Children of the Atom #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #5
“Reinforcements”
by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. The Children of the Atom backed up, but also overshadowed, by the actual X-Men. And Maggott.
PAGES 2-3. Daycrawler escapes while the other Children of the Atom are captured by the U-Men.
Each issue so far has spotlighted a different member of the team. By elimination, we’re left with Daycrawler – but since the plot builds to a climax in this issue, there’s not as much space to focus on his character as there has been with some of his colleagues. Much of Jay Jay’s perspective in this issue is filled in by narration rather than flashbacks or scenes devoted to him.
This scene is a retelling of page 20 from the previous issue, from Daycrawler’s perspective rather than Marvel Guy’s – those the shift of perspective doesn’t make much difference. We already know from the remainder of issue #4 that the bad guys are a new version of the U-Men, the group that harvests mutant organs to try and upgrade humans; and that Daycrawler will return to rescue his teammates with the actual X-Men in tow.
Jay Jay gives his own account of his relationship with his older stepbrother Benny; we had Benny’s version at some length in the previous issue. Unlike Benny, Jay Jay has no memory of a previous family. Benny told us last issue that he didn’t actually live with Jay Jay’s family at first – he only visited when his mother was “out in the field”, whatever that means – but Jay Jay seems to think of him as a constant presence throughout his life.
Jay Jay is convinced that he’s done something to annoy Benny. In Benny’s version, he loves Jay Jay but is terrified by the degree of admiration that Jay Jay showed him, and is scared of letting him down. To some extent, Benny is trying to distance himself from Jay Jay’s adulation and Jay Jay is reading that as some unexplained rejection. On top of that, of course, the age gap between them is pretty significant right now, and Benny is distancing himself from people in general. Jay Jay seems to be here to try and prove himself to Benny, though that’s not really coming across very well to Benny.
PAGE 4. Jay Jay heads to the X-Men.
Somewhat remarkably, Jay Jay’s first thought is to try the Avengers (it’s not really clear why he rejects them), and then the Champions (who are apparently on the run from CRADLE at this point – that storyline wrapped up a few months ago over in Champions). Finally he decides to go to the Krakoan embassy, and call in the X-Men. It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Jay Jay seems to be holding the X-Men logo which Storm gave the team in issue #2, apparently as a summoning device. He doesn’t seem to be using it, though, unless the idea is that he shows is to the embassy staff to prove his bona fides.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. The recap refers to the team as the Children of the Atom, a name which is also used in the story itself for the first time later on.
PAGE 6. Data page on the Children’s technology. The page is sure to make clear that it’s only giving us the kids’ theories about what the technology was originally intended for, which is a pretty strong indication that they’ll turn out to be wrong. Daycrawler’s teleportation smoke is confirmed to be something that Carmen rigged up in her cosplay mode.
A footnote at the bottom tells us that the Children are wearing telepathy-blocking headgear, cobbled together from black market trinkets including pieces of old Magneto helmets. This refers back to a data page in issue #3 which showed Carmen buying fragments of a Magneto helmet from “X-Change”. It’s hard to believe that this amateur tech would stop a proper telepathic probe, but presumably it’s good enough to require at least some effort from a telepath, which nobody has the motivation to do. In story terms, it prevents the plot from collapsing the moment Jean Grey walks into the room, which is good enough.
PAGES 7-14. The X-Men and the Children of the Atom defeat the U-Men.
The arc is corny but it works: the X-Men come to the rescue, the U-Men fight back with technology that blocks mutant powers, and of course it has no effect on the Children because they aren’t using mutant powers. So the Children get to rescue the X-Men, but their secret is exposed in the process. Naturally, this scene requires an iconic-looking X-Men team, and that’s what we get… plus Maggott, who is presumably here because he met the team before in issue #1. For fairly obvious reasons, this team includes the originals of Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Nightcrawler. We don’t get Gambit or Archangel, perhaps because they’re occupied in other books and it would be a bit too contrived if they were just hanging around waiting for a distress call from the Children of the Atom.
“The Third Species.” The U-Men are apparently referring here to enhanced humans, i.e. post-humanity. The threat posed to mutants by post-humanity is a recurring concern in the Hickman-era X-books.
“Everyone on a team has a reason they’re there…” Jay is trying to fit the team into standard team roles. How convincing these are is another matter – isn’t Carmen the brains of the outfit? – but this is presumably how he sees his teammates. Note how he describes his beloved big brother, who in reality has been more of a quiet presence.
“Nnf, m-my head…” Gimmick is affected by the anti-mutant ray in the same way that the X-Men are, but apparently not as badly.
PAGE 15. The aftermath.
A nice counterpoint to the main scene – the Children got their big moment but it doesn’t actually lead to anything. They’re still just humans; the X-Men still tell them (nicely) to go home and stay safe. They won the day but didn’t get the transformation that plot convention demands.
PAGE 16. Data page. Described as Daycrawler’s “Chatter” feed, though the length of the messages suggests we’re looking at some sort of Twitter / Tumblr hybrid. CRADLE are looking for the Children of the Atom; the Krakoans at least put out a public message saying nice things about them.
PAGE 17. Carmen and Buddy.
Another scene of Buddy saying nice things about Carmen while remaining utterly oblivious to the fact that Carmen is in love with her.
PAGE 18. Benny and Jay-Jay are reconciled.
PAGES 19-21. Storm arrives.
Storm takes no offence at the Children posing as mutants, though she does describe them as “explor[ing] identities other than your own” – if they were hoping for her to call them honorary mutants or invite them to Krakoa, they’re going to be disappointed.
