Children of the Atom #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #6
“Party of One”
by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina, Walden Wong & David Curiel
This is the final issue of the series.
COVER / PAGE 1: Gimmick walks away from the rest of the team, towards a Krakoan gate that only she can use.
PAGES 2-3. Carmen argues with her teammates.
This scene picks up from the end of issue #5, where Ororo shows up to give Carmen her invitation to the Hellfire Gala. Apparently Ororo left straight away, rather than stick around for this awkward conversation.
“You lied to us about who you are.” Hypocrisy klaxon. The whole point of Children of the Atom is that the team have been pretending to be mutants when they weren’t. But this is also a callback to issue #1, where Buddy was self-righteously denouncing the school bigots, not simply for their opinions, but because “Spreading lies can get people hurt or killed.” Even without her tantrum about being left behind by Carmen, Buddy has always been seemingly oblivious to her own hypocrisy on this issue.
“Buy[ing] all this weird mutant crap off the internet…” The example we’ve been given in previous issues was fragments of a damaged Magneto helmet which was used to make improvised psi-shields.
“You literally faked being Cole’s friend…” Issues #3-4. Carmen’s summary of the plot is basically accurate. Incidentally, that subplot about Cole getting powers from some sort of mutant experimentation organised by Gorilla-Man never went anywhere, which rather suggests this is a premature cancellation. But it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this issue’s story (and Ayala is undoubtedly making the right choice in just ignoring it).
“How’s that any different than the U-Men who captured us for parts?” Issues #4-5. The answer, of course, is that the U-Men were going to vivisect the Children without consent, while Buddy just stole a shirt. But Carmen’s basic point that Buddy was treating him as a means to an end without his consent is fair enough.
“Enjoy being superior with your new people.” Referencing the homo superior name for mutants, which come to think of, we don’t hear so much these days.
“Sin vergüenza.” “Shameless.”
PAGE 4. Data page. An invitation to the Hellfire Gala (which we’ve seen many times before), with a short note from Storm tacked on. Note that Storm invites Carmen to “begin thinking about your mutant name” even though she knows that Carmen has a codename already. It doesn’t count, as far as she’s concerned.
This is a belated and un-marked tie-in to the Hellfire Gala crossover that ran through most of last month’s X-books.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGE 6. Carmen goes through the gate.
The first time we’ve seen any of the Children actually go through a gate despite trying in virtually every issue. According to issue #5, Carmen got her invitation on the eve of the Gala, so either she’s working incredibly quickly to produce a gown, even by her standards, or she already had something to work with.
“I have a stream…” Her sewing stream, which we saw in issue #3.
PAGE 7. Storm introduces Carmen to the Gala, and she meets Mystique.
Jumbo is Jumbo Carnation, the mutant fashion designer seen mainly in Marauders.
“Goldballs is Egg now?” Goldballs changed his name to Egg on becoming one of the Five (back in House of X). The Five, and the whole resurrection process, are not public knowledge outside Krakoa, and evidently the Five’s activities remain unknown even to obsessives like the Children.
The characters seen in page 7 panel 1, from left to right: Rogue, Mr Sinister, Carmen, Storm, Psylocke, Wolverine (Laura), Wolverine (Logan), Domino, Frenzy, two randoms who I assume are celebrity cameos, and Nightcrawler.
PAGES 8-9. Carmen meets more mutants.
In page 8 panel 1, left to right, that’s Northstar, Prestige (with Amazing Baby), Gloriana / Meggan and Jean Grey. Jean is talking about the Summers’ home on the moon. Carmen is being given the VIP treatment considering that on one level she’s just another mutant. But she did help save the X-Men last issue.
In page 8 panel 4, left to right, that’s Magik, Gambit, Banshee, Captain Britain, Cannonball, Carmen, Kate Pryde, Colossus, some guy with horns and tattoos that I don’t recognise, probably another couple of celebrity guests, and Dr Strange. Carmen is now starting to look a bit lost without anyone she knows around her.
“Good to see you out of school…” The school is Strange Academy, from the series of the same name.
Hell’s Belles. The two women in page 8 panel 5 are Tremolo and Vague from Hell’s Belles, who fought the Children in issues #1-2 and were carted off to Krakoa at the end. Their third member Flambé appears on the next page. Oddly, we only see here the three depowered Belles, and not their teammate Briquette, who was with them in that story.
Mirage. Note that Carmen dutifully addresses Dani by her mutant name and is told not to. Our attention is drawn to the fact that Dani is paying more attention to Carmen than to the Avengers (though honestly, the Avengers barely know Dani, so it’s not obvious why they’d expect her to come over).
PAGE 10. Eye-Boy shows Carmen round.
We saw some of this in X-Factor #10.
The characters in panel 2 are the Thing, Synch, Carmen, Eye-Boy, Jubilee and Iceman.
