Characters / MCU: Darren Cross

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Dr. Darren Cross / Yellowjacket / M.O.D.O.K.

"The laws of nature transcend the laws of man. And I've transcended the laws of nature."

^{Click here to see the Yellowjacket suit}
"I'm gonna show you just how insignificant you are."

^{Click here to see him as M.O.D.O.K.}
"You left Darren to die in the Quantum Realm. But the Conqueror found me. Rebuilt me. Made me the ultimate weapon. A Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing.""

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): MIT (formerly), Pym Technologies (formerly), Cross Technologies (formerly), Kang the Conqueror

Portrayed By: Corey Stoll

Voiced By: Juan Frese (Latin-American Spanish dub), Luis Bajo (European Spanish dub), Tōru Ōkawa (Japanese dub), Pierre Tessier (French dub), Adrien Bletton (Canadian French dub), Wellington Lima (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: WHiH Newsfront^note Viral Marketing for Ant-Man | Ant-Man | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

"You insult me, Scott. Your very existence is insulting to me."

The head of Pym Technologies and creator of the Yellowjacket suit. Originally a close protege of Hank Pym, he grew distant due to Hank's unwillingness to share his Pym Particle research with him and has been driven to get the same results as the Pym Particle without Hank. His ultimate plan was to sell the Yellowjacket suit to Hydra.

Cross returned in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with a new identity as M.O.D.O.K.; the change is not for the better.

