MODOK's Patton Oswalt Chats Upcoming Hulu Series, Comics Future, and More

In a matter of days, Marvel's MODOK races to Hulu and launches a new initiative for the House of [...]

By Adam Barnhardt

In a matter of days, Marvel's MODOK races to Hulu and launches a new initiative for the House of Ideas. As evidenced by the various teasers and clips released by the streamer, MODOK is an animated show geared towards adults, in the same vein as Robot Chicken or Rick & Morty. The titular villain is voiced by Patton Oswalt, and we recently caught up with the Agents of SHIELD alum to chat about the show, its future, and the world of comics.

"I love that Marvel has this C and D-level of their heroes and villains, and they very much keep it as consistent as the A-level stuff because that's just as much part of the universe, you know?" the actor tells us. "And I love that they have that going on and so the fact that the idea of getting to play on that level was immediately appealing to me."

Hulu's synopsis for the series can be found below.

In "Marvel's M.O.D.O.K.", the megalomaniacal supervillain M.O.D.O.K. (Patton Oswalt) has long pursued his dream of one day conquering the world. But after years of setbacks and failures fighting the Earth's mightiest heroes, M.O.D.O.K. has run his evil organization A.I.M. into the ground. Ousted as A.I.M.'s leader, while also dealing with his crumbling marriage and family life, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is set to confront his greatest challenge yet! The series stars Patton Oswalt (M.O.D.O.K.), Melissa Fumero (Melissa), Aimee Garcia (Jodie), Ben Schwartz (Lou), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Monica), Beck Bennett (Austin Van Der Sleet), Jon Daly (Super-Adaptoid) and Sam Richardson (Gary).

Keep scrolling to see our full chat with Oswalt.

Pitch

ComicBook.com: Let's start at the earliest days or development. How quickly did you become involved with the MODOK show? Is this something Jordan [Blum, showrunner] pitched and then they brought you on or where were you part of the pitching process?

Patton Oswalt: We'd known each other for a while and we both kind of worked on the pitch together. We took it into Marvel and Disney, and they loved it. Like I was there from the get-go, like the idea of doing a show about MODOK was immediately appealing to me. I love that Marvel has this C and D-level of their heroes and villains, and they very much keep it as consistent as the A-level stuff because that's just as much part of the universe, you know? And I love that they have that going on and so the fact that the idea of getting to play on that level was immediately appealing to me.

Were you attached to voice the character from the very beginning? Were you ever going to be involved in the show without doing that?

It was going to be me voicing it from the very beginning. You know, it was me in the pitch and then when we started doing like, you know little sizzle things with animation, it was me very early recording stuff.

Content

Talk about the perfect casting, so bravo. Here, MODOK's still the evil scientist, but you give him a family and his life's just complete crap at the moment. Tell me a little bit about that decision to take him in that direction.

I think that the family and the house in the suburbs is all part of his hubris and ego, which is "I unlike these other world conquers who have to focus all their energy on conquering the world. I MODOK, superior intelligence can have both. I can rule the world as emperor MODOK. I can have a loving family that worships me. I shall have both."

Live-Action

This is animation, of course. Do you think MODOK is something that could eventually translate to live-action?

Oh yeah. Especially with the stuff that they're doing now with, with animation and combining animation and live-action it just gets better and better every movie. And so the idea of creating this thing doing it live-action with, you know, either taking someone's face and changing it or just, absolutely. And it would even be more amazing if you do a combination of animation and practical, like build the suit build the chair and have that be part of it so that there's that feeling of solidity there I think would be amazing.

Are you hoping that the face you describe is yours?

Yeah. Are you kidding? That'd be freaking awesome if we played MODOK live action. Oh my God. I would love it. Plus it's an acting job where I get to sit down the whole time. Are you kidding? I'd love that.

Cast

We can't talk about the characters too much because of spoilers, but Hulu previously revealed Angar the Screamer, they revealed Poundcakes, and Wonder Man's in it. We're not even talking D-list characters, man. We're talking the bottom of the barrel.

I love Angar the Screamer is one of my favorite Marvel characters because that was during that, you know a lot of combo companies, you can feel like whenever they're trying to grab the zeitgeists they'll kind of grab it clumsily in a gorgeous way and that's like, "Hey kids love this heavy metal rock. Let's try to get a key, you know, so Angar the Screamer, you know these kids with they're loud rock and roll." So, you know, I've always loved that guy.

Marvel & Future of Comics

Obviously, the show pushes boundaries. You know, what's an example where they said no?

They didn't refuse us anything, which created its own problems because then we were like a dog chasing a car like, "Oh, now we have this thing. We can't screw it up." So they gave us characters to work with it but like we had better hit the side of the park because they just, they gave us the rope. I don't want to hang ourselves here.

One last question for you then I'll let you get going. You're doing MODOK now, and you wrote MODOK: Head Games with Jordan. I'm not sure if he could see, but back there I have a little Black Hammer, a little shrine building and you just wrote a one-shot in the series. When it comes to comics, what's next for you? Are you trying to convince [Black Hammer creator] Jeff Lemire to give you your own spinoff? What's the future of comics look for Patton Oswalt?

I don't want to say right now, but there is...I will say there's stuff cooking, but I don't like talking about things that are embryonic form because I'm still forming it in my head and sometimes I feel like if I say it out loud that it locks it in whatever form it is then, but there is definitely other comics I will be writing.

Comics have not seen the last of you. That's it.

No no, they have not.

*****

All 10 episodes of MODOK hit Hulu on May 21st. if you haven't signed up for Hulu yet you can try it out here.

What other characters do you hope to see pop up in the animated series? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

Cover photo by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

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