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Marvel's next big X-Men crossover DNX brings the team together with the Fantastic Four to cure a new mutant virus. But rather than the FF, DNX was originally planned as a crossover with the Avengers. However, plans changed when X-Men writer Jed MacKay left Avengers which he previously wrote alongside X-Men.

"Well, we started thinking about what would become DNX in the early stages of planning Age of Revelation once we realized that one should lead into the other, and at that point in time, the plan was to have DNX be a crisis handled jointly between the X-Men and the Avengers, as I was writing both," MacKay tells AiPT. "However, publishing plans changed in the intervening period and my time on Avengers ended, so we pivoted to involving the Fantastic Four instead (which, given the nature of DNX, worked out pretty well)."

If DNX were to be a big X-Men/Avengers crossover event in 2026, it would seem to take the place of the current Avengers: Armageddon series. That appears to fit with Zdarsky saying that that series was originally planned to be just an arc of his current Captain America run, then it was expanded into Marvel's main summer 2026 event.

"[Armageddon] is a case where it is its own thing. It wasn’t in Captain America, and I pulled it out to turn it into this," Zdarsky told SKTCHD earlier this year. "This is like writing Captain America and realizing that this could spring something out over here that’s bigger. So, we just went ahead and did that."

McKay's three-year Avengers run ended in March 2026, with Zdarsky's Avengers: Armageddon brewing since late 2025 before debuting in May 2026. Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto are relauching the Avengers ongoing series this fall.

DNX follows the events of the previous X-Men event, Age of Revelation, which shows an alternate future where Doug Ramsey, heir apparent of Apocalypse, conquers the world. This leads to 3K, a sinister mutant science cabal, discovering how to use a virus created in the alt-future to turn people into mutants. The FF will come in when they help attempt to cure the so-called X-Virus, which turns homo sapiens into mutants.

At the center of the story is Beast - or rather, a pair of Beasts - with the heroic version helping the X-Men and Fantastic Four, while his evil counterpart, known as the Chairman of 3K, allying with Cassandra Nova to unleash the X-Virus on the world. That tension will form one of the key relationship in DNX as Beast works alongside a reluctant Reed Richards, who is wary of Beast due to the existence of the Chairman.

"We’ll see some serious discourse between Beast and Reed," MacKay explains. "Beast needs help that Reed doesn’t want to give for reasons that will become clear. Writing the verbal maneuvering between the two has been a lot of fun, as has working with Sue, Ben, and Johnny, who I’ve written very little of in my career thus far."

DNX #1 kicks off the event on September 2, spilling over into the ongoing X-Men and Fantastic Four titles. Jed MacKay writes the main five issue limited series alongside artist Federico Vicentini.

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