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Mad Mod

Posted by on Jul 1, 2012 in Teen Titans: Characters | Comments Off

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The Teen Titans awoke to find themselves captured — prisoners of Mad Mod, a madcap bad guy in a psychedelic suit. Miffed at the way the Titans “disrespect ed their elders” and “interfered with the toils of hard working criminals”, Mad Mod had decided to teach the teens a lesson. Thus, he created a massive mind-bending school full of optical illusions and brain-washing hypno-screens. Robin eventually saw through the endless illusions and captured the cockney criminal.

Mad Mod later resurfaced and crashed the Titans’ Fourth of July festivities, declaring the American Revolution was a hoax and reclaimed the city for Jolly Old England. If that wasn’t enough, old Mod used his high-tech cane to steal Robin’s youth, making “King Moddie” young again while Robin turned into a withered dried up old man.

Star and the others used teamwork to restore Robin and destroy Mod’s high-tech hypno-world.

  • Mad Mod pre-dated Austin Powers by about 30 years. Mad Mod made the scene in the Teen Titans comic book in 1966. The first Austin Powers movie came out in 1997.
  • Mad Mod hasn’t had too many comic book appearances; He only appeared in the 1960′s comic book twice. He didn’t have another printed appearance until the Teen Titans series in 1996 – 30 years after his first appearance.

Producer David Slack on Mad Mod: “MAD MOD nearly broke all of us though. That was a really, really hard story to crack. Even for a Titans show, it has almost no plot. In the beginning, Mad Mod has got them.. and he’s got them the whole time. And Adam Beechen, Glen and I worked diligently through multiple rounds of that script, to give the story enough of a goal to hold onto – so it didn’t just feel like a bunch of stuff happening. It needed to move forward and appear to have things escalating. So the Titans needed to seem to be ‘getting somewhere’ even though they weren’t, because that was kind of the point.   And then we were lucky enough to get Malcolm McDowell to do the voice. That was like… “Wow.” Not only to get to meet the guy, but to have him do the voice and speak words you had worked on — [pause] it’s a good job [laughs]. “

The Mad Mod was one of the earliest adversaries of the Teen Titans. The Mad Mod was a fashion designer who lived on Carnaby Street in London, where Mod clothes were the rage. Mod used his fashion label as a front to conceal contraband items in the clothes he made. He appeared in Teen Titans #7 and 17 [1967-1968]. He resurfaced year later in Teen Titans [second series] #2 in 1996. By then, he had has reformed, and become a very successful fashion designer (the retro collection of Mad Mod fashions was a huge hit).

Mad Mod
Revolution

Malcolm McDowell (the voice of Mad Mod)
Acting legend Malcolm McDowell lends his vocal talents to the madcap Mad Mod. Malcolm has played numerous roles in movies, television and theater. One of his career highlights was his roles as Alexander de Large in Stanley Kubrick’s violent and provocative “A Clockwork Orange” [1971]. He also played Dr. Tolian Soran in “Star Trek: Generations” [1997]. No stranger to animation, Malcolm has also provided voices for numerous characters – including Metallo for “Superman: The Animated Series.”

Visit the Teen Titans Animated Series Guide for more information. Titans Go!

End of titanstower.com transmission. About this author:  Bill Walko is an author and artist and the man behind titanstower.com. He's been reading and drawing comics since he was 5 years old and hasn't stopped since. Read more from this author