Danger Room

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The Danger Room is a fictional training facility built for the X-Men of Marvel Comics as part of the various incarnations of the X-Mansion.

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[edit] Early designs

In the early books it was filled with traps, projectile firing devices, and mechanical dangers such as presses, collapsing walls and the like intended to challenge the trainee. Meanwhile, an observer is in the overhanging control booth managing the room's mechanisms to oversee the exercise while ensuring the subject's safety. Later the Danger Room was upgraded with robots for the X-Men to fight against.

After befriending the Shi'ar the X-Men rebuilt the Danger Room with Shi'ar hard-light holographic technology. These upgrades were largely added by Dr. Hank McCoy (Beast). The Danger Room is located in the X-Mansion; every destruction of the latter led to a rebuilding, and usually upgrading, of the Danger Room. The training facility has endured a lot of damage over the years, usually from X-Men trainings or X-Men going rogue, as Colossus did during The Muir Island Saga. Supervillains have often taken over the facility, most notably Arcade. It is suggested in the X-men Official Guide that the objects in the danger room are holograms surrounded by force fields. It is also revealed that the Danger Room can display holograms in only 32-bit colour.

"Danger". Art by John Cassaday.
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"Danger". Art by John Cassaday.

[edit] Sentience

Recently in Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, the Danger Room has taken up sentience, attacked the X-Men and traveled to Genosha to kill Professor Xavier. As a sentient it has been named "Danger" and taken on a female appearance. Xavier was revealed to have known the Danger Room's sentience and chose not to reveal it, much to the dismay of the X-Men who seem to view this deception as a taking on of Magneto's former ideals. This storyline is somewhat similar to a Generation X storyline where their version of the danger room attacked them.

With its female appearance destroyed by Beast, "Danger's" consciousness was presumed to still exist within the conflicted consciousness of a Sentinel that destroyed Genosha. However, "she" was shown back in her humanoid form, where "she" infiltrated S.W.O.R.D. headquarters to speak with Ord of the Breakworld.

With the Danger Room gone, the X-Men have resorted to using the empty room to train with their students. Also, the student Prodigy has built a "Danger Cave" underneath the X-Mansion which acts similarly to the Danger Room.

The Danger Room gaining sentience and trying to kill the X-Men is reminiscent of "The Hunt For Xavier" arc which ran through The Uncanny X-Men #362-364 and X-Men (2nd series) #82-84, which featured Cerebro gaining life of its own and using the Xavier Protocols to hunt down and destroy the X-Men. It should be noted this story ran seven years previous to Whedon's 2005 "Dangerous" arc.

[edit] Alternate versions

The Ultimate X-Men also have a Danger Room with similar technology, including smaller holographic training rooms in the hidden safehouses prepared by Professor X. However, these are prone to malfuctions, such as a fight sequence producing Hasidic rabbis instead of ninjas.

[edit] In other media

[edit] Television

[edit] Video games

The Danger Room, out of control, was the basis for all but the last level of the first Sega Genesis Console's X-Men video game.

The Danger Room is Cyclops' stage in the arcade and console-imported game, X-Men: Children of the Atom. The holographic backdrops change occasionally, and Professor X is in the background. The stage music is also called 'Danger Room' on the game's official soundtrack.

In both X-Men Legends & X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, the Danger Room is used by the X-Men (and the Brotherhood in Legends II) for training and gaining levels, items, new powers, and rare character exclusive equipment.

[edit] Film

In the first X-Men film, there is a brief scene where a room saying "Danger" can be seen.

The Danger Room makes its first true appearance in the film X-Men: The Last Stand where the team has a training exercise against a Sentinel, among other threats and is holographic.

X-Men
Comics
(Full list)
Uncanny X-Men | X-Men vol. 2 | Astonishing X-Men | Exiles | Generation X | New Excalibur | New Mutants | New X-Men | X-Factor | X-Men Unlimited | Ultimate X-Men | X-Force
Major storylines "Dark Phoenix Saga" | "Days of Future Past" | "Mutant Massacre" | "The Fall of the Mutants" | "Inferno" | "The X-Tinction Agenda" | "X-Cutioner's Song" | "Muir Island Saga" | "Fatal Attractions" | "Phalanx Covenant" | "Age of Apocalypse" | "Onslaught" | "Operation: Zero Tolerance" | "Eve of Destruction" | "E Is For Extinction" | "Planet X" | "House of M" | "Decimation"
In other media Film: Generation X | X-Men | X2 | X-Men: The Last Stand | Magneto | Wolverine
TV: Mutant X | Pryde of the X-Men | X-Men: The Animated Series | X-Men: Evolution
Universe Avalon | Asteroid M | Cerebro | Crimson Dawn | Danger Room | Enemies | Fastball Special | Genosha | Legacy Virus | M'Kraan Crystal | Madripoor | Muir Island | Savage Land | Teams | Xavier Protocols | X-Jet | X-Mansion
Other History | Video games