Wednesday, 26 May 2021

More on 'M.O.D.O.C.' - May 26

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us get back talking about M.O.D.O.C. No, not the titular character, but rather the actual show, (though about the titular character too – sort of). As I was going over the characters’ trivia, I realized that yes, the character of ‘Angar’ appeared in one episode of AoS, and that the character of ‘Tenpins’ appeared – sort of – in one episode of Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’, but more importantly was that Patton Oswald, the man behind the M.O.D.O.C., (sorry), was also the man behind the various Koenigs that’d appeared in AoS over the years. Pause.

This got me thinking; I looked over the entire Marvel ‘Robot Chicken’ take, and realized that M.O.D.O.C. really was more than just Marvel’s take on ‘Robot Chicken’.

First, it is Disney/MCU’s challenge to Sony, whose ‘Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse’ introduced the concept of the multiverse in the Marvel-based movies and co. Yes, the upcoming ‘No Way Home’ and ‘Multiverse of Madness’ films, starring MCU’s Spiderman and Dr. Strange are also intent on dealing with the multiverse theory, (and then there’s mini-series of Loki’s adventures, aye?), but the ‘Robot Chicken’… I mean M.O.D.O.C., came first, testing the waters to see as to how Marvel’s fans will respond to the multiverse/alternate timelines theory. Given that M.OD.O.C.’s reviews are mainly positive, this looks like a win for Disney & Marvel. Good for them!

Secondly, it is Disney/MCU’s way of testing the waters regarding mutants and co.; Mr. Sinister of the X-Men franchise briefly appeared in one of M.O.D.O.C.’s episodes, and there were other X-Men references in the series’ episodes too. Basically, Disney & Marvel are not putting the X-Men and the other mutants away now that they bought FOX out in real life, but they are doing it slowly; Ralph from ‘WandaVision’ was especially a disappointment given that he had turned out to be literal dick joke instead.

Finally, M.O.D.O.C. tried to address some of the themes that were supposed to be discussed in AoS, (yes, we are going there again) – in particular the matter of family. In AoS, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were supposed to be more than just coworkers – they were supposed to be a family, as opposed to Hydra and its’ agents, that were anything but. Sadly, because AoS just couldn’t handle real life issues period, this approach went nowhere, or at least it was notably diminished; and as for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s victory over Hydra? It did happen, sort of, but in a very messy way, so by now MCU isn’t talking about either Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D.; instead, we got S.W.O.R.D., (in ‘WandaVision’), and this is it. Huzzah!

Back to M.O.D.O.C.? This show’s titular character also had issues with family – as he had figured out, they were slowing him down from achieving his dream of a global utopia, (or something along those lines), because they were bringing out the best in him, and since we’re talking supervillain material here…yeah, that’s bad news. Therefore, by the S1 end, M.O.D.O.C. seems to have gotten rid of his wife and children and achieved his dream instead. Since this is only the first season of the show out of several, (one hopes), odds of him regretting his choice and turning it all around, (this show featured plenty of time travel already, you know), and even finding some sort of redemption in the future, are still fairly good. Where does it leave us?

…At M.O.D.O.C. son’s, (aka Lou) bar mitzvah, maybe? Now there was a piece of tone deafness. First, the mother of the family – Jodi – does not really look Jewish, and that is important, because in Jewish religion, if the mother is not Jewish, then neither is the child, not for all of the official priests and rabbis. This attitude has caused the Jews plenty of trouble, which brings us to the other point - HAMAS. Them fighting the Israelis again, for the first time in a while, marked the May of 2021 and while the Israelis claim that they won, officially it is more of a tie instead. So what?

You mean aside from the fact that M.O.D.O.C. has apparently given the global community the first Jewish super-villain? The latest Israeli-HAMAS fighting only given more kindling to the fire, but fortunately for the Israelis, in the current world order, their fighting with the HAMAS just isn’t that important: the U.S. is busy dealing with both RF and China while trying to win the EU back regardless of the damage that the Donald’s reign wrought over the U.S.-EU relations, and everyone else just doesn’t care. The U.S.S.R. was notably anti-Israel, but the RF doesn’t even pretend to be the U.S.S.R. anymore, so here M.O.D.O.C. got a lucky break, but do we have to associate Judaism with a comic-book super-villain, eh? …Anything else?

Well, there is the new ‘Eternals’ trailer that dropped down on May 25, 2021, but that is another story, so for now, this is it. See you all soon!

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