Dazzler. The Children were going to a Dazzler show in issue #2.
Jumbo Carnation, mentioned earlier, is the guy in the last panel.
PAGE 11. Carmen reflects on her existing friends.
PAGES 12-15. Carmen tells her parents.
We saw Carmen’s parents, Carlina and Alejandro (who’s named here), briefly in issue #3. They seemed nice enough. We establish here that Alejandro is her stepfather. Alejandro is not keen on Krakoa, citing mainly pragmatic arguments that he worries about it provoking a backlash – though the flashback we get of him watching Professor Xavier on TV suggests he’s got wider issues than that. Still, he seems genuine enough in his response to Carmen.
“¿Qué importa que la nena sea queer?” “What does it matter if the girl is queer?” Although it’s not what Carmen was trying to tell them, they’re right, as we saw in issue #3.
“¡Mira quién habla, viejo!” “Look who’s talking, old man!”
“Lo que sea…” “Whatever happens…”
“Te amo, papa.” “I love you, dad.”
PAGES 16-18. The Children fight Hordeculture.
Hordeculture are elderly mad-scientist botanists from X-Men. Their names are Opal Vetivier, Augusta Bromes, Edith Scutch and Lily Leymus. From the look of it, they’re here to steal Krakoan plants that were on display ni a botanic garden.
Carmen shows up to help as Gimmick, and using her technology rather than her powers. That’s partly symbolic, though it’s unlikely that trying to rely on her powers would have got her very far anyway, given how little experience she has with them. Although she does shapechange to post as one of Hordeculture near the end.
PAGES 19-23. Everyone makes up.
This is a rather obvious exercise in trying to tie up the emotional loose ends before the series ends, and I’ll come back to the actual content of it when I review the series. Basically, everyone now agrees that the Children of the Atom were engaged in cultural appropriation and that this is a Bad Thing, and Carmen’s love for Buddy (established in issue #3) is reciprocated. This feels very much like a destination we were meant to get to some way further down the line.
PAGE 24. Data page. The Children release a video confirming that most of them are humans (but, apparently, keeping the cosplay-heavy identities they were using before).
WeaponXtra is Benny; ArchivistX is Buddy. CRADLE are still trying to enforce Kamala’s law against them, though probably not very vigorously, since CRADLE was largely shut down in Champions #4-5. (That story has to take place before the Hellfire Gala, as it features Storm as one of the Marauders. Fortunately, Champions #6 helpfully confirms that the law is still on the books for a while after, so we don’t have an outright continuity problem here.)
PAGE 25. The Children see Carmen off through the portal.
This calls back to all the scenes of the kids trying to go through this portal during the series; they’re now accepting the fact that it’s not for (most of) them.
PAGE 24. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: SEE YOU SOON.
Carmen does use her powers in the fight against Hordeculture, posing as one of them to get the flower back.
I may be wrong, but I think the person in pink/purple on page 7 is Vita Ayala.
Yeah, this was as good an ending as could be asked for, but it’s a shame this book was pretty much DOA long before it even came out.
Unfortunately spending five issues introducing the characters isn’t really a sustainable model nowadays, resulting in very little happening.
Why does no one ever acknowledge that there aren’t any laws against killing mutants, so the Hell’s Belles could have tortured and murdered Carmen without consequence.
New book idea- Krakoa SVU. It only lasts one issue because the cast realizes sexual assault and pedophilia isn’t against the law.
Yeah I thought Gimmick was an odd name for a Gambit themed hero, but it makes more sense when she’s revealed as a shape shifter.
Ah, she does use her powers, yes. I’ll fix that.
I’m assuming Carmen will be shuffled into New Mutants, so I’m curious where Ayala plans to take it.
That Mystique might be interested in training her could really take the character in an interesting direction, and I’d hope to see that.
Most of the COTA feel like solid and genuine people, but I can’t help but suspect that, if the relationship with Buddy goes bad, we will see Buddy heading an incarnation of the U-Men eventually. She has the makings of a strong villain, and while I’m glad that was dispelled for the resolution, I doubt that ugliness we see in her has been cleansed.
I’m a bit torn on this issue. I like where the characters ended up, and it’s fairly clear that these subplots were meant to play out over a longer period. But ending the story with a 5-page wall of text in which the characters explain their emotional arcs is not ideal. I might have gone with just a scene between Buddy and Carmen, instead of having the entire team there.
Nonetheless, this was one of my favourite books in the line, and I definitely like the appropriation angle built into the premise. That’s a good idea for a book, and this was a more satisfying ending than we got from X-Factor. I’m glad Vita Ayala is sticking around as the writer of New Mutants, and I hope Carmen’s story will continue there.