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#-L

• 24-Hour Armor: After Kang's forces find Darren in what remains of the Yellowjacket suit, they strip him naked and construct a new set of armor that will actually fit his overly deformed body. From that point onward, that's all the newly-christened M.O.D.O.K wears when acting on Kang's orders.
• Abhorrent Admirer: To Hope, who he has feelings for. They may be romantic or platonic, but he does like and respect her.
  Cross: You know, I came to the house the other night to kill him, but you were there.
  Hope: You're sick and I can help you. Just put the gun down.
  Cross: I wasn't ready to kill you then, but I think I am now!
• Abled in the Adaptation: In the comics, Darren Cross had a rare heart condition and needed an experimental nucleorganic pacemaker to stay alive. In the MCU, Darren doesn't seem to have any heart problems.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Very downplayed, but most iterations of M.O.D.O.K. have very wrinkly, sometimes even corpse-like, faces with pure white eyes. Underneath the mask, this take on M.O.D.O.K. still has Corey Stoll's ruggedly handsome features.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Zigzagged as M.O.D.O.K., who is among the smartest characters in the comics. Darren was already an Insufferable Genius before his transformation, but his unstable Pym Particles altered his brain chemistry which may include reducing his intelligence. By the time he becomes M.O.D.O.K., he doesn't display the same calculating, hyperintelligent mind as George Tarleton, being reduced to a maniacal living weapon serving Kang.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: The comic book version of Darren Cross has short black hair, whereas his MCU counterpart is completely bald.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the comics, he had Super-Strength and later mood-based size-shifting abilities. As Yellowjacket in the film, he can use lasers and can change his size at will.
• Adaptational Villainy: His Yellowjacket identity was a (nominal) hero in the comics.
• Adaptational Wimp: As M.O.D.O.K., Darren doesn't have psionic powers like Tarleton has in the comics. Furthermore, the comic M.O.D.O.K. is usually a massive threat, while here he's The Dragon to Kang and is defeated by Cassie in her first superhero outing.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: He has green eyes instead of brown in the MCU.
• Adaptation Name Change: In his identity as M.O.D.O.K., the M stands for ‘Mechanised’ instead of ‘Mental’ (or occasionally 'Mobile') .
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • In the MCU, Darren Cross is made the former protégé of Hank Pym. In the comics, the two have nothing to do with one another.
  • In this version, M.O.D.O.K. came about when Cross was Reforged into a Minion by Kang the Conqueror, rather than being an experiment by A.I.M.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: As he dies, Darren calls Scott his brother and pats his face with one of his tiny arms. Scott is more weirded out by this than anything.
• Affectionate Parody: As M.O.D.O.K, Cross essentially is Darth Vader if he were Played for Laughs. Both characters were the eager, if overachieving proteges of someone they used to be close with, turned villainous after becoming increasingly greedy and homicidal, and ended up becoming a heavily deformed being after losing a climactic battle, resulting in them being Reforged into a Minion by a Big Bad to act as their dreaded second-in-command. To further hammer it in, Darren even invokes That Man Is Dead for much of the film, only to reclaim his original identity after being convinced to perform a Heel–Face Turn at the encouragement of a younger protagonist. Of course, the fact that he's essentially a floating oversized head that is frequently subject to Large Ham moments makes him significantly more Laughably Evil than Vader is.
• Age Lift: In his original comics appearance, he was a middle-aged man with an adult son; in the MCU, he's played by Corey Stoll (late 30s) and is heavily suggested to be close in age to Hope (who is, specifically, 35 years old).
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: During the final fight of Ant-Man, Cross threatens to kill all of Scott's loved ones. He then tries to follow through this promise by attacking his daughter Cassie.
  Darren: I'm going to destroy everything you love!
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: His suit is black and yellow with protrusions on the back that evoke the image of a wasp.
• Apologetic Attacker: Subverted. At the end of Ant-Man, Darren apologizes to Cassie Lang as he prepares to kill her to make her father suffer. However, it only highlights just how Faux Affably Evil he is.
  Darren: Sorry, sweetheart. You have to help Daddy pay for his mistakes.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Just like Scott's suit, his suit utilises Pym Particles to shrink.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Hank Pym. Darren Cross was the man who usurped his company and began using it to try to enrich himself and gain influence over the world in dark ways. Hank is determined to shut Cross down, and Cross wants to rub Hank's failures in his face before killing him once and for all.
  • During the events of the first Ant-Man film, Cross also gradually becomes this to Scott Lang. With Darren's jealousy and hatred over Pym favoring Scott over him and Scott destroying his company as well as Darren threatening Cassie and killing Ant-tony., the enmity becomes mutual for both of them.
  • To a lesser extent, he's also this to Cassie Lang. Despite not being able to actually do anything to her in the first movie, it's clear that Darren traumatized Cassie at a young age when he held her hostage in the first movie. When they reunite in Quantumania, Darren ends up spending much of the movie trying to kill Cassie on Kang's orders, taking sadistic glee in chasing her as he does so. Unlike her father and Hank however, Cassie chooses to try to redeem Darren, which ultimately convinces him to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Ascended Extra: He was a very minor villain in the comic who became the Big Bad of the movie. Conveniently, the 2015 Ant-Man comic book has him and his company as the main villain.
• Ax-Crazy: A subdued version that gets scarily worse over the course of the first movie. Hank suggests it to be from exposure to the Pym Particle, and Darren was already unstable to begin with before he began to work at replicating his mentor's technology. After being electrocuted by a fly trap to death and then also resurrected by it, he becomes even more berserk. He certainly gets there as M.O.D.O.K., who clearly likes inflicting pain on others.
• Back for the Dead: He returns in Quantumania having been found and rebuilt into Kang's cyborg M.O.D.O.K, acting as his Dragon for taking down members of the Quantum Realm's La Résistance. Eventually though, Cassie convinces him to stop serving his abusive master, and perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save her and her family.
