Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett reflects on his first thoughts regarding the M.O.D.O.K. series and expresses his concern over It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown not airing on broadcast television.

Back in 2019 (see "Confessions Of A Comic Book Guy - Make Mine M.O.D.O.K."), Hulu announced they would be doing four adult-skewing animated series featuring such lesser Marvel luminaries as M.O.D.O.K., Hit-Monkey, Tigra & Dazzler, and Howard the Duck.

Then, for various reasons, three of those shows were canceled prior to production, leaving only the fourth, the one I was actively looking forward to, M.O.D.O.K., and, much to my surprise, it seems like this one is actually going to happen.

As previously established, I’ve always been a big fan of Marvel’s Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, and was aware comedian (and co-creator) Patton Oswalt was planning on giving the series a satirical take and the character a standard (ish) TV sitcom home life.  All of which was okay with me.  Frankly, I was pretty much down for anything Patton wanted to do with M.O.D.O.K. I’m really looking forward to MODOK: Head Games, a four-issue comic book mini-series he’s writing that has art by Scott Hepburn.

Then, I got a first look at actual footage from the series, and it became clear that, sadly, this M.O.D.O.K. might not be for me.  From everything I’ve seen so far, it looks like M.O.D.O.K is essentially going to be a Robot Chicken sketch extended into a full-length Fox Animation Domination situation comedy.  I will of course be withholding judgment until I actually see an episode, but I still can’t help but think the contrast between the main character and the comedy would be sharper if the show was done in 2D animation with a Jack Kirby like look.  But then, you know how often I’m wrong.

One thing I have to love about the Hulu M.O.D.O.K. is that at the end of every episode there's going to be an ad for Patton Oswalt's M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games.  It’s such an easy, obvious, bit of corporate synergy, but it’s nothing short of amazing that none of the other superhero/comic book adjacent television shows don’t do the same on a regular basis.

And just when we really don’t need any more changes to any of our holiday traditions, this year It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown won’t be airing on broadcast television.  If that doesn’t seem like that big a deal, this is the first time in more than 50 years that’s happened; it made its debut on CBS back in 1966 and was broadcast every year there until 2001 when it moved to ABC.  It premiered on Apple TV+  on October 19 and will be available for free streaming from October 30 to November 1.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.