Brood and Dark Phoenix and Mojo – Oh my! The Mojoverse continues its bizarre invasion of Manhattan! With reality-warping resources at the tips of his gross fingers, Mojo may finally have the upper hand against our beloved mutants…

X-Men: Gold #14 is the third part of “Mojo Worldwide” which celebrates Marvel Legacy by taking us through the “X” history through a series of short segments and scenes as Mojo attempts to challenge them and get ratings.

Written by Marc Guggenheim, the comic feels a little like classic Mojo stories but taking the characters through so many eras of X-Men, the story choice feels odd in that it doesn’t have time to establish each team to new readers and we already saw the different “X” era in Secret Wars in 2015. It feels like we have a retread in story not even two years later. The comic itself is entertaining and there’s a lot packed in as Guggenheim has to balance so many different characters.

The art by Marc Laming is good though doesn’t quite blow me away. There’s some solid looking moments but overall the art doesn’t quite blow me away. It’s good, not great. There’s moments that feel like Laming is doing his best to mimic the stories he’s covering but the original art usually stands out and this falls short due to that.

While “Mojo Worldwide” is decent, it doesn’t blow me away. There’s lots of untapped potential in a story about a bloviating egomaniac crazy about ratings. The story just hasn’t quite gotten there and feels like it won’t commit and go all the way. Even the stunt of killing one character in the storyline feels empty as we’re not given any opportunity to connect up to the point.

While I was enjoy X-Men: Gold #14, Marvel Legacy and the previous event has veered a little and taken some of the shine off. It’s not bad but it’s also not quite exciting enough that it’s one of the first things I run to read like I used to for X comics. Hopefully after this we’ll get a focus on the characters which usually makes the series the strongest. Right now, it feels a bit empty, like Mojo’s shows. All flash, little heart.

Story: Marc Guggenheim Art: Marc Laming Cover Art: Dan Mora
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read

Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review