• Back from the Dead: During their first fight, Scott (hilariously) swats him into a bug zapper that temporarily kills him, before electrocuting him back to life. If Cross wasn't royally pissed off before then, he was BEYOND pissed after that.
• Badass Boast: "The laws of nature transcend the laws of man, and I have transcended the laws of nature".
• Badass Bookworm: He's a Mad Scientist who fights Ant-Man with his own upgraded suit.
• Bad Boss: He kills several of his own men in his attempt to murder Scott.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: He uses mice and later lambs as test subjects for his lethal Pym Particle experiments, much to Hope's horror. After succesfully shrinking a lamb, Darren even starts knocking it over by flicking the jar just for his twisted amusement.
  • He also mercilessly slaughters a large number of ants in the climax, including poor Ant-thony.
• Bald of Authority: He is the CEO of Cross Technologies and doesn't have a single hair on his head.
• Bald of Evil: Darren has his head shaved in a film where all the heroes have hair, even the old man. And he's the main antagonist.
• Big Bad: As the one who created and plans to sell the Yellowjacket suit, he is the main villain of Ant-Man.
• Big Sleep: After making a Heroic Sacrifice and saying goodbye to the heroes, Darren slowly closes his eyes as he dies.
• Body Horror: It's hard not to cringe as different parts of his suit start shrinking at different times, agonizingly crushing him. Quantumania reveals his body was deformed horrifically, and probably wasn't helped when Kang rebuilt him into M.O.D.O.K. In particular, his head is horrifically oversized and his arms are now small little nubs stuck to the sides of it. Scott, Cassie, Hank and Hope all lampshade this when they see him, reacting with a mixed reaction of horror and disgust with a twinge of pity.
• Card-Carrying Villain: You have to be a self-professed villain to straight-up tell someone that you're selling the Yellowjacket suit to HYDRA with a smile on your face. There's also the fact that his response to Cassie asking him if he's a monster is to gleefully ask back "Do I look like a monster?"
• Cephalothorax: In Quantumania he has become the MCU's version of M.O.D.O.K., and thus has a grotesquely oversized head with tiny limbs in comparison.
• Chainsaw Good: As M.O.D.O.K., one of his main weapons is a pair of energy buzzsaws.
• Character Tic: Putting a reassuring hand on someone's shoulder, in a way that's not the least bit reassuring.
• Chewing the Scenery:
  • Once he dons the Yellowjacket suit, he unhinges even further as he fights Scott until he's shouting while blasting things to bits with his lasers.
    Darren: [After stepping on, and accidentally activating, an iPod] I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!
    Siri: Now playing "Disintegration" by The Cure.
  • And then he takes it up to eleven as M.O.D.O.K in Quantumania. Outside of a few scenes in the middle of the film, nearly all of Darren's dialogue has him taking bites out of the scenery as he demonstrates just how little sanity he has left.
• Clothes Make the Superman: The Yellowjacket suit gives him very similar powers to Ant-Man, although it comes equipped with shoulder-mounted lasers while the Ant-Man suit does not have any weapons at all.
• Collapsible Helmet: As M.O.D.O.K., he has a large helmet instantly covering or revealing his giant head.
• Color Character: The Yellowjacket.
• Combat Tentacles: Two tentacles that fire blasts of energy like stingers.
• Composite Character: Of five characters from the comics:
  • This version of Yellowjacket is not an alter-ego of Hank Pym, but instead a villain and alter-ego to Darren Cross.
  • In the comics, Cross is a Starter Villain for Scott Lang that has nothing to do with the Yellowjacket title. Though this later gets introduced back into the comics due to the film's influence.
  • He also shares some personality traits with Ultron, such as his "daddy issues" with Hank, who sees a darker version of himself in Cross.
  • The choice to make Cross completely bald in the film is probably a reference to Pym's original Mad Scientist Arch-Enemy in the comics, Egghead.
  • And by Quantumania, he's become M.O.D.O.K., replacing George Tarleton from the comics.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Cross is the CEO of his own company and thinks nothing of shrink-killing people who disagree with him, and supplying weapons to HYDRA.
• The Creon: Subverted in Quantumania. When he recounts to Scott how he became M.O.D.O.K, Darren seemingly holds a reverent gratitude towards Kang for saving his life and turning him into an even more powerful being than he was before. However, it quickly becomes clear that Darren really only serves Kang because he has no other choice, and is subject to the man's brutality whenever he speaks out of line. As such, Cassie is easily able to convince him to turn against Kang at the eleventh hour.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: He's found by Kang's footsoldiers barely clinging to life with his enlarged head, and he's shown being reconstructed into M.O.D.O.K not too long after. Darren has a visible heartbeat monitor on his chest while in his suit, and he dies fairly shortly after shutting down Kang's shield defenses.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's usually ready with a quip or put-down.
• Defeat Means Friendship: It's only after giving him a good beating that Cassie Lang is able to convince Darren to join the good guys' side.
• Demoted to Dragon: Goes from being the Big Bad of Scott's first film to becoming Kang's Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing in Quantumania. He eventually has a change of heart after Cassie tells him it's not too late to turn back.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: He asks something like this while pointing a gun at Scott Lang during the climax. Unfortunately for him, Scott has a pretty good answer.
  Darren: Did you think you could stop the future with a heist?
  Scott: It was never just a heist!
  [The Pym Technologies building is blown up by Scott's explosives]
• Did You Get a New Haircut?: When he sees Hope again in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Darren makes a comment on her new haircut, but doesn't say anything about the fact that she has become a superheroine.
  Darren: Hi Hope. You changed your hair.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the comics, he dies of natural causes (a heart attack) during a fight with Scott. While he survives the forceful shrinking in Ant-Man, in Quantumania he dies from sustained injuries after fighting both Cassie and Kang.
