Last night’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, “The Return,” may have referenced classic Marvel Comics supervillain MODOK, suggesting that one of the show’s current villains is the cinematic version of the strange character.

The Agents of SHIELD villain in question is the Superior, a Russian who was first introduced as the man funding the anti-Inhuman terrorist group called the Watchdogs. He allied himself first with Dr. Holden Radcliffe and then with Radcliffe’s life model decoy, Aida, after Aida killed Radcliffe.

The Superior wanted to kill Phil Coulson, whom he believed was at the center of a conspiracy to bring more and more non-human beings such as Inhumans, aliens, and robots to Earth. The Superior, who prides himself on being the peak of human capability, fought Coulson in hand-to-hand combat and lost. The Superior nearly died, but Aida saved him, in a fashion. She placed the Superior’s head in a jar and hooked him to a device that allows his consciousness to be uploaded into multiple LMD copies of himself, a fate similar to that of Dum Dum Duggan in the Marvel Comics universe.

The more recent comparison to MODOK comes from something the Superior said in “The Return.” The newly human Aida was trying to convince the Superior not to kill the agents that were still captured in his oil deck hideout. Aida first pleaded with the Superior and then, when that didn’t work, she threatened to kill him. The Superior was unimpressed and reminded Aida that his body was simply a robot “designed only for killing.” Those words are important because they are a part of what the acronym “MODOK” stands for. The full name is Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. Was the use of that specific phrase a coincidence, or a deliberate hint that the Superior’s current form is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of MODOK?

Having multiple robot bodies isn’t part of MODOK’s usual gimmick, but it isn’t hard to imagine the Superior’s head in a jar being a nod to MODOK”s strange appearance in the Marvel Comics universe, where he is a massively enlarged head with relatively tiny limbs floating through the air on a hovering chair. We'll see if he progresses further in that direction in next week's Agents of SHIELD finale. In the Marvel's Agents of SHIELD season four finale episode, "World's End," With the surprising emergence of Ghost Rider, Coulson and the team attempt to stop Aida from ending the world. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

