Big Heads

At the height of the Cold War, there was a strange arms race going on: the creation bio-computers via massive craniocererbal enlargement. The best evidence suggests that this unusual research began in China. Its first publicly known product was the Chinese agent and scientist codenamed in the West “Egg Fu” but in China (perhaps) known as Chang Tzu. Chang Tzu came to the attention of the U.S. government in the mid-60s when he was the leader of a military research installation on Oolong Island. The xenophobia of American comics in that era led to him being depicted as a ridiculous Yellow Peril caricature with a Charlie Chan speech pattern. The truth is that only the intervention of Wonder Woman stopped him from launching a deadly attack against the United States.

Wonder Woman later encountered a similar being who the comics called “Egg Fu V.” Another called “Dr. Yes” (Egg Fu’s twin brother, reportedly) tried to kidnap Dr. Magnus and his Metal Man. It seems likely these individuals represent a refinement of their process, but may have also been a further evolution of Chang Tzu.

Sometime during Chang Tzu’s tenure on Oolong Island, information about the process that created him appears to have gotten into the hands of the subversive group known as Advanced Idea Mechanics. It is possible that U.S. intelligence agencies provided this information to AIM either with or without their superiors’ knowledge, as AIM was at that point a branch or splinter group of HYDRA, who had heavily infiltrated the U.S. government. In the project dubbed “MODOC” (acronym for Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing), AIM experimented with the Chinese procedure and ultimately subjected a technician named George Tarleton to process.

Their hope was to create a computer capable of comprehending the Cosmic Cube, which they had recently created with recovered alien technology. Soon after the Tarleton-MODOC came online, he killed his creators and took control of the organization. He renamed himself MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing). MODOK controlled AIM for years, but was ultimately ousted due to the organization’s dissatisfaction with its lack scientific progress as he pursued increasingly personal vendettas against various members of the superhero community.

Perhaps as a contingency against MODOK, AIM agents within the Soviet military worked to give the Soviet’s their own bio-computer. SODAM (Specialized Organism Designed for Aggressive Maneuvers) later MODAM (Mental Organism Designed for Aggressive Maneuvers) was the result. The female agent originally claimed to be Maria Trovaya, Henry Pym’s supposedly deceased first wife, but this may have been psychological warfare. Later, she was identified as Olinka Barankova. Her allegiances were always murky, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, MODAM dropped any pretense of working for anyone other than AIM.