X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #6 - September 2000

 

The Great Cathedral Space 

Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Essad Ribic (penciler), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Paul Mounts (colors), Richard Starkings (letters)

Summary:  The newly formed X-Men use Cerebro to track Professor Xavier to Metzger’s hideout.  Meanwhile, Magneto attacks a gathering of Metzger’s followers.  Holding Jean and Starkey (a.k.a. Scab) captive, Metzger sends his genetically-enhanced disciple Arthur to torment them.  Starkey uses his empathetic powers to absorb Jean’s wounds and saves her life.  He dies in the cold, shortly after the X-Men, Xavier, and Fred Duncan arrive to rescue Jean.  As Metzger tries to escape, he’s apprehended by Magneto and left to die in Earth’s atmosphere.  Later, Jean arrives at Xavier’s school for her first day.

Continuity Notes:  A news report following Magneto’s attack on Metzger’s followers says that Democratic candidate Robert Kelly is now running on a platform of identifying and registering mutants.  I believe that Kelly actually didn’t show an interest in the mutant issue until he witnessed the X-Men attack the Hellfire Club at the end of the “Dark Phoenix Saga.”  (Coincidentally, his first appearance.)  It’s also interesting to see Kelly identified as a Democrat, as he’s a Republican in the movie continuity, and was later described as an Independent during Chris Claremont’s 2000 run.

Review:  I initially dismissed this miniseries as pointless, and six issues later, I can’t say my opinion has changed much.  The art has been fantastic throughout, and Casey could occasionally find a few decent character moments, but most of this series has consisted of boring recruitment scenes and dull villains plotting vague schemes in shadowy rooms.  The initial hook of this series seemed to be Fred Duncan’s initial impression of Charles Xavier after he’s forced to face the mutant issue, but Casey apparently lost interest in Fred early on.  We never even discover who his imaginary friend was supposed to be during the early issues of the mini.  (And it’s just egregious for a miniseries to have dangling plot points.)  

The basic idea of a prequel miniseries focusing on Fred Duncan and Xavier is perfectly fine; it’s actually one I would rather read than a continuity reboot of the original X-Men’s origin stories.  I don’t see what’s been added by turning Cyclops, Beast, and Iceman into high school classmates, and making Beast responsible for an anti-mutant bigot’s death just seems unnecessary (and it’s another story point that’s simply forgotten by the final issue.)  Casey seems to think he’s making a grand statement on adolescence, but his characterizations of the X-Men just feel shallow for most of the series.  The story’s more engaging when Xavier, Magneto, and Fred Duncan get the spotlight, actually.  

As for this mini’s status as a continuity reboot, the best scenes are usually the ones that play on established continuity, making me wish Casey could’ve focused more on Angel’s career as a local crimefighter or the status of Xavier and Magneto’s relationship shortly before the X-Men’s formation.  The retconned material, such as the revamped Jack O’Diamonds, just reads like a pitch for a low-budget X-Men origin movie.  

X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #5 - August 2000

Where Your Children Are

Credits:  Joe Casey (writer), Essad Ribic (penciler), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Paul Mounts (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary:  Hank finally accepts Xavier’s offer to attend his school, joining Scott, Warren, and Bobby.  Later, Magneto meets Xavier in a bar, warning him of the upcoming war.  As the newly formed X-Men train in the Danger Room, Jean Grey is abducted from her home by Metzger’s agents.  Fred Duncan informs Xavier, who insists on rescuing her without the neophyte X-Men.  After he leaves, the team decides to go on their own rescue mission.

Continuity Notes:  Xavier’s conversation with Beast establishes that he grew up on a farm in Illinois, but doesn’t explain how he ended up in a New York high school.

I Love the '90s:  Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is parodied by a game show that focuses on the mutant issue.  (“Your next door neighbor is a mutant.  According to William Metzger, you should…A) Report him to the police…B) Move away…C) Exterminate him…D) Build a fence…”)

Review:  Five issues into the series and the X-Men have finally managed to put on a pair of black and gold tights.  Actually, I wasn’t expecting this to happen until issue six, so that’s a nice surprise.  Even if Steve Rude and Paul Smith are gone, I would probably have to label this issue the strongest so far.  Essad Ribic isn’t a bad replacement artist at all; in fact, his style is so compatible with Paul Smith’s, I wonder why he isn’t asked to fill in for him more often.  And in defiance of the previous issues, things are actually starting to happen now.  The villain is making his move, 4/5th of the X-Men have formed, and there’s a cliffhanger that might lead to more than just a conversation scene.  Plus, there are a few of the moments you probably want to see in an X-Men prequel series, such as Xavier and Magneto having a passive-aggressive chat, and the X-Men getting beaten up by the Danger Room for the first time.  Jean Grey also gets a nice scene with Metzger’s former follower that’s been cast out after his mutantcy emerged.  None of this is enough to change my overall opinion of the series, this is a book that had Beast kill someone as a part of his origin story in issue #2 and forgot about it until now, but at least it’s coming together as a more cohesive story.