• Disney Villain Death: We don't actually see him die in Ant-Man, just get (apparently very painful) transported to the Quantum real. He survived, though horribly disfigured, and Kang rebuilds him into M.O.D.O.K.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He murders Frank, one of his investors, with his imperfect Shrink Ray, simply for questioning the safety of the Yellowjacket project.
• The Dog Bites Back: Implied - based off of how he treated him in the prison complex, Kang was a horribly abusive Bad Boss, and it's likely due to his extensive mistreatment of him that Cassie was able to talk him into a Heel–Face Turn.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, he insists on being called M.O.D.O.K. and gets angry every time someone calls him "Darren". He changes his mind by the end of the film, though.
• The Dragon: In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Darren (or rather, M.O.D.O.K.) serves as Kang's most dangerous henchman.
• The Dreaded: After becoming M.O.D.O.K., Darren becomes Kang's "hunter" of sorts, who gleefully terrorizes and murders the members of La Résistance. If Jentorra's terrified reaction and the collateral damage he causes are any indication, M.O.D.O.K. is a legitimately dangerous being for La Résistance.
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: It's mentioned in WHiH Newsfront that Darren Cross went to MIT and graduated at only 20 years old as valedictorian.
• Establishing Character Moment: He murders a coworker who offhandedly speaks out against his work after stating that he has "transcended the laws of nature", showing that he's a cold-blooded murderer with an ego beyond reason. He even does it with his shrink ray. Then flushes what's left of him down the toilet.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Scott Lang, who he counts as a foil to. While Scott is an ex-con who uses the Ant-Man suit for noble purposes and is a protege of Hank Pym, Cross is the powerful CEO of Pym Technologies, former protege of Hank Pym, and uses the Yellowjacket suit for power and destruction.
  • He kinda counts as one to Hope as well. Both hold a grudge against Hank Pym by the start of the movie. But while Hope manages to reconcile with Hank, Cross does not and wants to prove himself better than Hank at any cost.
• Evil Genius: His inventions are fueled by a complete disregard for the safety of others and they're being sold to Hydra!
• Evil Is Hammy:
  • I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!
  Siri: Now playing "Disintegration" by The Cure.
  • From Quantumania we also get some very ham-tastic lines, including: DARREN IS DEAD! THERE IS ONLY M.O.D.O.K!
• Evil Laugh:
  • Darren makes a sinister chuckle when he traps Scott in the Yellowjacket pod.
  • He also laughs maniacally while firing lasers at Scott during their fight in Cassie's room.
• Evil Plan: Re-invent the Pym Particle and make a commercial success of it in order to prove himself better than his mentor.
• Evil Sounds Deep: It seems that Kang's reconstruction of Darren caused his vocal chords to drop quite a bit. Taken even further when he wears his mask-helmet, which makes his voice more distorted and hides his identity from those he's confronting.
• Fan Disservice: When he recounts how he came to be in the service of Kang, we see a shot of Darren's bare ass as he's constructed into the M.O.D.O.K suit. Considering he's essentially a deformed overly-sized head with nubs for limbs, this isn't exactly a pleasant image.
• Fate Worse than Death: Scott destroying the Yellowjacket suit Darren was wearing results in him shrinking down to nothingness until he reaches the depths of the Quantum Realm, all while his body is horrifically crunching and deforming the whole time. He's then found by Kang and forcibly recruited into his empire by being reconstructed into a cyborg that can do little else but hunt down and kill those who resist the Conquerer's rule. It's telling that he seems to be fully content with actually dying once he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Scott and his family from his villainous boss.
• Faux Affably Evil: He usually acts friendly and cheerful, even as he commits horrible acts like murder.
• Flying Firepower:
  • As Yellowjacket, his suit has booster rockets on the back that allows him to fly, and he can shoot blue energy beams from his two mechanical limbs.
  • As M.O.D.O.K., he has to use a mechanical hover chair to move around. He can also fire a powerful energy beam from his helmet's forehead and is armed with missile lauchers.
• Foil:
  • An emotionally unstable business executive desperate for his former mentor Pym's approval, and is very similar to him. Scott is the criminal disciple of Pym, but is less similar to Pym, and he has much more emotional maturity. Cross is also much taller than Scott, and is rich and powerful while Scott is a working class ex-con (who acts entirely out of good intentions).
  • There is also a sharp contrast between the Ant-Man suit and the Yellowjacket suit. Hank emphasizes the Ant-Man suit carries no weaponry. In combat, Scott uses size-changing discs, ingenuity, and his ant buddies to avoid killing (usually). The Yellowjacket is chock full of deadly weapons, and can easily kill full-grown men even while shrunken. Also, the Ant-Man suit is designed for infiltration and stealth, while the Yellowjacket is bright, highly visible, and lets enemies know its presence.
• For Science!: One of his earlier motivations, along with "Well Done, Son" Guy, is to recreate the Pym Particle formula.
• For the Evulz: He uses lambs as test subjects for his fatal shrink ray rather than cheaper and less empathic mice for no discernible reason. Then he flicks the container like a kid with insects.
• Fun with Acronyms: In Quantumania, he does away with his human name and answers only to M.O.D.O.K., the "Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing". Scott points out that he should technically be called "M.O.D.O.F.K.".
• Genius Bruiser: An MIT valedictorian who managed to recreated the Pym Particles and made the Yellowjacket suit with it.
• A Glass of Chianti: During his dinner with Hope, Darren drinks a glass of champagne while making a speech bashing Hank Pym.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His M.O.D.O.K. helmet has glowing blue eyes, which evokes his comic book appearance.
• Gone Horribly Right: Hank choose him as his apprentice because he saw himself in Cross. Then he distanced himself because he started seeing too much.
• Granola Guy: A minor case from his morning meditations, a reference to the New-Age Retro Hippie elements of Silicon Valley. He doesn't have any other traits.
• Green-Eyed Monster: There's more than a little jealousy in Darren's hatred of Scott, who is Hank's new pupil. It's even more fitting that his eyes are actually green.
• Gun Struggle: During the climax of Ant-Man, Darren points a gun at Hank Pym, but gets distracted by Scott Lang. Hank takes the opportunity to grab his arm and the two fight over the gun for a few seconds, until Darren manages to shoot Hank in the shoulder.
