Marvel’s New Young X-Men Aren’t Mutants, They’re [SPOILER]

Warning: contain spoilers for Children of the Atom #5!

The newest X-Men in Marvel’s universe have finally revealed their ultimate secret. Children of the Atom #5 provides answers to what exactly these young heroes are. Most of them aren’t actually mutants – they’re just humans.

The Children of the Atom – a group of teen heroes – has been patterning itself after the X-Men. Marvel’s classic heroes are their idols and they’ve been wanting to get to Krakoa to meet their heroes. However, all of their attempts have failed and this issue reveals exactly why that is.

Created by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina, David Curiel, and Vc Travis Lanham, Children of the Atom #5 reveals the extent to which this group of teen heroes has been lying. After being captured by the U-Men, the youngest member of the team – Jay Jay AKA Daycrawler – gets the help of the X-Men to save his friends. The U-Men are prepared with a way to neutralize their foes. They are equipped with power suppression technology. However, the Children of the Atom are completely unaffected and able to assist the X-Men, because as much as they’d like to be, they aren’t mutants. They’re just humans – or at least, most of them are.

Last issue, the Children of the Atom revealed how they replicate the X-Men’s powers. Now, there are no doubts left regarding who is a mutant and who isn’t. Only Carmen is actually a mutant – though she hadn’t revealed the truth to her friends. Otherwise, this is just a group of normal kids who happened upon technology that allowed them to be more than normal – even if only for a brief time. There’s no denying that this group works well together. They are able to effectively coordinate their “powers” against their enemies and impress the actual X-Men. This doesn’t change the severity of what they’ve been doing, however. It also doesn’t change how much of the X-Men’s time they’ve wasted.

It stands to reason that the Children of the Atom are imitating the X-Men because they want to be just like them. They want to save the day and have cool abilities. Yet Kamala’s Law, which prohibits teens from being superheroes, is still in place, meaning that they’re actually breaking the law – and have done so repeatedly. This law breaking already forced the X-Men to visit with the kids once before, though it didn’t serve as much of a deterrent. Furthermore, it put them at danger since they even fooled the U-Men into believing that they were legitimate mutants. This has wasted the X-Men’s resources when it comes to locating young mutants to take to Krakoa and this issue, it also puts the X-Men in actual danger.

This young group of heroes is able to successfully stop the U-Men and save the X-Men, but that doesn’t change the risk they incurred with their initial actions. The Children of the Atom want to be heroes and even have the potential for it, but with Kamala’s Law in effect they don’t seem to have a chance at lasting. They’ve already proven highly rebellious and the X-Men have their hands full with actual mutants. They wouldn’t be able to take on a bunch of wannabes; they can only accept Carmen since she’s a legitimate mutant. Other heroes haven’t been seen within this series, but it doesn’t seem likely that a mentor will be picking them up. The X-Men see hero work as too dangerous for the Children of the Atom, so they are unlikely to provide a recommendation to another hero. Marvel’s newest “X-Men” might have their hero days numbered.