Jonathan Dobres

Air date: February 5, 1994

When I first got into X-Men as a kid, I didn’t realize that they were supposed to exist in the same world as Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers. It doesn’t even really make sense that they do. Who needs Tony Stark when you have Forge? Who needs Thor when you have Storm? Reed Richards? Beast is just as smart, and much cooler. The X-Men canon has more than enough room for every kind of story. Sometimes you get touching tales of love in the face of bigotry, and sometimes you get “Mojovision”, an episode in which the inter-dimensional love child of Jabba the Hutt and the guy from the Micro Machines commercials abducts the X-Men to perform in his TV shows.

The barely-there plot is that Mojo, an all-powerful TV producer from another dimension, is facing a ratings crisis as his star actor, Longshot, is losing popularity. Mojo decides to abduct the X-Men and force them to perform for his audience, and that is pretty much all that happens here. It’s an insane premise with a shallow execution. Peter Wildman’s absolutely gonzo vocal performance as Mojo is the only highlight, and thank goodness, because the episode spends fully ten minutes introducing him and letting him harass Cyclops, until they’re all teleported to the arena/studio.

The X-Men get paired up into three very brief action scenes, none of which are interesting. I will, however, point out that the title card for the Beast/Rogue vignette is “Space Star: starring Hank McCoy as The Beast and Rogue as Rogue” (a segment that forgets that Rogue has super powers). Jean saves the day this time around, using her telekinesis to disrupt Mojo’s broadcast equipment and free her teammates. Two seconds later, Mojo is crushed beneath a bunch of his malfunctioning equipment. His assistant, Spiral, teleports everyone back home.

There’s supposed to be a B-plot in here about Longshot getting back at Mojo, but it never really materializes. It’s a shame, really. Longshot is a genetically engineered alien whose primary power is supernatural luck (similar to, say, Domino). He could’ve been incredibly fun, if the episode had actually done anything with him!

The episode at least manages to be funny in a few places, a lot of which is Wildman’s stupendous turn as Mojo. Jean disrupts the broadcast, Mojo complains that he’s losing the audience, and then we smash cut to a panoply of aliens in the stands, every single one of whom is reading a book. And later there’s this offhand exchange, delivered like office chat:

Longshot: Did I tell you I used to go out with an actress who had two heads?

Spiral: Was she nice?

Longshot: Yes and no.

In the end, Mojo is fine. He bursts out from beneath the debris and immediately starts badgering Longshot and Spiral into doing a new series. He then turns to one of his TV monitors, where Xavier and Magneto can be seen in the Savage Land. There, they take in the view of Magneto’s citadel (???) and encounter Sauron, a psychic pterodactyl. Up next: the season finale that will end these stupid interludes.