But Gimmick really is a mutant, whose powers have only just emerged, as we saw in issue #3. (Presumably, if the Children had made it through the gate in issue #4 before the U-Men attacked, Carmen would have arrived in Krakoa.)
Storm invites Gimmick to the Hellfire Gala, where we saw her briefly in X-Factor #10. Presumably we’ll get more of that next issue. Storm also claims that “The gala is open to all mutants”, but that can’t possibly be right. According to House of X #5, there are at least 100,000 mutants, and most of them are supposed to be on Krakoa – there’s no way on earth that they could all fit into the building.
PAGE 22. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: HELLFIRE GALA.
Maybe it was, technically, open to all mutants…but the majority of mutants don’t feel comfortable leaving Krakoa anymore.
Surely Maggott’s there to say “see, even this guy was an X-Man, you’re not even as good as this guy”.
(that said, I personally have a soft spot for Maggott)
This definitely looks like a book that’s two months late.
And maybe not long for this world, given the “to be concluded” tag and the absence of any issue solicited for September…
It probably needed to be a mini-series…says the guy who’s not reading the book.
Still.
Yeah I’m not sure about this book anymore.
All the built in conflict is being immediately tossed aside.
No one cares they’re pretending to be mutants?
No one cares they’re untrained kids running around representing mutants to the public?
Note: “The Third Species” was the book John Sublime wrote, so it’s specifically a U-Men term. As humans empowering themselves, though, they do align nicely with Hickman’s posthumans.
My real question from this issue is about Daycrawler wanting to be a director like Justin Lin or John Waters. 1) Those two directors could not be any more different, and 2) who is letting the 12-year-old watch John Waters films?
“ It probably needed to be a mini-series…says the guy who’s not reading the book.”
Historically a lot of these books effectively are minis, just not announced as such, since folks will buy (and stores will order) a new ongoing differently than a miniseries. Plus that means that they can quickly decide to move onto a second storyline if it looks promising quickly — or shut it down as planned if not without cutting things short.
While I’m only following these through places like here for now (I’m a Marvel Unlimited guy at this point in my “collecting” lifecycle), I see where titles like the recent X-Factor sound like they should have been followed that model, writing for a maxiseries length with enough open plot beats that could expand out into either another set of issues or other titles without having to suddenly rush-resolve things.
Maybe the Justin Lin/John Waters thing was meant to be a joke about immaturity, like when a kid says they want to be “an astronaut … or maybe a lion trainer” when they grow up.
I don’t know the original intent for this book, but it is structured like a miniseries. Six issues, five main characters, each narrate their own issue and we learn about them, and then a wrap-up next issue. X-Factor very plainly had long-term plans that had to rush to wrap some of it up in two issues, whereas this feels more self-contained. It was delayed by about a year due to COVID so it may have been retooled into a miniseries during that time, or maybe that was the plan for the opening arc all along.
“No one cares they’re pretending to be mutants?”
I quite liked this. They’re teenagers. When teenagers lie, sometimes they anticipate the reaction to the truth with more dread than it merits. That Cyclops and Storm were gentle and kind to “pretenders” rings far more true than Xavier’s “beat it, kid” to Franklin.
Especially since Cyclops was a Champion, I think that softness and empathy is a good look for him. I’d be far, far more creeped out if we saw Archangel calling the children liars or something.
So, these kids are basically Milli Vanilli?
The line about how it’s normal for kids to experiment with identities other than their own sets up an explicit parallel between mutant identity and sexual and gender identities (and lays out the book’s main theme). That’s occasionally happened previously in the line with characters like Northstar, but I can’t remember another book that’s taken this particular approach.
I’m going to miss this book — not only has the execution been pretty strong, but it’s actually about something, in the sense that its premise takes the line’s central metaphor and builds on it in a thought-provoking way. Like the Gillen/McKelvie run of Young Avengers, this has been a “young heroes” book interested in genuinely engaging with its protagonists’ youth and exploring both the good and bad parts of what it means to be young in 2021.
I wonder about the wisdom of cancelling both this book and X-Factor simultaneously. Regardless of the sales, I’d have thought there was room for at least one LGBTQ-focused book in the line.
I’m probably not going to miss this book. Nice art, but beyond that, it’s just kind of…meh.
I’m not saying every X-Men needs to want to crucify the kids. Reactions could range from acceptance to bemusement to annoyance to anger.
So quickly outing them as posers and having the X-Men be totally fine with things after almost no discussion is bizarre and sucks all the juice out of the story.
I wonder if they already knew the series was DOA when this was made.
Otherwise it’s truly baffling.
This book just isn’t great. The first two issues were much worse, it’s definitely picked up since then. But it’s never an exciting read for me.
Maybe Carmen is gonna make her way into New Mutants (same writer), I think that would be neat.
“since folks will buy (and stores will order) a new ongoing differently than a miniseries”
And yet nowadays Marvel will renumber back to number one as often as possible, and readers will recommend writer-of-choice’s run of issues. Maybe they should just announce most titles as minis, and extend them when they’re hits (I’m now remembering how the final issue of the original Transformers comic was no. 80 of a 4 issue series).
I’ve just never been able to get past the staggering lack of understanding on the part of these kids (who are big fans of mutants, after all) of how being a mutant actually works. Their repeated attempts to get through the gates just makes them look… dumb.
Well, if they know that sometimes humans can get through there’s no harm in seeing if they’ve finally been approvecd.