The Winter Soldier has one of the MCU’s most tragic backstories, but in the comics, another major villain shares Bucky’s pain. In fact, the previews for MODOK: Head Games #4 show that MODOK and the Winter Soldier have a lot more in common than fans might think.
After being captured by Hydra in Captain America’s first MCU movie, Bucky Barnes was turned into the Winter Soldier, an unstoppable super-assassin. After every mission, Bucky’s body was frozen to keep him preserved, and whenever Hydra needed someone killed, they would wake him up and wipe his mind using a torturous process involving electrocution and reciting certain keywords. Once his mind was cleared, the Winter Soldier would be “ready to comply” with whatever orders he was given by the person who recited the keywords. Although The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series has shown the words no longer affect Bucky, the trauma will always be a part of him, and Marvel just gave MODOK the same treatment.
MODOK: Head Games is an ongoing series by Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt – the same creative team behind the upcoming MODOK show on Hulu. The plot centers around MODOK seeing visions of a life he never had, but readers know that MODOK’s brain is being hijacked by his own TV show, as these visions are actually glimpses into the world of the Hulu series. Regardless, MODOK’s memories have played a big part in the story so far; the deeper he digs into these mysterious visions, the more questions he unearths about his own past. In issue #4, MODOK’s investigation leads him to a man who claims to be his father, but their family reunion isn’t exactly loving.
When MODOK arrives at his father’s house, he has trouble comprehending the situation, and his momentary confusion allows his father to recite a string of keywords – not unlike the Winter Soldier activation words – which reboot MODOK’s system. MODOK’s father then asks him if he is “ready to listen,” also eerily similar to the Winter Soldier’s “ready to comply.” Even beyond these structural similarities, MODOK and Bucky have a lot in common character-wise. Both were experimented on by mad scientists and turned into killing machines, and although MODOK believed for a long time that he volunteered for the procedure, Head Games has called that into question by implying that MODOK’s memories were tampered with. All this to say, both MODOK and the Winter Soldier were unwillingly turned into monsters designed to be easily controlled, and neither is happy about it.
It seems likely that Head Games #4 will finally shed more light on MODOK’s mysterious past. Fans will just have to wait and see whether the truth motivates MODOK to follow in Bucky’s footsteps towards rehabilitation or if it simply propels him deeper into villainy.
