The X-Men have fought a wide array of bizarre enemies throughout their history, but perhaps the strangest combatants they’ve ever encountered originate from a place called Mojoworld. Being home to the villain’s Mojo and Spiral, the Mojoworld exist in a weird alternate universe in Marvel that’s a satire of shady business practices within the television industry.
First appearing in Ann Nocenti’s Longshot series, Mojoworld is a planet that exists in a pocket universe called the Mojoverse, ruled by the clearly narcissistic villain Mojo. What’s different about Mojoworld is that its government functions as a television network. In order to keep his subjects subdued, Mojo creates violent and trashy television with celebrities known as stuntmen. However, what’s truly diabolical about this is that the majority of the stuntmen used in these programs were actually kidnaped from their own universes and forced to participate in dangerous scenarios. Due to Mojo’s never-ending need for new “talent,” he often finds himself encountering the heroes of earth, and frequently a headache for the X-Men.
Mojo himself belongs to a blob-like alien race known as the Spineless Ones and he requires a metal exoskeleton to move around due to his lack of vertebrae. Mojo is also extremely powerful, capable of reading minds, teleporting through dimensions, as well as energy and magic manipulation, making him extremely dangerous. Often supported by a group of henchmen, perhaps his most well-known enforcer is the six-armed cyborg, Spiral. Not only an adapt swordswomen, but Spiral also has the ability to manipulate magic, teleport through dimensions, and see different universes with her cybernetically altered eyes. Spiral actually began life as an ally to the character Longshot known as Ricochet Rita, but after being stranded in the Mojoverse, she was experimented on and brainwashed to become a minion of Mojo.
Though their simple existence is bizarre enough, it is when Mojo and his minions interact with the X-Men that makes things even weirder. In New Mutants Annual #2, Mojo kidnapped the character Psylocke and replaced her eyes with cybernetic ones that allowed him to broadcast the X-Men’s adventures on Mojoworld. Following this, Mojo would launch perhaps his strangest scheme yet in X-Men Annual #10, where he de-aged the X-Men until they were children and rebranded them as the X-babies, brainwashing them to attack the New Mutants. Mojo would meddle in the lives of the X-Men again in a much more comedic fashion when he, Spiral, and a group of minions attempted to make a documentary about the X-Men, only to run out of film before things got interesting.
What’s interesting is that the tone of the stories that Mojoworld appears begin to change over time. Starting as an intimidating foe in the Longshot series, each subsequent portrayal of Mojo would be more comedic than the last. Eventually, Mojo and his minions would go on to become comic relief characters due to how outlandish their premise is. However, they still remained relevant throughout the 80’ and ’90s, appearing in multiple comics and even X-Men The Animated Series. Despite being a minion of Mojo, Spiral’s ruthlessness remained, even being responsible for building the cybernetic body of classic X-Men villain, Lady Deathstrike.
One thing that seems incredibly evident about Mojo is that he’s clearly meant to represent a sleazy and cowardly television executive. This can be seen in the way mistreats his stars and employees, caring only about ratings. This can even be seen in his design, which is a giant spineless blob creature that requires others to watch his program in order to stay powerful. Even Spiral displays the traits of a mistreated assistant, starting as Ricochet Rita then transformed into the cold person she is today only to serve Mojo, she quietly plans to betray him. Together, Mojo and Spiral are a satirical reflection of how the writers viewed morally-dubious media executives, effectively making some of the weirdest enemies the X-Men have ever encountered.