Warning! Spoilers for Children of the Atom #2 ahead!
The team of young mutant heroes featured in Marvel’s new series Children of the Atom have a big problem that’s more in line with a common Spider-Man dilemma than anything the X-Men have traditionally faced. Every mutant in the world has been extended an invitation to come and live on the island of Krakoa, a nation established for mutants only. Many have taken up this offer and traveled through the gates of Krakoa to live in mutant paradise, but a select few have not. Children of the Atom centers around five teenage mutants who decide to remain in the human world and form a superhero team inspired by classic members of the X-Men.
In the past most mutant superhero teams, especially the ones with young members, have lived together in a location that serves as their base of operations. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is the most famous of these, though there have been others like the Massachusetts Academy. The environments have provided young mutants with not only guidance and training, but also a separation from the outside world that prevents them from needing to maintain secret identities while they carry on being superheroes. After completing their missions they could simply return to the mansion with the rest of their teammates. Having to duck out of social situations and come up with excuses for their absence was a problem left to more everyday heroes like Spider-Man or Daredevil.
In Children of the Atom #2, written by Vita Ayala with art by Bernard Chang, readers see these young heroes have to grapple with a harsh reality that Spider-Man has dealt with his entire career. The issue features narration from team member Gabriel Brathwaite, aka Cherub. While the group gets together for a Dazzler concert, Gabe spots his old friend Cole among the crowd. We learn that Cole was in the hospital with an unnamed illness, and that he first got into Dazzler when Gabe visited him and played him some music videos. He speaks from the heart about how Dazzler’s music gave him hope, and promises to save Gabe and his friends some seats inside the concert. As he walks away, Gabe and the rest of his team receive an alert and must leave to stop the villainous Hell’s Belles. Gabe is forced to abandon his friend without an explanation in the hope that he would understand, just like Peter Parker has had to do countless times.
As Gabe walks away from the concert to go fight the forces of evil, his narration sounds like it could be coming straight out of Peter Parker’s mouth. “Sometimes doing the right thing means you’re letting someone down. I know if Cole knew what we were doing, he would get it.” A classic staple of Spider-Man stories is the fact that he is constantly letting the people around him down while he fulfills his “responsibility” to go off and fight crime. Whether it’s skipping a date with Mary Jane or not visiting Aunt May while she’s in the hospital, the people in Peter Parker’s life always come second next to whatever criminal or crisis is popping up in Spider-Man’s world that week. This has damaged several of his personal relationships and has made Peter Parker come off as selfish and uncaring of others. Cole is likely to think the same thing of Gabe in Children of the Atom, given that Gabe seemingly ditched his friend at the concert. The fact that he did it after such a heartfelt talk and while Cole is getting over an illness just rubs salt in the wound. Gabe and his friends were really looking forward to that concert, too, but being a hero means giving up what they like in service of the greater good.
The teens in Children of the Atom are breaking new ground for mutant heroes. While early X-Men stories by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee sometimes had Beast or Iceman running out on dates with girls in Greenwich Village in order to battle villains, most mutants in Marvel Comics stories have not had to juggle school, family life, and secretly being a superhero. There has been speculation that the Children of the Atom are not actually mutants but just regular kids. If that is true, the fact that they are still choosing to sacrifice their personal lives and relationships in order to help people means that they are just as much heroes as the X-Men, Spider-Man, or anyone else.
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