WordPress WP_Query orderby being overwritten

$args = array(
    'post_type'      => 'mcm_company',
    'orderby'        => 'title',
    'order'          => 'ASC',
    'posts_per_page' => '1000',
    'post_status'    => 'publish',
);
$r = array();       
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args );

I am anticipated to see the outcomes get returned in alphabetical order, but it surely’s not. The ultimate question is

[request] => SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts  WHERE 1=1  AND wp_posts.post_type = 'mcm_company' AND ((wp_posts.post_status = 'publish'))  ORDER BY wp_posts.menu_order ASC, wp_posts.post_title ASC LIMIT 0, 1000

which you’ll see is getting the flawed ORDER BY. I am assuming one thing is overwriting the orderby… is there a method to power the order to title?

---

The difficulty was from the Submit Varieties Order plugin, with the Auto Kind choice enabled