X-men: Battle of the Atom #1 Review
September 11, 2013 3:36 am | Leave your thoughts
Spoiler Alert: events of this issue will be discussed in this review.
Just when I start thinking that I have to slog through another damn event book, Marvel comes along and surprises me. Writer Brian Michael Bendis begins Battle of the Atom with Magik slipping into the future to take a peek at things to come. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the X-men, it seems as though the Days of Future Past are a foregone conclusion.
Our story begins with the past X-men accompanied by Kitty Pryde traveling to intercept a powerful new mutant who has the ability to materialize and summon dragon-like creatures. Imagine Tank-Girl meets Daenerys Targaryen. Calling herself Animax, our heroes move in to stop her rampage through a crowded downtown metropolis when they are interrupted by a wave of mutant hunting Sentinels. Kitty Pryde’s strategic use of her intangibility powers saves them from the Sentinels initial strike, but the past X-men are completely surrounded and outgunned by their robotic adversaries. Luckily, the cavalry shows up in the form of present day Cyclops and his team of Uncanny X-men. Artist Frank Cho steps to the forefront with the arrival of present Cyclops and never relinquishes the reins. The page layout for the battle with the Sentinels illustrates how dominant the X-men can be when they work together. When past Cyclops takes a mortal wound in the waning moments of the battle, Cho shows us the catastrophic consequences that the past X-men have been tempting ever since they decided to remain in our time. His panels become fragmented as if by some sort of time quake as present Cyclops ceases to exist. As everything around them begins to unravel, Triage brings past Cyclops back from the brink of death. Present Cyclops reappears and the panels of the book slowly return to a more cohesive pattern. I must simply say “Bravo” to Cho for putting me on the edge of my seat with a genuinely Back to the Future paradox put down on paper for the first time in my experience as a comic book reader.
Back at the Jean Grey School, it is decided that the past X-men are going back to their time whether they like it or not. Suddenly, Beast’s Time Cube activates itself and out step a team of future X-men that we were teased within the first pages of this issue. Again, Cho outdoes himself with the character design on this team. Future Iceman and Beast are very easily identifiable even though they are vastly different than we have ever seen. Other members are apparently new variations on characters we haven’t seen for awhile. And I would swear one of them is Old Man Deadpool.
Fifty years of X-men mythos have led us to this point. I was very skeptical of what Bendis was doing when he brought the original team to our time. I have never been so thrilled to be so wrong about what to expect out of a Marvel title. Now I realize that AvX might still be subconsciously influencing me here since I totally supported Cyclops through that event, and now I find myself loving Battle of the Atom and hating Infinity. I truly hope that both titles knock my socks off, and I am glad to again be proven wrong. Sorry Thanos but I am giving issue one of Battle of the Atom a Tupperware. The story was great, and the art was inspiring. Between Gracia’s vibrant color scheme and Cho’s impressive design work, the opener to this story accomplished exactly what it should have. I am chomping at the bit to read more.
Tags: Animax, Battle of the Atom, Brian Michael Bendis, Cyclops, Frank Cho
Categorised in: Comic Reviews, Random Reviews & News
This post was written by David Griffin
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