We’re counting down the day to the premiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at GeekMom by looking at all things related to the spy agency. Yesterday, we looked at some cool tech available for S.H.I.E.L.D agents.
Today, we’re going to look at a secret organization responsible for much of the technology used by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s enemies: Advanced Idea Mechanics, aka A.I.M.
It’s safe to say that A.I.M.’s existence has proven essential to the Marvel movie/television universe. That’s because they created the cosmic cube that inspired the Tesseract so coveted by Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger, later used by Loki to cross universes in The Avengers, and might play a part in Thor: The Dark World, where the cube was sent, along with the defeated Loki. Both A.I.M. and the cube were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
However, in the movie universe, the Tesseract isn’t created by A.I.M., but instead the Red Skull attempts to use it. A version of A.I.M. itself doesn’t come into play until this summer’s Iron Man 3, where they’re behind the transformations of humans to superhumans.
The Super-Adaptoid is an android who “has the ability to copy the powers, attributes, physical characteristics, vocal patterns, fingerprints, fighting styles, weapons, mannerisms, bone structure, and other things of those he wishes,” according to the Marvel Universe Wiki. The Adaptoid hasn’t yet appeared in any of the films, but I predict a version of him could well appear in the television series, though I suppose he won’t be green all over.
Hint to Agent Coulson and company: the key to defeating him is to overload his many powers. Lee, Kirby, and comics legend Gene Colon receive creator credit for this super-being.
And then there’s MODOK.
MODOK stand for Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing or, if you’re watching Iron Man: Armored Adventures, he’s the Mental Organism Designed Only For Conquest or MODOC, because “killing” was deemed too much for a children’s show.
MODOK is yet another Lee/Kirby creation, a man who was altered to a Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing by A.I.M. scientists using the cosmic cube. Bad idea, as the altered being decided computing was way less fun than killing. He destroyed the scientists who created him and took over A.I.M. himself. Many versions of MODOK have floated around the comic Marvel universe, including a female one and an Elvis-Presley-based one (Nextwave: Agents of Hate) but he’s yet to appear in the movieverse.
I predict the chances of him showing up to be quite high as he seems just the kind of character that Joss Whedon can’t resist. Though how they’ll manage to create the oversize head for the small screen, I have no idea.