X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #4 - July 2000

Child’s Play
Credits:  Joe Casey (writer), Paul Smith and Michael Ryan (pencilers), Paul Smith and Andrew Pepoy (inkers), Paul Mounts (colors), Jim Novak (letters)

Summary:  Scott Summers awakens inside Xavier’s mansion, still reluctant to join his side.  Meanwhile, Fred Duncan discovers William Metzger is working with his superiors.  Using technology taken from the Sentinel prototype, Metzger plans on helping the government locate mutants.  Later, Xavier invites Bobby Drake and Jean Grey to join his new school, while Magneto is rejected by a neophyte mutant.  Finally, masked men attack Warren Worthington’s home.  They’re stopped by Xavier, who asks Warren to join him.

I Love the '90s:  William Metzger appears on “Politically Inept with Bill Czar” to discuss the mutant issue.  This is a reference to Bill Maher's previous talk show, "Politically Incorrect." 

Review:  So, someone thought it would be a good idea to help the book’s deadline problems by replacing Steve Rude with Paul Smith.  That’s…c’mon…was Adam Hughes not available?  Smith doesn’t even last a full issue without needing a fill-in, although Michael Ryan’s pages thankfully aren’t a jarring transition.  This is possibly the finest looking issue of the series so far; Smith’s interpretation of the gawky teenage X-Men is fantastic, and Paul Mounts’ colors are competitive with any of the Photoshop coloring going on today.  

The story still suffers from far too much setup, however.  There are four different scenes in this issue of either Xavier or Magneto approaching a young mutant and asking him or her to join his side, along with more pages spent hinting that William Metzger is up to something nasty.  It’s been four issues now; the guy should’ve done something at this point to appear even somewhat menacing, but instead we’re stuck with more closed-door meetings and talk show appearances.  There is some action in the issue, though, as Angel is attacked in his home by a Marvelized version of the Klan.  This hate group wears black hoods and burns Xs on lawns instead of crosses, though, so you’ve got to be a sharp reader to pick up on the connection.  (They’re such a prosaic, and easily filmable, villain for the X-Men to face, I’m surprised they haven’t made it into any of the X-Men movies yet.)  Michael Ryan handles the action well, and the colors used on the flame effect as the house burns look great, but this is still a meager amount of action in a comic filled with monotonous conversation scenes.

X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #3 - June 2000

Children of a Lesser God
Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Steve Rude (penciler), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Paul Mounts (colors), Jim Novak (letters)

Summary: William Metzger appears on television, waving a copy of a celebrity magazine, asking which stars could be mutants. Warren Worthington, who’s still acting as a vigilante, is shocked to see his face on the cover. Later, Magneto attempts to recruit him, but Warren refuses. Meanwhile, Fred Duncan informs Professor Xavier that Jack Winters is a known felon. Xavier follows Winters and Scott Summers to the nuclear plant Winters is robbing. When Scott refuses to use his powers on a guard, Winters violently beats him. Scott finally strikes back, but spares Winters’ life. Xavier offers Scott a new home.

I Love the '90s: A news report details a charge by the White House that a certain intern had “alluring” mutant powers. A silhouette of Monica Lewinksy is superimposed over the White House.

Review: Yes, this looks pretty. And as a modern reimagining of some old back-up stories, it’s decent enough, but the series still feels largely pointless, and it’s reached the halfway point by now. The issue opens with even more scenes of young Iceman being really cold, the generically evil William Metzger is still recruiting teenagers, a scene reminds us that Fred Duncan is talking to an invisible “Bill,” Angel is still a local vigilante, and numerous TV news montages remind us yet again that people are really afraid of mutants. If Casey were desperate to fill pages, you’d think he would at least find a way to check in on Hank and Jean. I do honestly like the idea of young Bobby Drake practically freezing to death, and Angel’s vigilante scene in this issue is great, but I feel as if we’re covering the same ground repeatedly, all for a story with a predestined ending. The numerous shipping delays during the book’s original run surely didn’t help the series’ pacing, either.

