Back behind the camera, after having directed the two previous opuses, Peyton Reed returns with us to one of the twists of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” – SPOILERS ALERT!!!
WARNING – The article below contains spoilers, insofar as it returns to one of the surprises of the scenario of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”. So please move on if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to know.
Released this Wednesday, February 15 in our theaters, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania marks the start of Phase V of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of which it introduces the new big bad a little more. Namely Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors, who we had already seen in the end of season 1 of Loki.
Called to be the future adversary of the Avengers, the latter is however not the only antagonist of the film. As the trailers had revealed, MODOK is also part of it. Either the acronym for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing (Organisme Mental Solement Destiné à Tuer, if we wanted to translate it into French), and a character with a head as huge as his arms and legs are small.
In the comic books, his real name is George Taleron, a technician in the pay of the criminal organization AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) who volunteered to be transformed into a being powerful enough to analyze the Cosmic Cube, seen in the cinema in the first Captain America. And that’s how he turned into this funny being capable of being gifted with telepathy and able to generate a psychic ray.
marvel comics MODOK in comic books
That’s what the comic books show. Or the stop-motion animated series, available on Disney+ and which unfortunately only had one season (probably so as not to conflict with the plans of the MCU, of which it was independent), while its side artisanal, its black humor, its violence and the bad character of its anti-hero had made it a small nugget.
On the big screen, MODOK changes its identity. As some had guessed in the rare shots of the trailers in which he appeared, we find Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) in the costume. Either the villain of the first Ant-Man, who was thought to have been seen shrinking to death but who, in reality, was propelled into the quantum world where he thinks he can exercise his revenge when Scott arrives there.
Trailer screenshot
MODOK in “Ant-Man 3”
“When we started developing the story, we loved this idea of MODOK lurking in the shadows of the MCU and wondering how it would come out in live action”explains Peyton Reed when we ask him about the reason for this twist. “And it was while discussing Kang and how he might know Scott Lang that it occurred to us that he might need a henchman.”
“And I came up with this idea. At the end of the first film, we saw Darren Cross being undone but mostly shrinking to a trickle as he twisted. We had assumed he was dead…but s landed in the Quantum Realm where he was found by Kang’s forces and transformed into something totally different?”
Corey Stoll liked this idea of being able to return to the Ant-Man saga, but in a different way and in another context.
“I remember the day I called Corey Stoll to pitch the idea to him: he was laughing on the other end of the line. Corey was a fan of comic books when he was younger, so he knew very well who I was talking. And he liked this idea of being able to go back to the Ant-Man saga, but in a different way and in a different context. So we went in that direction.”
If you did not know the character and his presence in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania intrigued you (which can be understood), you can turn to comic books or the animated series dedicated to MODOK to find out more. on him.
Comments by Peyton Reed collected in Paris on February 15, 2023