Gimmick takes center stage in this month’s exploits of our Genetically Generic Gen Z! Things are taking the turn for the strange for our Krakoan Kast-offs. We finally get a look at their past and a hint of the future in Children of the Atom #3 by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina, David Curiel, and Travis Lanham.
Kenneth Laster: A new month, a new artist, and a new point of view character! This issue definitely was a step forward with the metaplot of the series. It also keeps up with the character focus we’ve grown used to. I’ve been excited to learn more about Carmen because I love her design and the tidbits we’ve gotten so far. I was not expecting where we ended up here. What were your impressions?
Cassie Tongue: The twists, the turns! This issue demonstrates some of Ayala’s many strengths. Their ability to introduce more unexpected plot developments without losing sight of character beats makes them better. They’re well-matched here with Medina. Medina can bring the slightest unease out on a face with clarity without overplaying that hand. It’s important in this issue, which spotlights things Carmen can’t quite say: we can still read her loud and clear.
So, What’s the Gimmick?
KL: Children of the Atom gives a look at one of the kids in each issue. This time, it was Carmen’s turn. I was worried this issue would scoop up the focus of Carmen’s inner life and motivation, but I am wrong. Ayala gives Carmen a well-rounded character study on top of her surprising twist at the end. Best of all we are getting the gay little love triangle I thought I sensed in the first issue. What were your thoughts on Carmen?
CT: Oh, Carmen. I love Carmen. I love her big gay crush on her best friend. I love that she buys fragments of an old Magneto helmet for $500. I love that she talks about how to bring your individual self and soul to your cosplay. She’s an artist. Let’s not forget the art on her notebook and the Gay Panic when it winds up in Gabe’s hands! Ayala provides us with a gorgeous sensitivity to Carmen. One that places her firmly within the context of the group. Carmen gives and gives of herself because she thinks that’s all she has to offer.
The way Children of the Atom explores each character helps piece together how this friendship group has found and held on to each other. As much as we discover their bonds, we can also see the cracks within the group. It’s so hard to be honest about the stuff that keeps you up at night, especially when you’re a teenager. Carmen’s about to speak a lot of truths well before she’s ready. Let’s hope that the people she loves most will be able to listen and give her support.
KL: Carmen’s inner monologue is just so good and so relatable. It is incredibly well conveyed. I am truly more excited to see this love triangle explored than whatever’s going on at the end. There’s been some incredibly valid critique of this era of X-Book’s lack of WLW representation. The recent news of the relaunch of X-Factor definitely stung in terms of overall queer representation for the line. While there’s still a long way to go, I am so excited by this messy love triangle. I really hope this book outlives the ten-issue curse. As much as we love a feel-good romance, I am here for the mess.
Now for Carmen being special, I am more curious how this will play in with her dynamic within the group. She’s someone who gives so much of herself. I’m curious how that will play into her friend’s craving for that proximity to specialness. Is this going to cause a rift or force them to confront that within themselves? Every issue of Children of the Atom gives us little crumbs of stories, and I hope they are explored. As for what is going on? I am not entirely sure! I have to say I am getting the sense of some Brood shenanigans, what with the teeth and space, and all. I could be wrong! But boy oh boy, did Carmen give us a lot to ponder!
Image Search “Arthur Nagan Marvel” Right Now
CT: Cole, the star basketball player who has made an “uncanny” recovery after a terrible injury, has invited our band of merry mutant fandom nerds over for dinner. This certainly adds a new dimension to the story! A creepy dude with GIANT hands joins Cole and his dads. There’s a particular sinister vibe happening there. His name is Arthur Nagan, which explains the massive hands, dude’s Gorilla-Man! He’s grafting human and mutant tissue together. This immediately raises the book’s stakes. It also introduces some thorny social questions about identity. In particular, how these kids view and interact with people who may or may not be mutants. Kenneth, how did you feel seeing this dinner party implode? Ah, dinner parties in fiction. They never end well!
KL: I *thought* Arthur Nagan sounded familiar! I remember the podcast “Titan Up the Defense” talking about him when in their Defenders coverage, although I never looked up a picture until now. Cassie, that Google image result made me laugh and laugh. Just a mean-looking man stapled on the body of a gorilla. I love comics!
At least in this dinner party we get a payoff for Cole’s mystery healing and how it ties into the broader plot of this era of X-Men. It also provides us with a really interesting wrinkle. Across the line, we’ve seen humankind tripping over themselves to enhance themselves to combat mutant. Children of the Atom adds a more subdued version of using mutant abilities to enhance humans than we’ve seen in X-Force. It definitely raises questions that would be interesting to see explored further.