X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #2 - December 1999

All Children Wear the Sign
Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Steve Rude (pencils), Andrew Pepoy (inks), Paul Mounts (colors), Jim Novak (letters)

Summary: Professor X futilely reaches out to Cyclops, who’s secretly living with criminal Jack Winters. Meanwhile, a group of anti-mutant teens is armed by a militia leader. After Beast stops them from harming Iceman at school, he’s targeted by the bullies with a sniper rifle. When Beast knocks one of them off the top of the stadium’s bleachers, the teen dies. Beast becomes an outcast, but still resists Professor X's help. Later, one of the bullies, Starkey, develops mutant powers. Elsewhere, Jack Winters plans the robbery of a nuclear plant.

Continuity Notes:

· The Sentinel from the previous issue is dismissed as a prototype. Fred Duncan tells Xavier that Trask denies the robot was his creation, but he knows Trask is lying. This might be an attempt to ease the series more closely into continuity, but I don’t know why the creators would’ve bothered.

· Jack Winters is the Silver Age villain Jack O’Diamonds. Jack O’Diamonds was a diamond-themed supervillain who played a role in Cyclops’ original origin story; he’s been recast as an average thief for this miniseries.

Review: Joe Casey has said before that Bill Jemas would’ve released Children of the Atom as Ultimate X-Men if the line had existed in 1999. It’s easy to see how this miniseries influenced the line; the slow-motion formation of the team, the constant attempts to show realistic reactions to mutants, and the “grounding” of some of the more fantastic and/or ridiculous characters, such as Jack O’Diamonds. At best, this is a modern reinterpretation that makes decades-old stories more palatable to a modern audience. At worst, it’s a needless apology made by creators embarrassed to be working on this material in the first place. I wouldn’t throw Joe Casey into that crowd, but many of the people brought into Marvel in the subsequent years clearly couldn’t hide their contempt.

I wasn’t as adamantly opposed to the Ultimate line as some fans were, but I quickly realized it served no real purpose, and I think it was obvious within a few years to everyone that Marvel had no idea where to go with it. It’s easy to start over. It’s even easier to “ground” all of the superhero elements, as if you were on a cable TV budget. It’s hard to keep the audience’s attention for more than a few months with this approach, though. I think time has shown the faux-Bryan Singer approach to superhero comics is just another gimmick that should be used sparingly.

And even though I cite Bryan Singer, I have to acknowledge that Casey wrote this at least a year before the first X-Men movie was released. He was clearly on to something; a segment of the audience wanted to see “fresh starts” for the books, and was more than happy to dismiss anything from the past that could be viewed as silly. The success of the first X-Men movie in 2000 unfortunately gave Marvel license to “ground” everything (overlooking one of the major reasons why Singer downplayed many of the fantastic elements of the X-Men was due to budget concerns), and since continuity was something too dorky to be concerned with, it seemed like almost everything Marvel published was a retelling or reimaging of an already published story with some absurd “relevance” tacked on to it. None of those comics had Steve Rude art, though.

Have I gone on a prolonged tangent that has little to do with Children of the Atom? Probably. But there isn’t a lot to say about this issue. The X-Men are moody teens who are too dumb to accept help when they clearly need it, Fred Duncan grows more sympathetic towards mutants, and some bigots do bigoted things. The pace is excessively slow, especially when you consider that everyone knows how the story is going to ultimately end. But, again, Steve Rude’s art makes even the most mundane scenes more tolerable.

X-MEN -CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #1 - December 1999

Childhood's End

Credits: Joe Casey (writer), Steve Rude (penciler), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Paul Mounts (colors), Jim Novak (letters)

Summary: As the public learns of mutants, activist William Metzger recruits young people into an anti-mutant militia. FBI agent Fred Duncan is assigned to investigate mutants, which brings him to the attention of Professor Xavier. With Duncan’s help, Xavier works undercover at a school with a suspected mutant population. At the school, new student Scott Summers is ostracized, Hank McCoy is a football hero, and Bobby Drake is overcome with mysterious chills. Meanwhile, Warren Worthington has begun his career as the vigilante Angel. When he’s attacked by a Sentinel, Magneto saves his life from the shadows.

