Written by Vita Ayala
Art by Paco Medina
Published by Marvel Comics
More secrets unfold as our story reaches the fifth issue.
Just as the Children of the Atom are being captured by Dr. Barrington and her army of U-Men, thinking them to be mutants to harvest for powers … Nighty-Nightcrawler returns to the scene with the X-Men!
It’s nice to get right into action that also moves the plot and characters. The X-Men assert their politics and display their might and mature efficiency. The Children of the Atom show their promise.
Vita Ayala does a fine job weaving Jay aka Nighty-Nightcrawler’s narration to the action, as he describes his personal problems of belonging – in his blended family and as a half-Asian kid in America – and how being a superhero solves that for him.
It’s also not long before more of their secrets are found out – not only that the COTA are pretending to have these mutant powers, but that Carmen aka Gimmick is manifesting as a mutant with a whole other, undetermined power set.
What will this mean for the team going forward?
When Storm hand delivers an invitation to the Hellfire Gala for you and not your friends, that’s gonna sting.
But this also happens just as the same-sex attraction between Carmen and Buddy reaches another pitch. Carmen wasn’t even ready to come out as a mutant to her teammates when Storm arrived. So she surely isn’t ready to explore her feelings for Buddy, who is still (?) going out with boyfriend Gabe aka Cherub.
It’s a good issue mixing the soap opera and the big plot together nicely.
Just one more thing, though: One of the weird things about Marvel Comics is how you get the exposition in supplementary material more than the story proper.
Here, we get a report titled “A Study of the Powerful Gear Used by the Children of the Atom” that states that the kids are using alien technology of unknown origin, which we could only guess from the action of prior issues. In the person-by-person rundown, it is revealed that the kids theorize all the tech they are using to masquerade as mutant heroes may be for mining and construction.
We also get some file card-type info about a law restricting minors from unsupervised super-heroing, and some other stuff. Can’t they just weave more of this into the stories?
Just not their style, I guess.
