M. wanted him to be a weapon, but the tables turned and he ended up taking them over.

This villain origin story was somewhat altered in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with some similarities to be found here and there. M.O.D.O.K’s origins in the film stem back to the first Ant-Man film. Before M.O.D.O.K. became the villain that we see in the film, he was Darren Cross, Hank Pym’s protégé and Yellowjacket. After Ant-Man destroyed the Yellowjacket suit and shrunk Cross to a subatomic size, he ended up in the quantum realm where his head was enlarged but his body was shrunk. Kang found Cross and turned him into a living weapon.

Throughout his time in the Quantum Realm, he did Kang’s bidding, killing oppressors while also trying to find a way to suck both the Lang and Van Dyne family back into the sub-universe in order to get Kang out. Fortunately, M.O.D.O.K. sacrificed his life after he was convinced by Cassie to “not be a dick,” believing that he “died as an Avenger.”

Both versions of M.O.D.O.K. have somewhat similar origins. They were both geniuses that had their bodies mutated to the point that their heads were comically large and were transformed into killing machines. While there have been different versions of this villain seen throughout the media, like the Hulu show, the comics, or the film, this one at least tried to do the right thing during his final moments.