Interesting that we never returned to the brief flashbacks of the team’s origin story. That material couldn’t really be frontloaded without giving away the twist that these kids weren’t mutants, but even in the Marvel Universe, “finding a random crashed alien ship” is pretty arbitrary. I wonder if the crashed ship would have dovetailed with the backstory of Buddy’s father being saved from an alien invasion by the X-Men.
@Mathias — I don’t know if I’d call it ugly, but I agree that Buddy having envy as part of her motivation makes the character more interesting. It wouldn’t surprise me if the original plan was to keep Buddy and Carmen at odds a little longer, and maybe even to do a story involving Cole with Buddy positioned as an antagonist (though probably not an outright villain).
In contrast to the somewhat heavy handed ending, I thought the fight at the start of this issue was very convincing.
I definitely wanted to learn more about the spaceship — who was bringing a load of alien weapons to Earth — and hope that Vita gets a chance to touch on this in a future story. Was it ever stated what exactly happened to the ship? Did the kids impound it, or grab what they can and go?
COTA stopping by Chaparanga is a storyline I’d like to see (although I hate Aaron’s interpretation of it as Mos Eisley instead of a toxic junkyard.)
I wish this series came earlier. There was (and still is) a bad need for some questioning of Xavier’s politics in Krakoa. On that regard Carmen’s father is spot on.
Just read the final issue of Runaways, which has been fantastic.
This is dead. X-Factor is dead.
There really is no place for gay or minority or young characters in big two superhero comics is there?
Or things written by not men.
And I say this as a straight white guy.
But we get a series of Kid Venom with a Chain for Some Fucking Reason.
Sigh.
I don’t know though, how much of this is due to the markets? I don’t pay *that much* attention, but things like Runaways and Children of the Atom seemed to be promoted well enough, and they have guest stars and everything. Venom and his associated goo monsters are popular with Marvel buyers, I don’t think it’s necessarily down to there being no industry support for diversity.
Venom 3: Associated Goo Monsters
A nice series, but… kerplunk. I’m not sure what happened here, since I doubt it was always intended to be a mini–not from the leisurely pacing and hasty wrapup of various plot threads… It feels a little like Marvel is trying to clean up some of its pandemic-delayed loose ends and start fresh, hence this cancellation, and Runaways…
So if Carmen is a mutant, that means she must have always had the X-gene inside of her. So why didn’t the gates work for her until she manifested actively? I mean, depowered mutants manage to end up on the island, so how do the gates keep out someone who’s just an unmanifested mutant?
I wish we could have gotten more of the slow Carmen/Buddy relationship burn instead of the wall o’ feelings at the end.
But I’m sure the author will find a way to work in some of the leftover COTA stuff in their other stories.
The way I see it, the gates must be unable to detect whether anyone is an unmanifested mutant. Were they not, at some point someone would dare going through them and find out there and then that he or she happens to be a mutant. It is a very short step from that event to a constant influx of previously unknown mutants into Krakoa. An interesting setup on its own merits, but it does not seem to be what we have.
A mutant’s mutation usually manifests at puberty, right? So what about all of those little mutant kids we’ve seen on Krakoa? They can’t have hit puberty yet at the age they’re drawn…
Have we seen Carmen specifically try to go through a gate? Or was she always in the back of the group? Meaning, Buddy etc. tried and failed and Carmen just hung back without trying to go through herself?
“A mutant’s mutation usually manifests at puberty, right? So what about all of those little mutant kids we’ve seen on Krakoa? They can’t have hit puberty yet at the age they’re drawn…”
Not always. Jamie Madrox, for example, split into two when the doctor spanked him after he was born, and Angel/Beak’s kids straight up hatched out of eggs. And of course, Hope famously manifested straight away. And of course, some people manifest as older teens, or even adults. So MOST of the time mutant gene manifests at puberty, but there’s enough outliers that it’s not a hard rule.
One might compare it to mental illnesses — many emerge at puberty, or even adulthood, but some are evident straight away.
The first non-teen mutants I remember seeing in the X-books were Artie and Leech in X-Factor.
There could be earlier examples, but I remember being impressed by their young age at the time.
Franklin Richards is (or was until recently) another example of mutant powers manifesting before puberty.
All good points. Thanks, folks!
Just to be the complete opposite to everyone else I had no strong feelings on the comic until now and this won me over. But was it ever going to be an ongoing? I’m sure I saw it as a miniseries right from the start, perhaps I’m just assuming that because it was a cast of unknowns.
But maybe someone on Krakoa should be taking notes, the CotA took down Hordeculture who have inexplicably managed to beat actual X-Men in the past.
Since when can Cerebro tell the nature of a mutant’s power? Is this part of its modern era upgrade? I’m sure it’ll be contradicted some time soon.
This series never really worked for me. The answer to the central mystery turned out to be “amateur mutant experts don’t understand that mutants don’t get their powers from alien gadgets” which frankly made them look like dolts. I get the theme re: cultural appropriation and wannabes and all that, but at the plot level it’s weak.