CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #6 - Preview

[Tycon]

No. Storm invited only Carmen.

While outing her

One unpleasant thought regarding the previous speculation:
spoilers:

Could it be that Carmen’s shapeshifting might not revert after death…

end of spoilers

This isn’t really anything like outting someone’s sexuality. At all.

And then there is the different scope in all of this.

The reveal with Icemen involved one of the very original five X-men, very well known even to a casual audience via cartoons and hollywood movies, who had never shown any real signs of not being straight (including when people could read his actual toughts) over 50 years of on pannel continuity, being being suddently retconned into being purely homosexual, in a "memetic" (awkward) drawn and written manner, in what was at the time one of the core books of the X-men franchise and under a writer who's name catches a lot of attention (one can say what one wants about the quality of Bendis writing, but at the time his name brought attention to things he wrote).

What ever one supports what Iceman got retconned into or not, the way it happend just lends itself to controversy and critical reactions in various forms, from all sides of the spectrum and personal views, who caught attention of it because of who and where it happend.

Compared to that, COTA is an allready failed satelite title, involving brand new characters, with next to no real history, who didn't manage to sustain much attention. So it's not like many would pay attention to something happening in it, which COULD be read as a resembling a situation in which someone gets outed against their will.

And then there is the fact that the main characters are allready on various parts of the sexual spectrum, of different ethnicities and highly supportive of the thing the character in question gets exposed as.

So let's recap. An openly homosexual female character of likely mixed non-white ethnicity, gets exposed without her consent, as also qualifying for a fictional group of people, defined by purely fictional super powers, originating from a fictional and unscientific gene, which have often (and at times overly bluntly) been used as stand ins for various real life minorities and their struggles, most notably people of african heritage in the USA and those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and which she and her friends (a straight black male, an asexual white male, a bi-sexual white woman, a straight(?) asian male) have also pretended to be part of for months because they are so keen on the idea of having super powers and being part of that specific group of super powered people, because it allows them to play out their super hero fantasies.

How is this situation then supposed to be read without exposing the mutant metaphor as quite ridiculous to apply in such a situation? Before anyone can get outraged over this, they would need to set up a conspiracy wall to pinpoint all the aspects. Which i would assume is too much work.

Compared to that Jean Grey digging into Bobby Drake's mind and outing him as homosexual without his consent (for either the mind reading or exposing), is a much more easier to explain situation.

The ‘mutant metaphor’ is about intersectionality. Intersecting identities and axes of oppression that can highlight how many societal structures exist, gain, and maintain power. That’s why Claremont made Ororo Munroe and Kate Pryde the main characters of his series, not Iceman. Storm, a Black woman, extending an invitation to paradise to Carmen, a Black girl, is way deeper than just ‘aww you outed the poor girl uwu’.

[butterflykyss]

Goodbye CotA. No one wanted or read you. May your characters survive their second appearance ever in an event in 10 years.

hear hear!!!

[butterflykyss]

She shouldn’t because A) being a mutant is a fake minority and B) she doesn’t know these kids. She wouldn’t have necessarily known that Carmen was hiding that she was a mutant, whereas Jean had to dig into Bobby’s mind knowing that this was a reality that he was uncomfortable with and make him have a conversation about his sexuality that he did not want to have.

right. false equivalency. Jean was garbage for doing that to Bobby.

[king of hybrids]

This isn’t really anything like outting someone’s sexuality. At all.

I was speaking strictly in the sense of disclosing that Carmen is a mutant. Even now with the de facto immortality thing that’s still taking a dangerous gamble

[Dipter]

Goodbye CotA. No one wanted or read you. May your characters survive their second appearance ever in an event in 10 years.

Is it over already? That was fast.

[king of hybrids]

Covid and the mess of Outlawed really killed this book before it even came out.

I’d welcome another mini because there’s way too much for one issue to wrap up, unless everyone but Carmen is dropped into limbo (and right into the event fodder shortlist)

[Baron of Faltine]

Is it over already? That was fast.

Yeah...I did not expected to last much, but damn that was fast and cold!
Marvel really did not had much don't say hope, but even a shred of interest in this comic seem.
At first perhaps, but after the few first issues they seemed to gave up completely on it

[Baron of Faltine]

No. Storm invited only Carmen.

While outing her

One unpleasant thought regarding the previous speculation:
spoilers:

Could it be that Carmen’s shapeshifting might not revert after death…

end of spoilers

Wait do you mean that...oohhhh..
Hmm food for thought

[mugiwara]

With all the power ups he got, I bet Eye Boy can spot the difference between a shape shifter and the real deal.

