Today's Fact
Verified against four independent sources. Issue cited below.
M.O.D.O.K. did an Ocean's Eleven. In Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 #1–5 (2007), by Fred Van Lente & Francis Portela, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing puts his giant brain to a new trade: the heist. His motive is not even world domination — it is revenge on Monica Rappaccini, the A.I.M. leader (and his one-time love) who took his organisation from him. For millions of dollars each, he recruits a crew of specialists the way Danny Ocean would — if Danny Ocean's Rolodex were entirely supervillains.
The crew, hired for one skill apiece: Nightshade, genetics expert; the Living Laser, master of photons; Puma, acrobat; Mentallo, telepath; Armadillo, tunneller; the Spot, teleporting bagman; Rocket Racer, getaway expert; and the Chameleon, master of disguise. Their target is the hardest mark imaginable: the Infinicide, infinitely powerful temporal cartographers from the end of time, whose fortress — the Beacon — has phased just out of the timestream into our era to map the Civil War and World War Hulk. Inside it sits the prize: the Hypernova, a huge star exploding over and over in a perpetual temporal loop — a limitless power source, or an unstoppable weapon, depending on who holds it.
It goes the way every M.O.D.O.K. plan staffed by villains must. Almost everyone is betraying someone. The "Chameleon" is really A.I.M.'s Ultra-Adaptoid, spying for Monica — it murders Mentallo when he sniffs it out. The Spot steals the Hypernova to sell to the Mandarin, who is so disgusted by the dishonour that he strands Spot in the Darkforce Dimension instead of paying him. Rocket Racer is a S.H.I.E.L.D. mole. And the Hypernova everyone kills over turns out to be a solid-light hologram — because the biggest brain on the crew had, of course, planned for the crew. The greatest heist in the history of the Multiverse, run by a living computer, robbed from gods — and the crew never stood a chance against its own organiser.
Why It's Obscure
Everyone knows M.O.D.O.K. the world-conqueror. Almost nobody knows M.O.D.O.K. the heist mastermind — who once cast eight D-list villains like a casino crew, aimed them at a fortress outside time, and double-crossed all of them in advance.
Gallery
Comic art from Marvel sources — no AI imagery, nothing mislabeled.
Sources
Every claim above is verified against at least two of these independent sources.
Bullpen Bulletins
- M.O.D.O.K.'s 11 (Earth-616) — Marvel DatabaseEight villains hired to steal the Hypernova from the Infinicide; the full roster and roles (Nightshade, Living Laser, Puma, Mentallo, Armadillo, Spot, Rocket Racer), the Ultra-Adaptoid disguised as Chameleon for Monica Rappaccini, Spot's sale to the Mandarin, and Rocket Racer's S.H.I.E.L.D. allegiance.
- Van Lente Talks "Super-Villain Team-Up / M.O.D.O.K.'s 11" — CBRWriter Fred Van Lente in his own words: the Infinicide phased their fortress out of the timestream to map Civil War and World War Hulk, and M.O.D.O.K. wants to rob them of the Beacon's power source — the Hypernova, a star exploding in a perpetual temporal loop.
- Super-Villain Team-Up — WikipediaCorroborates the series: in 2007 Marvel published Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11, a five-issue miniseries featuring 11 supervillains in the manner of the movie Ocean's Eleven; collected edition February 2008.