• Head Blast: As M.O.D.O.K., he can shoot powerful energy beams from the center device of his helmet's forehead.
• Heel–Face Turn: In Quantumania, he ultimately takes Cassie's advice to not be a dick to heart. It costs him his life, but he does some real good in the process.
• Humanoid Abomination: Whatever happened to Cross in the Quantum Realm, the end result is not pretty. In Quantumania, he's become M.O.D.O.K., a cyborg-like being with a deformed, overly large head and undersized arms that has to float to be able to move around.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Like in the comics and other appearances such as Marvel vs. Capcom 3, M.O.D.O.K.'s hoverchair can produce some ridiculously oversized weapons like plasma cannons and buzzsaws.
• I Can Still Fight!: Even after being thoroughly taken down by Cassie during the fight against Kang, Darren still tells her to come back and face him, much to her exasperation.
• Ignored Epiphany: There are a few times where he is a little unsure of himself. After killing Frank, he stares at himself in the mirror. He later shows some vulnerability by asking Hank why he was pushed away. Cross was also conflicted about killing Hope and had to engineer a situation where he seemingly had no choice but to be 'ready'. Finally, he is a little affected when Cassie asks him if he's a monster. Of course, whenever he comes close to showing an inkling of morality, he swerves hard in the other direction. It finally swerves in the other direction in the last minutes of Quantumania.
• I Have Your Wife: At the end of the first film, Darren grabs Cassie at her house after his battle with Scott is interrupted by the cops, reasoning it would bring Scott to him. It works, but Scott is quick to hit him with a shrink disc so the fighting is between them.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: During the fight in the helicopter, Darren accidentally kills his own henchmen while trying to shoot a miniaturized Scott Lang.
• I'll Kill You!: A variation. He tells Scott that he's going to "disintegrate" him during their fight in the helicopter.
  Darren: I'm gonna disintegrate you!
• Improbable Aiming Skills: When Scott charges at Cross' helicopter on an flying ant, in a swarm of flying ants, Cross grabs a bodyguard's pistol and successfully shoots the ant Scott is riding. Though that may have been partially luck.
• Improvised Weapon: During their fight in Cassie's bedroom, Darren throws a Thomas the Tank Engine toy at Scott while they're both miniaturized.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Much like the Ant-Man suit, the Yellowjacket suit allows its user to shrink down to the size of an insect.
• Instant Costume Change: He unshrinks and dons the Yellowjacket suit in about five seconds while Scott is distracted.
• Instant Expert: Even though he never practiced with it (because it would have been lethal to do so), Darren has no trouble using the suit and being a threat to Scott (who had a Training Montage).
• Ironic Hell: In the first Ant-Man film, Darren was a Corrupt Corporate Executive who treated his underlings like garbage in his pursuit to dominate the world using his own version of the Pym Particles, and cruelly shrinks people into small imploded piles of Ludicrous Gibs to quietly dispose of his enemies. He ultimately ends up in a Fate Worse than Death by shrinking uncontrollably into a deformed freak, and is forced into serving an abusive Multiversal Conqueror as a half-cyborg Humanoid Abomination.
• It Amused Me: One of the reasons he sold the Yellowjacket suit to HYDRA, other than to spite Hank, is because he "enjoyed himself".
• It's Personal: By the time of his final duel against Scott, he declares that he will pay for destroying Pym's company along with his plans by destroying everything that he loves, beginning with Cassie.
  Cross: You insult me, Scott. Your very existence is insulting to me. You know, it'd be much easier to hit you if you were bigger.
• I've Come Too Far: Somewhat. For all the evil he's done in his life, Darren knows just how much of a monster he's become after being reconstructed into M.O.D.O.K. When Cassie attempts to encourage Darren to not be a dick, he sadly tells her that it's too late for him.
• Jaw Drop: His reaction upon seeing Pym's work facility explode, then implode on the night it was going to be given to him.
• Jerkass: Outright bullying Pym in his actions, and taunts Scott throughout their battle.
• Jerkass Has a Point: What IS the difference between testing on a mouse or a goat? Both are feeling creatures.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: When Hope tries to talk some sense into him in the climax, Darren seems briefly moved and stops his henchmen from shooting Hank... but only because he wants to kill him himself.
• Karmic Death: Darren's weapon of choice before donning his suit is a Pym Particle device that causes people to turn inside-out as they shrink. Scott sabotages his suit during their final battle, causing Darren to slowly and painfully implode in a similar process. It would later turn out that he somehow survived, but now he Was Once a Man.
• Lack of Empathy: He does not care at all that he killed a number of his own employees trying to kill Scott, and even less that completely innocent people would likely die as a result of him selling the Yellowjacket suit to HYDRA.
• Lancer vs. Dragon: He becomes Kang's Dragon in Quantumania, and spends the climax of the fight trying to kill Cassie, the daughter of Scott who is taking her first steps to become a superhero herself.
• Large and in Charge: Darren towers over many people including his former mentor Hank, and the more lanky Scott. Corey Stoll is 1.87 metres (6' 2") in height and fairly muscular, making his portrayal physically imposing — especially when he puts on the Yellowjacket suit.
• Laser-Guided Karma: When he was the abusive Bad Boss of Cross Technologies, Darren would kill people by quickly shrinking people in a way that deformed their bodies into small bloody remains that he would flush down the toilet. His defeat at Scott's hands causes his own body to become utterly screwed up, where he's found and reconstructed by a Multiversal Conqueror even worse than he ever was, and is forced to serve him without any choice in the matter.
• Laughably Evil: After becoming M.O.D.O.K, Darren's villainy and persona take a bit of a zany turn, with him frequently going off on silly tangents and his general appearance being difficult for the main characters to take seriously. That said, he's become significantly more dangerous than he was as Yellowjacket.
• Living Weapon: What Kang essentially reduces Darren to as M.O.D.O.K, giving him no free will as a maniacal enforcer of his brutal regime. Darren even flat-out tells Scott that Kang sought to make him the ultimate weapon when he found him.
• Ludicrous Gibs: He uses an imperfect version of the Pym Particle device to cause people to shrink and implode into tiny red blobs.

