The end of the last story arc had Kitty Pryde and the X-Men finding Colossus, whom everyone thought to be dead, and now the returned X-Man is struggling with fitting back in while Kitty is wondering why he is so distant.
This particular arc starts up with the X-Men going after a massive creature that has emerged from the depths of Manhattan. They end up briefly teaming up with the Fantastic Four in order to defeat the monster, but this is just a preamble that leads into the story's bigger plot.
Consider the Danger Room. For years, this has been the training grounds for the X-Men. It's artificial intelligence is designed to observe, learn and adjust its attacks in order to take down the trainers. It has the ability to create matter out of light and project holographic environments that are as deadly as the A.I. can dream up. It's only purpose, as designed by Professor Xavier, is to kill the X-Men and when it fails, analyze what went wrong and find a new way to attack them. The only thing that really keeps it from fulfilling its goal is a separate system that will shut the Danger Room down if it is about to succeed.
So, what happens when it figures out a way to get around that watchdog program? To put it simply, the X-Men have a new enemy that is not only deadly, but has fought against them thousands, possibly millions, of times and knows every one of their moves. To make matters worse, its first move is to trap the children at Xavier's school inside itself. In order to get the kids out, the X-Men have to deal a lot of damage to the room's control systems which ultimately allows it to not be a room at all, but take on a robotic humanoid form that calls itself Danger.
Danger is more than just an A.I. in a robotic body, though. She seems to have the ability to control any electrical device in her sphere of influence. Not only does this mean she can control an old Sentinel that was mostly destroyed near the Xavier Academy, but also the X-Men's own Blackbird and a few other surprises along the way.
While this story arc feels a little shorter than Gifted, it is packed with action and quite a few revelations, especially about the Professor. It also sets up the next arc, and hopefully the next Astonishing X-Men animated film. It's take a few films for the feel of the Marvel Knights movies to grow on me, but they have. The moving graphic novel style is unique and if it has grown on you as well, then Dangerous is a good DVD to pick up, although I would recommend seeing Gifted first, but it isn't required to enjoy this particular story.
