X-Men Black Mojo #1

Reviewed by: Robbie Rowe

Rating: 8 out of 8

Mojo is one of the more unique X-Men villains. Apocalypse wants to use his Four Horsemen to take over the world; Mr Sinister wants to make Mutants even

better, stronger than they are. But Mojo just wants to get killer ratings on his

various TV shows! He’ll kidnap X-Men to do this, put them in different scenarios and usually has his own world, named after himself! He doesn’t care if what he does ends up killing the people, aliens or Mutants ‘acting’ in his shows, long as it makes for good television, with lots of people’s eyes glued to the screens.

Here, the rather large, yellow skinned and spider chair using TV exec is stuck on

Earth, but still doing his usual thing – trying to attack and kill the X-Men, making this into the next big television event – but that’s not all. No, believe it or not, Mojo’s also trying to do well romantically, as his heart’s been struck by a purple haired woman when he was out and about.

We don’t get to see many X-Men this issue, but I’d say people will be happy with who we get, especially with the X-Man Glob! He’s a pink gelatinous fellow, with partial skeleton inside. He and Mojo have a very welcome and surprising

camaraderie, with a contrast in terms of how different people react to Glob.

Sometimes it can be easier to just act as if people hate the more different people

in a story, or that they mainly love them.

But in life, that’s not necessarily going to be the case. People might love a

Traveller, or a black man, or they might hate them, but most likely, it’ll be a mix of reactions, because people aren’t just kind or cruel – they’re a kaleidoscope of

different shades. One of the best parts of the Mojo story was the sheer amount of humour on display. Between the weapon he uses against the X-Men; to his

attempt at talking to the woman he fancies; to just all sorts of other awesome

stuff! It’s well drawn as well, with Xavier’s Institute, a coffee shop and various

characters just drawn nicely, with a lot of expressiveness and energy to characters like Mojo.

It’s a very good story and on its’ own makes the issue worth buying, but it’s not

the only story on offer here. There’s also the continuing Degeneration story on

Apocalypse, which also is drawn very nicely, with a continuous inner monologue from Sabah Nur throughout. It charts some very new experiences, lows, refusal to give up and such a large variety of fauna all across this planet. It’s odd seeing Apocalypse like this, with so little power, hope, or indeed clothes after a while, but it’s a direction I applaud Zac Thompson taking with one of the X-Men’s deadliest and most relentless villains. I look forward to seeing how the story develops in the next three issues. Recommend this series for all X fans!