M-Y

• Macross Missile Massacre: In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, M.O.D.O.K. is armed with several missile launchers, allowing him to fire multiple missiles at his enemies.
• Mad Scientist: He was able to reverse engineer the Pym Particles, after all — and suffered Sanity Slippage as a result, due to unprotected exposure.
• Made of Iron: Gets stung by multiple bullet ants at once, then later swatted into a bug zapper and repeatedly electrocuted, but still doesn't go down. Hank even rightfully believes him dead at one point.
• Mirror Character:
  • To Obadiah Stane. Both of them are Corrupt Corporate Executives who attempt to take control over the company that they worked for out of jealousy of the man running it. They also both end up fighting against the main character of their respective movies in a knockoff of their similarly powered suit.
  • As M.O.D.O.K, he's this to Miss Minutes. They're both servants for Kang the Conqueror and He Who Remains respectively, and express fanaticism for their respective goals in trying to control the multiverse. However, Miss Minutes and He Who Remains had a genuine rapport with one another, while Kang is openly dismissive and abusive towards M.O.D.O.K, only keeping him around because of how useful he is.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, he is shown being abused by Kang the Conqueror every time he speaks without his permission, which undoubtedly contributed to his decision to turn against him at the end of the film.
• Mood-Swinger: This guy can go from professional to manic, to enraged, to depressed, and then back to manic again over the course of a half-hour.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black:
  • The Yellowjacket suit is primarily black, but with bright yellow highlights. Makes sense, since this is the exact coloration of its namesake, both in the comics and real life.
  • Averted with his M.O.D.O.K suit, which is a flashy bright purple.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: "My name is Darren, AND I! AM NOT! A DIIIIIIIIIIICK!"
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Cross gloating that the Yellowjacket suit is made of titanium (as Lang is struggling to get into the Yellowjacket suit) turned out to his undoing. Lang then shrinks to subatomic (knowing full well how Pym's wife was lost) in order to save his daughter, defeating and deforming Cross in the process.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Darren has a way of getting very close to people he's having chats with that tends to get very menacing, especially when his off-kilter behavior is added into the mix...
• Not Himself: As Hope notes, a large part of Darren's erratic and at times sociopathic behavior is because the Pym particles are negatively affecting his brain.
• Not Quite Dead: It was presumed by many people that Cross had perished after shrinking out of existence at the end of the first Ant-Man movie. However, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania reveals that not only is he still alive in the Quantum Realm, but that he's since mutated into the freakish Cyborg M.O.D.O.K.
• Obviously Evil: Darren Cross basically oozes callousness from his second onscreen appearance where he casually murders a skeptical investor with an imperfect miniaturizer and tosses what little remains of him in the toilet.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: In the climax, Darren holds a gun to Scott Lang's head and orders him to remove the Ant-Man suit or else he'll shoot him and pull it off his corpse himself. Luckily, Hope van Dyne intervenes and sends some ants on Darren's hand to make him drop the gun.
  Darren: Take the suit off, or I'll blow your brains out and peel it off!
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Cross panics when he's about to be run over by a Thomas the Tank Engine toy in the final battle of Ant-Man.
  • He also has this reaction when he sees a giant Scott Lang arriving at Kang's castle in the climax of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
    Darren: Holy shit… That's big!
• One-Man Army:
  • During the final battle of Ant-Man, Scott sends an army of ants after a miniaturized Darren, but he manages to dispatch them by the dozen.
  • His first scene as M.O.D.O.K. consists of him attacking the Freedom Fighters' camp and slaughtering plenty of rebels.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: During the climax, Darren stops one of his henchmen from shooting Hank Pym because he thinks he should be the one to kill him.
  Darren: [To his henchmen] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... [To Hope] You’re right. I have to be the one to do it!
• Painful Transformation: The process Darren went through to become M.O.D.O.K doesn't look like it tickled. Part of it involves Kang's forces submerging him into a gelatinous substance for a while, before taking him out and quite literally sandwiching him into the two halves of his 24-Hour Armor, all as he screams in agony.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Especially after becoming M.O.D.O.K. He causes a lot of havoc during his attack on the Freedom Fighters' camp, even destroying a few buildings in the process.
• Pet the Dog: He's largely a good boss to Hope and is very respectful of her, possibly due to unspoken feelings. She's his Only Friend.
• Phrase Catcher: Scott, Hank and Hope say Darren's name in a confuse yet disgust manner when they see him as M.O.D.O.K.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: His suit allows him to fight on equal footing against Scott.
• Primary-Color Champion: Inverted. His predominately yellow suit has small red markings and allows him to fire bolts of blue energy, but he's the Big Bad of his film.
• Psychopathic Manchild: His Mood-Swinger tendencies plus his desire for attention from Hank makes him come off as very childish most of the time — as well as petty, selfish, and unstable.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Hank Pym was his mentor and Cross went down a dark path. Now they're enemies.
