M.O.D.O.K. comic art

M.O.D.O.K.

M.O.D.O.K. comic art
Tuesday, October 20, 2026Earth-616 canonCaptain America #313 (1986)

Today's Fact

Verified against four independent sources. Issue cited below.

A.I.M. put out a hit on its own creation — and M.O.D.O.K. died in a New Jersey mall!
The Featured Fact

Captain America #313 (1986), "Mission: Murder Modok!" by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary & Al Williamson — A.I.M., the organization that mutated technician George Tarleton into M.O.D.O.K., had finally had enough of him. They took out a contract on their own boss (the deal struck in Captain America #311), and the Serpent Society accepted the job.

The manhunt is gloriously undignified for a would-be world conqueror. M.O.D.O.K. escapes an A.I.M. submarine, stows away in the back of a semi truck, and ends up hiding out at the Newbury Mall in New Jersey — where he murders two freight workers and tries to lie low. Sidewinder dispatches the entire Society after him: Cobra, Anaconda, Asp, Cottonmouth, Black Mamba, Rattler, Bushmaster, Diamondback, Princess Python, and Death Adder.

Captain America races to the scene, evacuates the shoppers, and battles the Society — but he arrives too late. Cottonmouth and Death Adder maul and poison M.O.D.O.K., and he dies on the mall floor with Cap cradling his giant head, as one reviewer put it: "Only Captain America could gently cradle his giant head while he was dying." M.O.D.O.K. did not forget: decades later, in M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games #2 (2021), he took his revenge on the Society almost by accident.

Why It's Obscure

Everyone remembers M.O.D.O.K.'s giant head, the Doomsday Chair, and George Tarleton's origin. Almost nobody remembers that one of Marvel's most famous villains was straight-up murdered by a snake-themed hit squad in a shopping mall — a storyline that stayed dead for decades and is barely ever referenced. This was his first real comic-book death, and it happened in a parking-lot-adjacent melee in Paramus-adjacent New Jersey.

1967
Tales of Suspense #94 — M.O.D.O.K.'s full reveal, by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. In his own words: "Once, I was a mere human guinea pig for the scientists of AIM!... I AM THEIR MASTER!!" The man who took over A.I.M. by force — nineteen years before A.I.M. decided to take him out.
1986
Captain America #311 — the contract. A.I.M. hires the Serpent Society to kill M.O.D.O.K. The snake-themed mercenary union's most infamous job was a straight-up corporate assassination. The hit is ordered two issues before it goes down.
1986
Captain America #313 — "Mission: Murder Modok!" A full Society roll call — Sidewinder, Diamondback, Cobra, Anaconda, Asp, Cottonmouth, Black Mamba, Rattler, Bushmaster, Princess Python, Death Adder — deployed against one giant head in a New Jersey shopping mall. The issue's Marvel Database entry lists the event plainly: M.O.D.O.K. (Death).
2021
M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games #2 — the payback. Thirty-five years later, a distracted M.O.D.O.K. killed almost the entire Serpent Society without even realizing he was doing it — drifting thoughts of old grudges made manifest by his psychic powers, mid-mission, in a men's room.
Trivia
Princess Python chickened out. Mid-hunt in Captain America #313, she tries to defect to Captain America — telling him the Society was hired to kill M.O.D.O.K. — because she is afraid to fight him without powers. Even the assassins had cold feet.

Sources

Every claim above is verified against at least two of these independent sources.

Bullpen Bulletins

  1. Captain America Vol 1 #313 — Marvel DatabaseFull synopsis: A.I.M. hired the Society in #311; Cottonmouth and Death Adder "maul and poison" M.O.D.O.K.; character list marks "M.O.D.O.K. (Death)". Earth-616.
  2. Captain America #313 — SuperMegaMonkey ChronoComicReview of "Mission: Murder Modok!": Cap arrives while the Serpents assassinate M.O.D.O.K.; "only Captain America could gently cradle his giant head while he was dying."
  3. Captain America #313 — MyComicShop issue listingStory by Mark Gruenwald, art by Paul Neary and Al Williamson, cover by John Byrne and Al Williamson, Jan 1986: the entire Society hunts M.O.D.O.K. through a New Jersey shopping mall.
  4. M.O.D.O.K.'s Revenge — CBRM.O.D.O.K.: Head Games #2: M.O.D.O.K. "just killed almost the entire serpent society without even realizing it" — the 2021 payback for 1986.