A Beautiful Bittersweet Conclusion: Reviewing ‘Children Of The Atom’ #6

A book that was revealed to apparently be full of human characters rather than mutant ones likely seemed like an odd fit for the overall vibe of this current Krakoa heavy X-Men era. Yet, Children of the Atom has become one of the best books of the era.

The extreme focus on not only great character work, of which Vita Ayala is a true master, but also the very best look at the overall deep relationship between X-Men books and the struggles and experiences of people that belong to real-life marginalized groups. It’s a true shame that this book is coming to an end, but on the way out it makes sure to hit more of these same topics but also really puts a light on some of the issues we see these days with allyship.

Over the years we’ve seen a great number of scenes play out where characters reveal their mutant status to loved ones, and more often than not it does not go well. When Carmen chooses to reveal her mutant status to her parents, we see glimpses of things that make us believe it might go one way but the actual direction of the scene is powerful in so many ways. It’s the type of reaction that so many people in real life would give anything to have happen to them when they chose to reveal to their loved ones the truth about themselves.

As mentioned above, the issue focuses heavily on Carmen’s journey as she tries to figure out what she wants to do as she’s now trapped between two worlds and some of her friends don’t take it so well. Buddy becomes the focal point in the exploration of how often those that purport to be allies can often only fit that descriptor when things revolve around them or their feelings are prioritized. Buddy so badly wanted to be a mutant, and there is a sting when they are angry that despite all their “hard work” that it was Carmen that turned out to be a mutant and not them. The rest of the group tries to offer support until Carmen calls them out for their other behavior and then they are lost because they no longer feel comfortable or in control.

All of this is focused through the idea that these are young people who all come from a variety of marginalized groups trying to find their place, and at the same time trying to deal with the same “who am I?” and emotional upheaval that comes with being a teenager.

Truly this is one of the greatest series and issues within the long history of the X-Men because it actually 100% and starkly explores the idea of the treatment of marginalized groups, power dynamics, allyship and so much more. Often the X-Men being an exploration of what marginalized groups go through is just something said about the books and often takes a back seat to the action or other matters. That’s not the case here. The book wore it on its sleeve every single issue.

The types of explorations and character work that Vita has brought to the line are incredible and hopefully, we get to see much more of this for a long time to come.

Paco Medina, Walden Wong, David Curiel, and Travis Lanham brought their A-game once more to finish this series off, bringing all these powerful moments to stunning life. This issue bounces back and forth between quieter character moments, the Hellfire Gala, a big action set piece, and back to quieter character moments rapidly and never once misses a beat.

Medina perfectly captures all of the emotional weight with the expressions and body language through some of the tense and powerful moments of this issue. It all feels real, and you can fully see the way that these characters are feeling while also hearing it with the way they are speaking. Helped by Lanham’s always wonderful lettering and dropping a lot of the right bolds and other emphasizing marks into the large amounts of dialogue he brings to the page.

A lot of the truly intriguing panel layout and playing with things popping out of one panel into another continues here, and it is still delightful. This return to really playing with how pages look and stepping out of the proverbial box is truly a really great thing to see.

Curiel’s color work always plays wonderfully with a lot of popping light colors but also with the dark and shadows that permeate to bring more weight to scenes. These colorful heroes are more muted in colors during their confrontation pages, the shadows creeping up as they go at one another instead of being the tight-knit fun group we saw before. This carries through the issue because even the beautiful Hellfire Gala is this way, with Carmen still stuck between the bright of what she wants/what she can have and the darker undertones of those realities.

Hopefully, this is not the last we’ve seen of these characters or of books like this that take a step beyond and truly explore. We need far more stories like this in our lives.

Children of the Atom #6 is now on sale in print and digitally from Marvel Comics.