DNX #1 Review: Evolution Is Contagious, and So Is the Chaos

Fam, DNX #1 comes flying through the damn wall like Marvel forgot doors exist. Jed MacKay barely gives you time to crack the cover before the X-Men, 3K, the Fantastic Four, the X-Virus, Cyclops, the Chairman and about seventeen different mutant problems are all fighting for space in your brain. I respect the ambition, because this book is trying to go BIG right out the gate, but coño, somebody clear the table first. I felt like I walked into the middle of a mutant family argument where everybody is screaming, three people brought receipts and Reed Richards is standing in the kitchen wondering how the hell he got invited.

The hook itself? Oh, that shit is GOOD. Mutation has always been at the heart of the X-Men because these characters were born into something the world fears, hates, worships, exploits or wants to control. Now take mutation and turn it into something that can be deliberately forced onto somebody. Nah, fam. That’s some sinister shit right there. The X-Virus immediately feels bigger than another superhero disease because you’re screwing around with the very thing that defines mutant existence. Evolution isn’t just happening anymore. Somebody can reach into that process, grab the steering wheel and decide where you’re going. THAT is the comic I want to read.

The problem is DNX #1 knows it has a killer idea and then keeps throwing more shit on top of it. Cyclops and the Chairman both came out of the Age of Revelation carrying their own visions of what comes next. Then 3K has its agenda. Beast is mixed into the madness. The Fantastic Four are getting dragged into mutant business. The X-Virus is spreading. Everybody has plans, everybody knows something and everybody apparently needs my attention RIGHT NOW. Yo, MacKay, my dude, I got you. I promise I’m paying attention. You don’t have to hit me with another plot point every time I turn the page.

Then Federico Vicentini gets room to wild the hell out and suddenly I’m sitting up like, “Aight, THERE we go!” This dude brings the violence. His action moves like somebody cut the brakes, but you can still follow what’s happening, which sounds simple until you’ve read enough event comics where twelve superheroes are punching shit and you can’t tell whose arm belongs to who. Vicentini gives these bodies weight, speed and impact, and once the X-Virus starts showing what it can actually do to people, the artwork gets properly nasty.

And it NEEDS to be nasty. Don’t give me pretty superhero mutations with a little glowing shit around somebody’s hands and call it horrifying. Nah. If you’re telling me mutation is being forced into somebody’s body, make me uncomfortable looking at it. Make me feel like something is happening underneath the skin that should NOT be happening there. Vicentini understands the assignment. There are moments where the body horror starts creeping into the superhero spectacle, and that’s when DNX starts becoming something much more interesting than another Marvel crossover with fifty characters on the cover.

Cyclops also gets some good shit here, and thank God because Scott Summers should never be furniture in an X-Men event. This man has spent damn near his entire existence watching somebody come up with a new way to destroy, control, cure, imprison or otherwise screw with mutants. Now he’s carrying knowledge of a future he knows can happen, trying to make tactical decisions while everybody around him has their own idea of what tomorrow should look like. That’s Cyclops territory all damn day. Give Scott an impossible situation, six bad options and fifteen people questioning his decisions, and my man is home.

My frustration is that just when Scott’s perspective starts pulling me deeper into the story, DNX yanks me somewhere else because another piece of the event needs servicing. That’s where all this ambition starts biting the book in the ass. I KNOW the stakes are serious because everybody keeps telling me they’re serious. I want enough time with these characters to actually FEEL that shit. Give me Scott realizing how badly this could go. Give me somebody terrified by what the X-Virus is doing. Give me five damn pages where another subplot doesn’t come running through the door yelling, “YO, DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME!”

Bringing in the Fantastic Four actually works for me, too. This isn’t one of those crossovers where you can practically hear somebody in marketing saying, “You know what would sell? Put THESE dudes with THOSE dudes!” Reed Richards being confronted with a biological nightmare tied directly to mutation makes perfect sense, especially when you’re dealing with questions about science, evolution and whether anybody should be fucking around with either one. The Fantastic Four and the X-Men come at problems from completely different histories, and there’s meat on that bone if MacKay lets them chew on it.

That’s why I keep coming back to the same thing with DNX #1: stop trying to feed me the whole damn refrigerator. You already cooked something interesting. Put THAT plate in front of me. The X-Virus is enough. Cyclops trying to prevent a nightmare future is enough. The Fantastic Four getting pulled into a mutant biological crisis is enough. 3K maneuvering in the background is enough. All of those pieces can absolutely live in the same story, but they don’t all need to be screaming at me at the same damn time.

So am I coming back for DNX #2? Hell yeah, because underneath all this mutant traffic is a story I really want to see explode. MacKay has taken one of the oldest ideas in X-Men history, evolution, and twisted it into a weapon that could completely fuck with what being a mutant even means. Vicentini is already bringing the visual brutality needed to make that threat feel dangerous instead of theoretical, and Cyclops has enough personal skin in this mess to give the whole event some emotional teeth.

But this first issue is PACKED, fam. Not “damn, look at all this value” packed. I’m talking “somebody sat on the suitcase so they could get the zipper closed” packed. DNX #1 has horror, science fiction, mutant politics, superhero warfare and one hell of a nasty central idea fighting for breathing room inside the same comic. There’s a potentially badass X-Men event buried in here. Now quit throwing more furniture into the room and let that motherfucker breathe.

CRUSADERS SCORE:
3.5/5

Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Cover: Kaare Andrews
Publisher: Marvel Comics