6th Oct 2022, 10:26 AM
This is probably one of my clearest homages to the work of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. My absolute favorite Marvel comics villain is M.O.D.O.K. - I’ve always loved everything about him, from his grotesque appearance (you may have noticed I have an affinity for characters with oversized heads), to his arch dialogue (usually screamed at full volume to his opponents), to his goofy name being an acronym - I LOVE punny acronyms!! The letters in his name have varied slightly over the years, but they originally stood for the “Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing”.
Originally, I was going to have Night Knight trying to figure a way out of the trap-door shaft, and Steamroller Man would keep trying to get his attention - “hey, what if we --” “I’m THINKING, please don’t interrupt” - then Steamroller Man would find a button that said “FREIGHT ELEVATOR”, and push it and the floor they were standing on would start rising up. That never felt quite right, firstly because it was not that much fun, but secondly I kept wondering why Sugar Daddy would have dropped them down there in the first place, if they could easily return by just pushing a button. There would have to be something at the bottom of that shaft that Sugar Daddy would use to finish them off… perhaps a failed experiment from the past…
At first his name was going to be M.A.L.O. - a pun on his marshmallow head and the Spanish word for “bad”, which I quite liked. It would have stood for “Modified Artificial Life Organism”. I thought the malo/mallow pun may not have landed with everyone as clearly as I wanted, and it didn’t seem quite a clear enough homage to M.O.D.O.K. It needed something to reference the “Only for Killing” part (surely the goofiest part of his name). So then it became M.A.L.L.O.W. - “Modified Artificial Lifeform Living Only for”... what? Warfare? Wickedness? I initially considered those but ultimately tossed them. They were a little too serious. I needed something a little more goofy and silly; he was a creature with a giant marshmallow for a head, after all. I was running the possibilities past my family, and my wife really laughed hard at “Walloping”, so I knew that had to be the one.
So he was going to be M.A.L.L.O.W. As I was drawing the image, though, doubts started to creep into my brain. Does this drawing even look like a marshmallow? Is everyone going to get this joke? Will people know what “mallow” is if it doesn’t have the “marsh” in front? But what could “M.A.R.S.H.” stand for?? I also started to question my design for the character. Another muscle bound male with a big head - it seemed too similar to Steamroller Man. It occurred to me that an extra set of arms would fit with his penchant for walloping his foes, while also giving him a distinctive silhouette.
Finally, I had one of those moments of creative inspiration that usually happen while falling asleep, washing dishes or taking a shower - “M… A… Multi-Armed!” I’d cracked it!
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