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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures,

ideas, and monsters in time.

Today, I want to cover one of the weirder Marvel Comics characters to jump out of the pages

of the official handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition. I have a used copy of this book from the 1990s,

and it contains all of your more popular X-Men and Avengers,

along with some real weirdos, like today's selection,

the quasi-motivational-destruct organism, also known as Quasimodo.

Yes, this supervillain who first appeared in the pages of the Fantastic Four back in

1966 is essentially a super science take on Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame,

from the 1831 Victor Hugo novel.

Though the character's appearance seems mostly based to my eye on the version played by Charles Lawton in the 1930s film adaptation.

In Hugo's tale, Quasimodo is a cathedral bell ringer suffering from severe kyphosis, an excessive convex curvature of the spine. The quasi-motivational

destruct organisms nature, however, is a bit more convoluted. As Marvel.com tells it,

he was originally a sentient computer developed by the supervillain, the mad thinker. This

sentient computer desired a human form, but its creator cruelly refused it.

Eventually, the Silver Surfer steps in, takes pity on the suffering computer, and uses his power

cosmic to grant the computer's wishes. However, the quasi-motivational destruct organism would

prove the twisted Vulcan to the Silver Surfer's physical perfection.

He looks like a stereotypical hunchback of Notre Dame, but with a metallic skin or a metal suit, you know, sort of the Silver Surfer body, except it is the hunchback of Notre Dame's body.

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