As for how our kids fawn over Cole’s proximity to mutantdom? It’s definitely embarrassing and awkward. However, Cole’s shutting them down felt very quick. Particularly in response to Gabe’s admission of feeling like he was failing him. The moment felt like it needed more time to breathe. Of course, that’s difficult in a stuffed issue like this one. I’ll also use this moment to say–I miss Bernard Chang a bit on this issue! Not an entirely popular opinion but I enjoyed the way he drew these characters, particularly Cole. The gap-tooth he gave him in the previous issues gave me a better sense of his character, whereas here I kind of lost him on the page. Medina does good work here still, there’s just an energy to the figures missing a bit. What were your thoughts on the dinner?
CT: I find it fascinating that we didn’t linger over the dinner party. By that, I mean the very personal parts of the party. Taking it in context with the previous two issues of Children of the Atom, I have to chalk it up to serialization. I don’t think Cole and the kids, especially Gabe, are done having this discussion yet. I’m starting to feel a real rhythm with Ayala’s storytelling. I trust that anything that feels skimmed will come back and pay off big. So much of Children of the Atom feels like the beginning of a big conversation. We’re only just learning how deep the conversation partner wants to go. It feels like testing the waters of an idea before we chase after it in earnest.
I find the interplay between Chang’s establishing work and Medina’s work in this issue interesting. Each artist brings a lot of love to characters, and for a series so invested in character, that’s crucial. I have to say Medina’s detail worked more for me, but that wouldn’t be possible without Chang’s work on the first two issues. In many ways, this issue feels like a natural progression. There is a kind of opening-up at play. I found the action and the feeling a lot more open here.
KL: In Vita We Trust! I just hope we get to see that mean man’s head on his gorilla body before too late.
CT: Kenneth, I almost wrote the exact same thing.
On An Outer Space Adventure?
KL: In addition to reveals regarding Carmen and Cole, we get a reveal of our kids making a crash landing as they return to Earth from space. This raises so many more questions than answers! It’s the first tangible tease for these characters being more complicated than kids playing dress-up. Thoughts on this development?
CT: Oh, I love this development. It’s the drip-drip of story I think we were all expecting to be packed in the first issue. We weren’t quite ready to go on a story that told its own narrative in its own time, but here it is. Three issues in, and we’re suddenly receiving deeply critical information that reframes and shapes everything we’ve read before. Who are these kids?!
Well, we know so much more about them. Yet, there’s so much more to learn. The final reveal changes more than we’re ready for. Especially after such close-up slice-of-life introductions. It’s a little breathtaking. It’s all revealed in a way that feels classically X-Men, the metaphor and action colliding. Thankfully it also feels fresh, there’s nothing safe or expected. This story could go in a hundred different directions. Did I mention space! It shows new levels of teamwork between the group. In turn, it reveals a little more about each character, to see them in crisis. Isn’t it nice to feel like we’re truly being taken on a journey?
KL: Honestly yes! The drip-fed nature of this comic may be a turn-off for some. However, the slow-building plot is one of the big draws for me. I know every issue is going to give me something to chew on and something to theorize over. Children of the Atom keeps me invested by having to engage with clues more than many of the other X-Books. Like, there may be a long game in them but I don’t know whether a thread will come up one or ten issues later. In Children of the Atom, we get a very focused and deliberate story which I appreciate.
The addition of space may break my “focused” praise a bit, however. It absolutely threw me on the first read and took me a minute to realize these children had been to space. As I’ve said before, this series is starting to give us answers. As we’ve come to expect though, that’s only opened a floodgate of new questions. In particular, who let these teens into space?!
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Krakoan Reads: “Children of the Atom”.
- Carmen has both Wolverine and Iron Man figures on her bookshelves and a Dazzler poster on her bedroom wall. I love how these kids have touchstones of fandom all around them! These kids interact with the things they love with their whole hearts, for better and for worse.
- For all that these kids stumbled on a spaceship that suddenly took them out of Earth’s orbit, they did a pretty spectacular job in getting themselves home. They can be courageous.
Kenneth Laster is a critic, cartoonist, and cryptid with a movie degree.
Cassie is an arts and culture writer living on Gadigal land in Australia. For 10 years she’s been working as a professional theatre critic, and is delighted to finally be writing about her other love: comics, baby.
