The X-Men Villain Marvel Won’t Dare Put In A MCU Movie

Created by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams, Mojo made his Marvel debut in the 1985 comic Longshot #3. He is a Spineless One, the ruling race of the Mojoverse who use mechanical chairs with spider-like legs to move around and revolve their lives around gladiatorial reality TV. Following his first appearance, the character became a frequent enemy for various X-Men-related teams and characters. 

Unlike most villains, Mojo isn’t motivated by personal vendettas or higher ideals, he simply wants to see the X-Men in entertaining situations without concern for their lives. He’s an over-the-top parody of network executives, who became increasingly relevant as reality TV emerged in the 80s and 90s. His commitment to making an entertaining story makes him a great villain, but it’s difficult to make such an impersonal, dispassionately cruel, villain work in a Marvel movie. 

The intentionally grotesque Mojo would also be hard to portray visually in Marvel’s film style. With wires connecting his skull to his spider-like chair, hooks holding his eyes open, fanged teeth, and clawed fingers his intricate design looks great on the pages of a comic but would be difficult to put on screen in a way that feels menacing instead of silly. In a darker setting, his horror elements could be played up but that wouldn’t mesh well with the MCU’s light style.

As the ruler of another dimension, the failure of the multiverse saga further hurts Mojo’s chances of appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Part of what makes the character so menacing is that he commands an entire dimension, giving him almost infinite resources. Removing that element of the character would make him less interesting, and it’s unlikely Marvel will be pushing more multiverse-based villains after the poor reception to the multiverse as a plot point. 

The only real hope for Mojo appearing in the MCU is as his Ultimate Universe version. A much more mundane villain, the version who appeared in Ultimate X-Men was a human network executive who ran a reality show where humans hunted mutants on a desert island. That version would be a more natural fit, but most comic fans would be disappointed to see the much less popular take on the character appear. 

Mojo is one of my favorite X-Men villains, but it’s probably for the best if Marvel keeps him confined to comics and animated series. His bizarre character design and reality TV-based motivations are a poor fit for the action-comedy style the MCU has adopted. Of course, even if he was a better fit for the film franchise it might be tough to get a studio executive to approve a villain who embodies everything wrong with studio executives.