AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) is an organuzation of brilliant scientists and their hirelings dedicated to the acquisition of power and the overthrow of all governments by technological means.

AIM began as a group of scientists organized during World War II by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker to develop advanced technologicalweaponry for his secret subversive organization HYDRA. Altough HYDRA suffered a major defeat during the war, it continued to exist secretly over the following decades, growing and building its strength. The group of scientists grew number over the years, and made great advances in various fields, including robotics, bioengineering, bionics, and physics. Eventually the scientists publicly incorporated their organization under the name of Advance Idea Mechanics (AIM). No one outside AIM or HYDRA knew of AIM's subversive goals and activities, nor of their scientific achievements, nor the fact that AIM was actually the scientific research division of HYDRA. (Indeed, HYDRA's very existance remained unknown for most of this time.) Instead, AIM was beleived by both the public and by intelligence organizations to be an international cartel dealing with the development and marketing of new technological products. AIM gained great influence with the U.S. government in its role as a supplier of hardware and weapon to governmental and quasi-governmental agencies.

After the initial defeat of HYDRA by SHIELD, AIM, whose connection with HYDRA had not been exposed, attempted to discredit SHIELD Director Nicholas Fury, and thereby force him out of his position. This attempt, publicly led by Count Bomag Royale, failed, and instead Fury exposed AIM as a subversive organization. Although SHIELD believed it had put an end to AIM's operation, much of the organization escaped capture, and its links with the still secretly active HYDRA remained undiscovered. However, immediately upon the demise of Baron Strucker and the deaths of most of HYDRA's leading members in the destruction of HYDRA Island, AIM, now under the leadership of Modok, severed its ties with HYDRA, and has remained an independent organization ever since.

AIM has created a wide variety of advanced technological weaponry, and during the period when it was an arm of HYDRA, made great strides in creating androids, which the organization employed as assassins. (during this period AIM members sometimes referred to themselves as agents of THEM. THEM was the code name of the HYDRA core group which governed HYDRAand its subsidiary organizations, including AIM, during the period between HYDRA's first seeming destruction by SHIELD and its later re-emergence.) However, AIM has created three major instruments of deadly potential which stand out above the rest. The first is the Super-Adaptoid, an android capable of duplication the form and superhuman powers of another being. The second instrument was the Cosmic Cube, an unimaginably powerful object capable of restructuring reality. AIM manufactured the containing device - the cube - not the reality-transforming energy itself, whose nature and origin remain mysteries.

The third major achievement of AIM is the creation of Modok (Mental Organization Designed Only for Killing), an artificially mutated human beings with an enormous head and a stunted body who possesses superhuman intelligance and various psionic abilities. Modok was originally an ordinary AIM member who was selected by AIM's leader, the so-called Scientist Supreme, to be the subject of vast bionic experiments that turned him into Modok. After being transformed, Modok slew the Scientist Supreme and seized control of AIM, serering its ties with the demolished HYDRA. For years AIM existed merely to serve Modok's ambitions for power. Under his leadership, AIM stagnated intellectually, created no truly impressive weapon, and launched no major attack on any nation.

However, two different splinter groups of AIM agents who had escaped being taken over by Modokemerged. One of the groups often clashed with Modok's AIM; another unusccessfully attempted to create another active Cosmic Cube. Finally, dissension with Modok's rule grew within Modok's own organization and broke out in rebellion against him. Modok out of the organization. The three faction of AIM again combined, so that today AIM once more stands as a united organization. Modok has been captured by AIM and reprogrammed to obey the ruling council.

First Appearance: STRANGE TALES #146