Mad Mod

Creation

Mad Mod was the creation of Bob Haney and Nick Cardy.

History

Neil Richards was born in the slums of England. He had always taken to fashion as a child and when Neil was an adult, he became a minor fashion designer in assisting to make a “mod” style clothing. He soon became very famous for his designs and Neil became filthy rich and earned a spot on the Carnaby Street; the home to London’s most prestigious and famous fashion houses and boutiques as “the Mad Mod”.

Bored with his success, he took to using his clothing label as a means to smuggle contraband drugs in and out of the country by impregnating his clothing with the drugs which he would then ship it through customs and would subsequently apply a reagent that would enable him to extract the drugs out of his clothing.

However he was caught by the Teen Titans in one of their earliest cases while they were investigating Holley Hip; a popular rock ‘n roll singer who was unknowingly assisting Mod in his smuggling operation as he was a big fan of Richards’ designs. Hip was later proved innocent but took offense at being used as Mod’s patsy, braining Richards with his guitar which allowed the Titans to apprehend the fashion designer turned criminal.

Next, the Mad Mod hatched a scheme to steal the Queen of England’s royal scepter and was once more swiftly captured by the Titans and imprisoned.

Richards would reform in prison and retired from his criminal escapades. Instead he rededicated himself to becoming a legitimate fashion designer with his “Mad Mod” brand of clothing.

Several years later when Loren Jupiter decided to create a new group of Teen Titans; Neil Richards was his first choice to design their costumes. Wanting to make amends for his past history with the first group of Titans, Richards agreed and inadvertently became close friends to the group, even to the point where he frequently clashed with Jupiter’s mentoring of the team. Richards was later kidnapped along with Loren Jupiter by the psychotic Haze and was freed by the original Titans. He was last seen attending the fallen Titan Isaiah Crockett‘s funeral.

Powers & Abilities

Before his reformation, Richards employed a wide array of gadgets and intricate traps to neutralize his opponents, even super-powered individuals. For brute force, he relied on a group of well paid thugs to carry out his handiwork.

He still possesses considerable knowledge about technologies and is also a talented fashion designer.

Other Media

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

A version of the Mad Mod has also appeared in a comic book tie-in series Batman: The Brave and the Bold which is based on the animated cartoon. He appeared in two separate issues; battling a version of the Doom Patrol and later Super-Hip and Brother Power the Geek alongside Batman.

Teen Titans Animated Universe

The Mad Mod is one of only three (the others being Ding Dong Daddy and Andre Le Blanc) villains from the original Teen Titans series that made the transition to the animated screen in the 2003 to 2006 Teen Titans TV series. He was voiced by Malcolm McDowell in all of his appearances and spoke with an English accent and slang.

Unlike his original version, the Mad Mod was a bitter old man and a demented genius who created a number of impressive gadgets that challenged the Teen Titans on several different occasions.

In his first episode appearance “Detention”, he captured the Titans due to his anger at their “interference into toils of hard working criminals” and “disrespecting their elders”. The Mad Mod imprisoned them in a “fun” house filled with hypnosis screens, remarkable robotics and animatronics, moving floors and stairs, holographic images, and a large number of booby traps. He gave the Titans the impression that he possessed the power to alter and manipulate reality to his whim when in fact it was all done with special effects and illusions; even his own masquerade as a young man.

Mod next appeared in “Revolution” where he had invented a device that transferred Robin’s youth to him and rendered Robin as a decrepit old man and employed a series of gigantic hypnotic screens to brainwash the entire populace of Jump City into serving him as “King Moddie the First” and a large army of robot soldiers to destroy any challengers to his will; ie. the remaining Titans. He attempted to remake the entire metropolis into his own version of “Jolly Ol’ England” only to fail when Robin’s youth was restored to him, leaving Mad Mod back to his proper age.

Mad Mod made several cameo appearances in “The Lost Episode”, “Homecoming Part 2”, “Revved Up”, and “Titans Together” where he had joined the Brotherhood of Evil as part of their massive army against the Teen Titans.