WARNING: The following contains spoilers for M.O.D.O.K. Head Games #2 by Jordan Blum, Patton Oswalt, Scott Hepburn, Carlos Lopez, and VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
Tony Stark is in a bit of a bind. MODOK has come asking for his old foe's help. The villain was ousted from his seat on the board of A.I.M. after one of his bleeding memory trances cost the organization a great deal of loot during their heist of one of Tony's cargo trains. MODOK has never had a family, he's never known the people that he's been seeing in his visions, but they keep happening and he is determined to get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately, the tech Tony needs was lost during the train robbery, and to get it back they've got to go undercover in treacherous territory.
And in M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games #2, Things are so bad that Iron Man is even asking for backup, and he's willing to call Marvel's strangest superhero, NFL Superpro.
MODOK rearranges himself to pass as Arnim Zola, while Tony dons a generic Hydra uniform, and the two head off to Las Vegas for the Criminal Technology Show, an expo featuring the latest and greatest in weaponized super tech. The place is crawling with villains, not to mention the deadly creatures and lethal weapons on display. The ambiance is not Tony Stark's cup of tea, but taking down supervillains is, and with so many of them in one place he is itching to take them down. As they walk the convention floor, Tony implores MODOK to let him call for backup. He's got plenty of people on speed dial, including the greatest athlete in Marvel history.
Debuting in 1991's NFL SuperPro, by Fabian Nicieza and Jose Delbo, Phil Grayfield was introduced to readers as a former football player who heroically saved a young child from what would have been a lethal fall, and in the process sacrificed his career when he suffered from a devastating knee injury.
While he could no longer play pro football, he could still be involved and took a job off the field as a sports reporter. While interviewing an eccentric super fan who was showing off a near-indestructible football uniform, armed thieves stormed the building. The thieves made it out with what they'd come for and set fire to the building on their way out, causing Phil to crash into a spill of experimental chemicals. These unknown substances, combined with the flames burning around him and the rare football memorabilia smoldering along with it to make Phil Grayfield nearly invincible.
The setup is, no matter how you look at it, absolutely ridiculous. There are plenty of superheroes who have gained their powers from some combination of fire, unknown chemicals, radiation, and bug bites, but none are as implausible as the origin of the NFL Superpro. Still, the fact that Tony Stark even thought of Phil Grayfield can only mean that somewhere out there he is still active.
The hero does have a history of battling the forces of Roxxon Energy Corporation, who are still very much a part of the Marvel universe, so it's plausible that Phil is still in the game. The character was sidelined pretty hard after his initial series and hasn't been seen in nearly three decades, so it's hard to imagine that he's still in fighting shape, and MODOK and Tony are more than capable of taking care of themselves. Still, it's always nice to know that someone is thinking about you, even if you aren't their first pick.
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