Continuity Notes:

· This series was intended as a prequel to 1963’s X-Men #1, with Joe Casey picking and choosing which retcons he would acknowledge. The idea that Cyclops, Beast, and Iceman all went to the same high school is new to this series, and contradicts numerous stories.

· The timeline of Angel’s vigilante career is also a continuity problem. He’s inspired by newspaper reports of other heroes like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, yet the newspaper with Captain America on the cover doesn’t fit, since Cap wasn’t revived until a few months after the X-Men were formed. Also, the Sentinels weren’t created until several months after Xavier recruited the X-Men.

· Chris Claremont’s retcon that Xavier mentored Jean Grey before forming the X-Men is left intact. Xavier visits her parents this issue, asking their permission to send Jean away to his new school.

I Love the '90s: A Marilyn Manson analogue named “Charlie Monroe” appears on a MTV parody station during one of the media montage sequences.

Review: Marvel’s obsession with revamping origins and altering the past predates the days of Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas; one of Bob Harras’ most infamous misfires was Spider-Man: Chapter One, a year-long retelling of the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man issues by John Byrne. Previously, Marvel’s strict rules on continuity prevented such projects. As Mark Gruenwald used to say, Marvel didn’t need to reboot their characters because they got them right the first time (Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr.’s Daredevil: Man without Fear was apparently never supposed to be canon, according to people who worked for Marvel at the time). Chapter One was vilified by the fan press and online fandom, not simply because it was a bad comic, but because it was utterly pointless and clearly a violation of the old Marvel spirit preached by people like Gruenwald. So, why on earth was Marvel doing the same thing to the X-Men?

Joe Casey used to promote Children of the Atom by swearing that it was not a Chapter One project; he didn’t even want to hear those words. He seemed cagey over whether or not Children of the Atom would openly contradict any previous comics at first, but eventually had to admit that the old X-Men backup strips that told the origins of the original cast were out-of-continuity (except for Angel’s, which he apparently liked). Casey defended the decision by citing the lack of times those backups have ever been reprinted or even referenced in other comics. I understand his point, and I’m not going to defend those goofy comics, but this set a dangerous precedent. A story can’t count if it hasn’t been reprinted? Any story can be erased if enough people don’t know about it? If you’ve reached that point, you should just abandon the idea of “continuity” altogether.

Judging the book on its own merits, this is an acceptable opening issue. Steve Rude’s doing a lot to support a rather thin story, but Casey also adds enough personality to the plot to keep it from becoming a bland origin retelling. FBI agent Fred Duncan, a forgotten character from the past, mostly serves as the reader’s point-of-view character, and he’s thankfully given an opportunity to live up to some of his squandered potential. Duncan doesn’t seem to have strong views either way on the mutant issue, which is one reason why Xavier finds it necessary to form a partnership with him before it’s too late. Casey portrays Duncan as a cynic, but not a bigot, using him as a plausible spokesman for the average citizen who’s just discovered that seemingly normal teenagers might have horrific powers. Hardcore fans know that Duncan serves as the X-Men’s government contact in the early issues, but Casey adds one mystery that existing X-trivia won’t be able to solve -- why is Duncan constantly talking to an imaginary friend named “Bill”?

Unfortunately, the story isn’t immune to some of the common mistakes found in these origin retellings. Those original backup strips might seem silly by today's standards, but they don’t expect the audience to believe anything as implausible as three mutants attending the same high school. Even in the days of new mutants popping up everywhere, I don’t think anyone tried to stretch credibility this far. The early issues of X-Men established only a few dozen mutants across the entire globe -- placing three in the same high school during this era is an insane choice. It’s the kind of plot convenience you see in the lesser movie adaptations of comic book properties; doing it in an actual comic comes across as especially lazy. Casey could’ve used any number of contrivances to get Beast, Cyclops, and Iceman into the same high school (especially when you consider that the man recruiting the team is a telepath) without resorting to a massive coincidence. And, honestly, I wonder how much is to be gained by making three of the original X-Men classmates. More John Hughes jocks vs. geeks, rebels vs. preps material?

Overlooking this mistake, and my general distaste for prequels and origin updates, I am interested enough to see what happens next. At this point, Casey and Rude are smart enough to keep the momentum going, and to throw in some action scenes. The closing Angel/Sentinel battle, which has an incredible sequence with a Sentinel plowing its way through a row of parked semi-trucks, is more than enough to warrant a second issue.