Fans of the MCU have had their radars tuned into details of the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the film that will finally reveal Kang the Conqueror outside of the Loki TV series on Disney Plus and properly set him up as this phase’s new Thanos-level big bad of the franchise. But Ant-Man 3 will also feature MODOK, and now fans have their first glimpse at the nefarious character.
MODOK was announced as a villain in Ant-Man 3, a film that’s getting bigger and bigger with each announcement. Now, Twitter user Chuck the Conqueror (@conquerorchuck) found a leaked picture of some upcoming merch that offers as clear a picture of the live-action M.O.D.O.K. as any so far.
While the film is going to mark the full debut of Kang the Conqueror on the big screen, it’s got other villains in tow. M.O.D.O.K. (the Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) is a man named George Tarleton, a mechanic for A.I.M., a series of techno-terrorists that plague the Marvel universe (they were the villains of the recent Marvel's Avengers game) and was started by Tarleton’s own father. A series of scientific mishaps ensued and A.I.M. Frankensteined the guy into the giant-headed, baby-bodied psychopath who floats around in a superpowered gold and purple suit. Keeping with the idea of the multiverse, Marvel has seen a recent M.O.D.O.K. in Patton Oswalt's animated series, but the version seen on the Ant-Man 3 merchandise above, looks, well, different.
The new M.O.D.O.K. has a face mask—or is completely mechanical—in a version that reads partly like the character, but lacks the pizazz of comic book artist superstar Jack Kirby's efforts that created the man with the gigantic scrunched-up face with the weird bowl haircut first made. This is more mechanical, but like Kang, MODOK could be appearing in a mask that alters his appearance. The thing now will be to see if the movie makes M.O.D.O.K. a threat or a joke (in the MCU's case it will probably be a threat with lots of quips).
Like the sequel to Doctor Strange, the third Ant-Man sounds increasingly like a multi-versal crossing movie. A massive rock ‘em sock ‘em, smash ‘em crash ‘em, action adventure that doesn’t allow a second of breathing time but provides a surefire whiz-bang adventure while it’s unspooling on the screen before the audience’s eager eyes. There’s chatter that Ant-Man 3 could be one of the darker entries into the franchise, but whatever the case, it’s sure to be one of the fuller ones, a buffet stuffed end-to-end with a bit of everything.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is scheduled to be released in theaters on February 17th, 2023.
Source: Chuck the Conqueror/Twitter