• Purple Is Powerful: As M.O.D.O.K, Darren's armor-suit is primarily purple in color, and he's the ruthless Dragon for Kang the Conqueror.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: His final moments retroactively become this. The last we see of Cross is when he's shown shrinking uncontrollably into a contorted shape before disappearing. Despite this seeming like certain death, he returns for Quantumania, now having been turned into M.O.D.O.K.
• Rage Helm: This incarnation of M.O.D.O.K. has a face plate molded in the likeness of his comic incarnation, hiding Darren's actual face when he's wearing it.
• Reckless Gun Usage: When Scott goes after him in the climax, Darren starts firing a gun inside of his helicopter while it's in flight. This is even called out on by the guards he's with, who are yelling at him to stop shooting the entire time he's trying to shoot Scott. This continues after he puts on the Yellowjacket suit, to the point that he's firing his lasers so wildly that he kills the pilots and causes the helicopter to start spiraling out of control.
• Redemption Equals Death: Attacks Kang to prove Cassie's assessment that "is not too late to stop being a dick". In his last words, he even says "at least I died an Avenger." Scott allows him that.
• Reforged into a Minion: Thanks to Kang, Darren was saved from near certain death, only to become a cyborg that obeys his every whim.
• Ret-Canon: Both Darren Cross and Yellowjacket existed in the comics as established characters, but in 2016 Cross took up the mantle of the Yellowjacket identity, due to the events of the film.
• Revenge Before Reason: His initial goal of escaping with the Yellowjacket suit is tossed aside in favor of taking revenge on Scott for imploding his building and all the research in it, and then smacking him into a bug zapper. It's likely that Scott's actions (and being zapped) finally drove him completely over the edge.
• Revenge by Proxy: At the end of the first film, Darren goes after Scott Lang's daughter Cassie to make him pay for destroying his building and foiling his plans. When Kang the Conqueror gives him the order to eliminate Cassie to get revenge on Scott years later, Darren is nothing short of gleeful to act upon it.
  M.O.D.O.K: Your dad's not here, Cassie. But I guess that's not a big surprise.
• Riches to Rags: Played with. In the first Ant-Man film, Darren was a wealthy, fit and gifted scientist who ran his own company and helped create his own version of the Pym Particles. After being defeated by Scott though, Darren becomes a permanently deformed Dark Lord on Life Support who is forced into serving the cruel and abusive Kang the Conqueror. While he does have a very powerful position as Kang's Living Weapon, he's unable to enjoy any privileges or luxuries like Krylar does.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • Zig-Zagged. While Darren Cross was an enemy of Scott Lang in the comics, he never actually met Hank Pym. In the MCU, he is Hank Pym's former protege and has more interactions with him than Scott, making him arguably more Hank's enemy than Scott's.
  • In the comics and most adaptations, M.O.D.O.K. is associated as an Iron Man villain. But because that identity is taken by Cross in the MCU, M.O.D.O.K. is an Ant-Man villain.
• Sanity Slippage: He wasn't all that stable to begin with, and a combination of the Pym particles and his own insecurities cause him to grow more ruthless and psychotically paranoid over the course of the film. Getting his plans ruined by Ant-Man and Hank only makes his state worse, and it practically hits rock bottom after he's turned into M.O.D.O.K by Kang. When Scott and Cassie encounter him again, he's a crazed, deformed and oversized head that rambles incoherently about what happened to him and the power that Kang holds.
• Shadow Archetype: He's inherited not only Hank's Yellowjacket identity but also the Mad Scientist and Sanity Slippage traits typically associated with it, and serves to demonstrate why Hank stopped using the Ant-Man suit in the first place. Invoked late in the movie.
  Darren Cross: All those years ago, you picked me. What did you see in me?
  Hank Pym: I saw myself.
  Darren Cross: [hurt] Then why did you push me away?
  Hank Pym: Because I saw too much of myself.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He's wearing a three-piece suit for much of the first movie until he dons the Yellowjacket suit near the climax.
• Shooting the Swarm: When Ant-Man and his swarm of flying ants attack Darren Cross and his henchmen, who are about to escape in a helicopter, Cross grabs a gun and fires at the approaching swarm. He only manages to hit a few ants, including Ant-thony, the ant that Ant-Man was riding.
• Shrink Ray: He carries one, which he uses on those who disagree with his ideas. Since it's imperfect, it also turns them into a lifeless, tiny pile of mush.
• Sizeshifter: He can shrink like Ant-Man using the Yellowjacket suit.
• Starter Villain: He's the main villain of the first film in the Ant-Man trilogy, and the first major enemy faced by Scott Lang.
• Team Member in the Adaptation:
  • Inverted. In the comics, M.O.D.O.K. is one of the main leaders of A.I.M. In the MCU, he was never part of the organization.
  • Played Straight with Kang's army, as neither Darren Cross nor M.O.D.O.K. ever worked for Kang the Conqueror in the comics.
• Terms of Endangerment: At the end of the first film, Darren calls the young Cassie Lang "Sweetheart" while preparing to kill her.
• That Man Is Dead: Once turned into M.O.D.O.K., he even complains about being called Darren saying he's now something else entirely. When Scott tries speaking to him at one point, he doesn't even respond to "Darren" and ignores Scott until he calls him M.O.D.O.K. Subverted when Cassie encourages him to make a Heel–Face Turn, where he claims his old identity back.
  M.O.D.O.K.: DARREN IS DEAD! THERE IS ONLY M.O.D.O.K.!
