The X-Men‘s next epic appearance will officially give the team an adapted logo, Marvel has confirmed. However, the new design doesn’t speak to the mutant team’s heroism, but to how they’re seen by a world that hates and fears them.

The X-Men have had a variety of logos over the years, each with its own meaning and implications. The original logo (seemingly designed by Sol Brodsky) focused on the weirdness and otherness of mutants. Jim Steranko’s iconic logo followed, summoning the bombast of a sprawling superhero team with a secret base and incredible superpowers.

The 2000 movie adaptation adopted a brushed steel design, while the comics adopted a circled ‘X’ – appropriate for a franchise characterized by countless spin-offs, all built around the letter. During the Krakoan Era, Tom Muller adapted the ‘X’ – the heart of a graphical overhaul that reimagined mutants as a world superpower. Now, they’re being redesigned as a disease…

DNX Gives the X-Men a Biohazard-Inspired New Logo

Marvel just announced a new crossover series titled DNX, bringing together the X-Men and Fantastic Four. The series will center around a new virus that can transform humans into mutants, with promo art for the event placing the classic ‘X’ logo at the heart of Charles Baldwin’s real-world biohazard symbol.

Meanwhile, the official DNX event logo uses the ‘X’ from the X-Men’s very first logo, its spiky edges recapturing the idea of mutants as something new, dangerous and strange. DNX itself refers to DNA, and the idea of being fundamentally altered on a genetic level.

Coming from Jed MacKay and Federico Vicentini, DNX will center on the villainous Chairman – a corrupted version of founding X-Men hero Beast. Following the events of Age of Revelation, the Chairman has designed a virus that will transform humans into mutants, hoping to make homo superior the planet’s dominant species.

That effort will be opposed by Cyclops’ X-Men roster and the scientific genius of the Fantastic Four, though so far Marvel is being cagey about exactly what brings Reed Richards et al. into the fray.

Is Mutation About to Change Forever?

Or Did That Already Happen?

It’s a core part of X-Men lore that mutation is inherent to biology from birth, expressing itself in adolescence. However, the X-Virus changes that, making ‘mutant’ something a human can become. That would radically rewrite X-Men lore and the metaphor at its core – humanity abusing and othering those who are born ‘different’.

However, that change has in part already been made. The X-Men’s latest recruits Animalia and Ben Liu are people transformed into mutants as adults by 3K. They gained incredible power during adulthood, having previously existed on the sidelines of mutant persecution.

That development flies in the face of decades of X-Men treating mutanthood as an identity similar to race or sexuality (in the preceding Krakoa Era, as something close to nationality.) Indeed, DNX and its logo are proving controversial with some fans, given the metaphorical ramifications of turning the X-gene into a literal disease.

How DNX handles its story will decide what fans take away from this latest era of X-Men lore, however the new logo boils down this change into a striking image. As of this new story, mutantion is a disease in Marvel lore, and while the X-Men have long been hated, the Chairman’s actions could now see them classified as a biohazard.

DNX #1 is coming September 2 from Marvel Comics.

Movie(s)

X-Men (2000), X2, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Deadpool (2016), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Logan (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), Dark Phoenix (2019), The New Mutants, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

First Film

X-Men (2000)

TV Show(s)

X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, X-Men (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), Wolverine and the X-Men (2008), Marvel Anime: Wolverine, Marvel Anime: X-Men, Legion (2017), The Gifted (2017), X-Men ’97 (2024)

Video Game(s)

X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1995), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), X-Men: Mutant Academy (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 (2001), X-Men: Next Dimension (2002), Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), X-Men Legends (2005), X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (2003), X-Men (1993), X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1995), X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (1994)

Character(s)

Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Phoenix, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Morph, Nightcrawler, Havok, Banshee, Colossus, Magneto, Psylocke, Juggernaut, Cable, X-23

Comic Release Date

213035,212968