[pkingdom]

This series has been a mess precisely BECAUSE of its attempts at intersectionality. Since they're trying hard to push mutants as their own culture and identity instead of just as a (terrible) metaphor for black/LGBT/Latino/etc. people, it means these kids are superfans of a culture they aren't a part of. To the point of dressing up and disguising themselves as members of that culture, as well as POLICING MEMBERS OF SAID CULTURE ("You're giving mutants a bad name!"). If mutants were just treated like any other superheroes, the premise would be more innocent. Kind of quaint. Like Ms. Marvel being inspired by Captain Marvel to be a hero. Instead its like "I want to run away and be a part of this culture that I do not share". Its a team of Rachel Dolezols!

It honestly made it worse for me that we saw so much of their home lives and saw that 1) they had happy, stable home lives and 2) several of them had people in their own ethnicities/cultures/etc. who relied on them and their support. It made their obsession with being a part of a different culture seem almost nonsensical at best, and an unintentional put-down of the groups they were actually a part of at worst.

[Dipter]

So there's really no deeper reasoning behind their obsession with mutants? They're just fanboys? That's lame, I thought the mystery behind why they're imitating x-men was supposed to be the focal point of the narrative.

[Grunty]

(...) If mutants were just treated like any other superheroes, the premise would be more innocent. Kind of quaint. Like Ms. Marvel being inspired by Captain Marvel to be a hero.(...)

I keep thinking there could have been a fun or even interesting story behind the idea of normal human kids being inspired by mutant super heros to become super heros like them, to the point of direct immitation, innocently not considering the implication of pretending to be mutants in the process.

Or directly dreaming of becomming mutants because they look at them with rose tinted glasses via being overly focused on the heros with their good looks and great powers. Unaware of just how many mutants suffer from their status or have weak to bad powers.

Both scenarios which could have lend themself well to a story where they get hit by reality eventualy, either ending positively with them having learned their lesson and overcomming tension in their friendship, or ending in complete tragedy.

But i agree, it just didn't work for various reasons.

So there's really no deeper reasoning behind their obsession with mutants? They're just fanboys? That's lame, I thought the mystery behind why they're imitating x-men was supposed to be the focal point of the narrative.

Seems so.

The mystery was more supposed to be what ever they are mutants or not. Even the solicitation for this last issue still tries to play it off like a mystery, despite the very first issue more or less making it clear that they aren't (except for Carmen now).

Which i feel did the title more harm than good, since without pretending it to be a mystery but being upfront about it, they could have promoted the title more directly, reducing false expectations or speculation which only resulted in disapointment.

Besides that it was all about modern fan culture as seen on the internet, but applied in universe to mutants and their current time of prominence and power in the marvel universe. So yes. Fanboy/girls is all there was. The old interview trailer (talking about cosplayers, "zoomers", apps, internet culture) really showing what seems to have been going through their minds when they created this.

It's funny to look back at the pre-release and see many X-men readers being sure these kids had to be chimeras, because the premise given (either fans dressing up as X-men or a new generation of mutants who just happen to have the exact same powers as famous X-men) wasn't particular exciting for them and them being chimeras was the most interesting and involved in Hox/Pox thing they could seemingly think of.

[Journey]

It's kind of unfortunate this is legit an X-Men version of the Young Avengers, what made that team standout & work was the fact they were all able to evolve beyond Avengers Fanboys/Imitations & become their own characters, COTA are like in that first phase this entire run & besides maybe Carmen they'll never get to evolve to their next step, oh well sucks to suck I guess.

[Kurolegacy]

This series has been a mess precisely BECAUSE of its attempts at intersectionality. Since they're trying hard to push mutants as their own culture and identity instead of just as a (terrible) metaphor for black/LGBT/Latino/etc. people, it means these kids are superfans of a culture they aren't a part of. To the point of dressing up and disguising themselves as members of that culture, as well as POLICING MEMBERS OF SAID CULTURE ("You're giving mutants a bad name!"). If mutants were just treated like any other superheroes, the premise would be more innocent. Kind of quaint. Like Ms. Marvel being inspired by Captain Marvel to be a hero. Instead its like "I want to run away and be a part of this culture that I do not share". Its a team of Rachel Dolezols!

It honestly made it worse for me that we saw so much of their home lives and saw that 1) they had happy, stable home lives and 2) several of them had people in their own ethnicities/cultures/etc. who relied on them and their support. It made their obsession with being a part of a different culture seem almost nonsensical at best, and an unintentional put-down of the groups they were actually a part of at worst.

Honestly, given that Marvel is trying to sell the whole concept of a mutant culture, I’m kinda surprised that nothing of what these kids were doing in passing themselves off as mutants to the point of making the X-Men look like assholes in telling off the Avengers pertaining to them was seen as cultural appropriation at best and black face at worst.

[Lady Midnight]

Honestly, given that Marvel is trying to sell the whole concept of a mutant culture, I’m kinda surprised that nothing of what these kids were doing in passing themselves off as mutants to the point of making the X-Men look like assholes in telling off the Avengers pertaining to them was seen as cultural appropriation at best and black face at worst.

Not to mention the horrible derivative code names, and awful costumes.