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: He comes across as this at the end of the first film, where he gets into a child's bedroom wearing a scary-looking suit to threaten a little girl. Cassie even wonders if he's an actual monster.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: In the first film, Darren Cross was a sadistic, but still remarkably smart businessman who was able to manipulate the likes of Hank and Hope without much effort, and even managed to trap Scott midway during his heist to steal the Yellowjacket suit. After being sent to the Quantum Realm and being transformed into M.O.D.O.K., Cross has become little more than a raging cybernetic attack dog for Kang the Conqueror, with little of his sanity or brilliant mind left.
• Traintop Battle: A very weird example. During the final battle of Ant-Man, a miniaturized Darren fights Scott and his ants on top of a Thomas the Tank Engine toy.
• Trapped in Another World: As revealed in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Darren didn't die at the end of the first film, but was sent into the Quantum Realm where he would remained trapped in for the rest of his life.
• Trespassing to Talk: In Ant-Man, Darren Cross surprises Hank Pym at his home to talk with him. He was going to commit murder but Hope was there and he didn't want to do it in front of her at the time.
• Try Not to Die: When Scott Lang is sent to retrieve the Multiversal Power Core and calls M.O.D.O.K to ask what he's supposed to do, M.O.D.O.K. gives him this exact answer.
  Scott: Okay. What do I do? What's the plan?
  M.O.D.O.K.: Don't die?
• Two Aliases, One Character: Three aliases: he’s Dr. Darren Cross, Yellowjacket, and M.O.D.O.K. All three were originally separate characters in the comics.
• The Unfettered: He's willing to use Hank Pym's technology as a weapon and do everything from murder to working with HYDRA to make it happen.
• Unskilled, but Strong: A major reason as to why Scott can still keep up with him despite Cross' suit being far more powerful is that Scott was actually trained in hand-to-hand combat and how to properly use the Ant-Man suit while Darren had no such training and completely relies on the Yellowjacket suit's powers and capabilities. As such, Scott is able to outsmart and outmaneuver Darren multiple times in their fights and win.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Implied. The way Darren frames his past being built into M.O.D.O.K, Kang didn't really give him much of a choice over the matter, and while he expresses mania about becoming the "ultimate weapon", he admits to Cassie that he truly has no idea what to do with his life outside of that.
• Villainous Breakdown: He is already suffering a Sanity Slippage as the movie progresses, but when he sees his company being obliterated by Pym's plan coming to fruition, he completely snaps, puts the Yellowjacket suit on and spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge on Scott. Then Scott throws him into a bug zapper, which shreds whatever sanity was left.
• Villain Respect: Downplayed example — Darren can't help but admire that despite his age, Hank can still throw a mean right cross.
  Darren: Wow! ... Wow! I mean, I saw that punch coming a mile away, but I thought it'd be all weak and pathetic!
• Vocal Evolution: After being reconstructed into M.O.D.O.K, Darren's voice becomes significantly deeper, likely due to the combination of his screwed-up body and because of said reconstruction.
• Was Once a Man: His time in the Quantum Realm has turned Cross into the cyborg-like being that is M.O.D.O.K.
• We Can Rebuild Him: After becoming stranded in the Quantum Realm, Kang found Darren Cross's deformed body, and managed to reconstruct him into a cyborg-like being that hunts members of La Résistance at his command.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Darren considers himself a surrogate son to Hank, and the feeling was returned. Much of his motivation stems from a desire to both prove himself and outdo his mentor since he feels abandoned and betrayed by him]].
  Cross: What do you call the only man who can arm the most powerful weapon in the world?
  Hank: The most powerful man in the world.
  Cross: You proud of me yet?
• Wicked Wasp: His suit and supervillain name is Yellowjacket, which is a species of wasp.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Cross became mentally unstable due to unprotected exposure to Pym particles over thousands of experiments trying to reproduce Hank's technology. Being rebuilt into M.O.D.O.K. didn't help either.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: One has to wonder to what effect the Pym Particles have had on his mind. He's certainly not on speaking terms with sanity, and he has little moments of vague humanity. It's also oddly affecting to see him watch his beloved company crumble to the ground right before his eyes.
• Would Hit a Girl: He attempts to kill Cassie to get vengeance on Scott for foiling his plans and destroying his company and building though Scott manages to stop him. He tries again a decade later as M.O.D.O.K., but stops when Cassie convinces him to turn over a new leaf.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has zero qualms about threatening Cassie and was fully prepared to kill her to get revenge on Scott. His transformation into M.O.D.O.K has not dulled this aspect of him whatsoever, as he gleefully attempts to kill Cassie once again once Kang orders him to do so.
• Would Harm a Senior: He tries to kill his 60/70 years old mentor Hank Pym in the climax of the first film, and manages to shoot him in the shoulder. He makes another attempt on his life when they meet again in the Quantum Realm, sabotaging the ship he was piloting to make it crash.
• Younger Villain Vs Older Hero: Zig-Zagged. While he's older than Scott Lang or Hope van Dyne, his main beef is against Hank Pym, who is much older than him and used to be his mentor. Naturally, he doesn't hesitate to make a few cracks about Hank's old age throughout the film.
• Your Door Was Open: He uses this exact excuse when he shows up unannounced at Hank Pym's residence. It's rather unlikely.
  Hank: Darren? How the hell did you get in here?
  Darren: You left the front door open, Hank. It's official, you're old!

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"I am the ultimate weapon!"