DNX #3: Magneto, Where Art Thou?

DNX’s third issue opens right where DNX #2 left off. With the release of the X-Virus in Juniper and Cyclops confronting the Chairman of 3K with the Thing and Human Torch to back him up.

The confrontation goes pretty much how you’d expect it to. Cyclops makes a big ethical declaration, the Chairman pulls something out of his rear, queue next issue bait. It’s painfully transparent, even Human Torch comments on it in the issue itself.

Jed MacKay doesn’t linger on this incredibly unsatisfying moment, he moves on to the newest crisis at hand. As 3K cut their losses, including ditching their cool airship, Wyre turns off the power and puts the ship into a freefall above Philadelphia. Putting how much this feels like distracting filler aside, this crisis has a questionable resolution.

Which of the current X-Men can stop a falling saucer? Well, that’s easy, Magento… but he’s busy being Innerspace’d by the Fantastic Four (ignore the fact that two of those four are in the room with us while this is supposed to be happening). Since Magneto is not an option, Cyclops does something drastic and pulls in one of the bench warmers.

He calls in Ben Liu, the reality warper whose powers aren’t always willing to play ball per se. Good plan, guy. It’s actually a good character moment for Ben, who’s been heavily underused in the X books since his introduction, as he is chained to the airship and left there with a “figure out” attitude from Cyclops.

Unfortunately, it is an awful character moment for Cyclops and reads like a cheap way to kickstart a character arc at the expense of another. Even Magik calls it out in the issue. I mean, a plan has to be crazy for the literal Russian demon lady to question it.

All of this is made pointless anyways by the last-second arrival of Magneto, who is pushing 90 and just survived molecular surgery by the way. This moment puts Ben firmly back on the bench and makes the slight chipping away at Cyclops’ character even more unnecessary.

Cyclops also contacts Frank Bohannan, the guy he issued a death threat too, for help… Why? Not only does Bohannan do nothing for, or rather in the issue, aside from taking up page space, but Cyclops asking for his help is both redundant and out of character.

As the director of the Office of National Emergency, a space-age airship falling on Philadelphia would have already gotten his attention and makes the call for help pointless. Further, by contacting him, Cyclops only encourages the overbearing policy that Bohannan has been pushing.

The issue only references the events of the other connected titles in passing. It makes one think, why does this even have to be an event? This is a rather irritating problem with adding a title like Ryan North’s Fantastic Four to the DNX event, that being timetables. In DNX #3, we see the resolution of the Fantastic Four’s current storyline prior to issue #18 being released. It completely skips forward from the end of issue #17 and devalues the Four’s story almost completely.

The characters are essentially just jumping around at this point. It’s almost as if there was little to no communication at all between MacKay and North while they were writing these issues, which is more of an editorial failing than a fault of the writers themselves.

It’s easy to see the passion Vicentini has put into DNX’s artwork across its three issues so far. Extra details are added to characters on some of the pages, and great care is given to their expressions. Vicentini’s best work in the issue is the scenery.

The rubble of 3K’s airship and lab in the Baxter building both have a high-tech sci-fi aesthetic to them but feel completely unique. However, DNX #3 has a few scenes that fall short. There are panels where shortcuts are taken, such as using flat backgrounds or blacking out character designs into silhouettes to save time.

David Curiel’s colors elevate Vicentini’s artwork in a few notable areas. Primarily across each of the characters and their special effects. Curiel allows the characters to be actually colorful, y’know… like a comic book. Magik’s stepping discs, Cyclops optic blasts, and even some good ole clobbering time all have their own texture, which stays consistent across the issue.