Okay, that title is a mouthful but then again MODOK’s mouth is pretty f-in big. And I mean that both figuratively and literally.
I’m not sure what was in the water at Marvel’s offices in 2007 and 2008, but whatever it was, they should drink more. So many great series came out at this time. Even the glut of events was higher quality than what would follow in later years.
The story here is pretty simple: M.O.D.O.K hires a gang of super-villains to steal a super-powerful energy source that he believes can be used to create a new Cosmic Cube. In fact, it’s summed up on the title page for issue #5…
The initial issues have him assembling the team.
There’s only eight of them, though, and they’re all pretty low-level villains–but MODOK picked them out because their abilities linked to the needs for the heist. This is referred to as the “Prevenge” chapter. I love that.
Along the way there are double crosses. Mentallo figures out they’ve been infiltrated and Chameleon is really Super Adaptoid, and the robot burns him alive.
Spot is really working for Mandarin, who decides he doesn’t like Spot and traps him between spots in the dimension Spot uses for teleportation. Rocket Racer is really working for SHIELD. MODOK’s own girlfriend betrays him, which leads to this magnificent final panel…
This is a super-fun book. It’s also an obvious lead in for several great villain-focused heist books coming in the next decade.