DNX #1: Evolving Sideways

DNX is Marvel’s next big swing in their seemingly endless series of X-Men events and crossovers. There has been a lot of apathy towards the X titles at large lately, and for good reason. Events like DNX feel more akin to a remix of past storylines, in this case one that’s not even a year old, and that naturally induces a “whatever” attitude in longterm readers who have put their time and love into the X-Men.

On one hand, DNX is very similar to “Age of Revelation,” however, with a lot of notable improvements. Most of the improvements come in the form of character writing. Turns out not planning to undo the consequences of an event from the beginning makes for a slightly more impactful storyline.

The X-Men have returned to Philadelphia to thwart 3K’s plans to bring about their own version of the Age of Revelation. The entire Alaskan-based X-Men team has this sense of grim determination from the first page they appear on. That grimness colors each of the X-Men, making every one of them seem more violent than they have been in a long time. Unfortunately, the uniformity and coordination between the team strips away a lot of colorful quirks these characters have. Magik behaves exactly like Psylocke, who behaves exactly like Kid Omega, and so on down to Juggernaut and Animalia, who don’t even have speaking lines and exist just to fill the page.

The Fantastic Four play their role as well, working alongside Beast to try and save Magneto after his assault by the villainous Chairman of 3K in X-Men #36. Naturally, Reed Richards has ethical concerns regarding the possibility of helping restore Magneto’s powers. While a hero through and through, Reed offers to help save Magneto’s life, without his powers. This collaboration is a not-so-subtle way to softly introduce the Fantastic Four into the DNX event but doesn’t work very hard to justify further entangling the crossover across three titles rather than two.

DNX’s pages are dense with detail in an attempt to overload the reader with visual information. For the most part, this works, at least on the level of depicting the sci-fi twists and turns. Federico Vicentini often overlays large splashy pages with smaller panels to separate the dialogue, which eases out the issue’s flow. Without these types of pages, DNX #1 would’ve been overly heavy in its exposition and a much slower read.

David Curiel’s color work in DNX’s first issue splashes the pages and the characters in a lot of ambient lighting. Some of those tones are essentially the same, however. The liquid in Magento’s containment tank, the desert sun of Kid Omega’s brainscape, or the burning flames of Human Torch are all noticeably similar shades of orange, which takes away from the visual variety of the issue.