Warning: contains a preview of Children of the Vault #3!Marvel’s answer to the Flash just showcased her deadliest power – and the X-Men need to be very afraid. The Children of the Vault are hyper-evolved humans who plan to conquer and replace all life on Earth – starting with mutants. Recently, they began presenting themselves to humanity as a new hero team, but they have dark plans once they’ve been accepted by society. One member, Prisa-38, is fast becoming Marvel’s ultimate speedster, but the latest issue confirms she’s way more than just ‘fast.’
In a preview of Deniz Camp, Luca Maresca, Carlos Lopez and Cory Petit’s Children of the Vault #3 shared by Marvel, Cable and Bishop continue their assault on the Children by firing micro-singularity bullets – weaponized black holes – at their floating base. In response, the Children deploy their ‘heroes’ in response.
Literally bred for her speed over thousands of years, Prisa is able to harness two of the black hole bullets, manipulating time such that millions of years pass around them, rendering them harmless. Prisa’s ability to fastforward a target over relative millennia is a terrifying power – and just one of millions the Children of Tomorrow have at their disposal.
Marvel’s Flash Is a Master of Speed
Prisa has already shown the ability to travel at near-light speeds and punch out a Hulk-level villain like Blastaar, but this ability is a terrifying, god-level feat. The Vault is able to control the flow of time within its confines, and the Children are the result of endless generations of adaptive evolution. In the case of Cable and Bishop’s attack, it seems the Children paused time to strategize the perfect response. With the power to withstand multiple black holes fired right at them, the ability to strategize any eventuality in picoseconds, and their lab-made mental virus spreading across Earth, it’s difficult to see how two mutants can bring down the Children of the Vault. If even just Prisa gets her superfast hands on Cable and Bishop, they’ll be aged to dust in an instant. In DC lore, Flash uses abilities like this to protect the Earth from threats like Darkseid, but in Marvel’s case, the ultimate speedster is one of an army of villains.
An Evil Flash Could Mean the End of Mutantkind
With the rest of the X-Men dead or scattered across the galaxy, and human heroes infected by a virus that pushes them to trust the Children, Cable and Bishop are all that’s left to address the threat posed by the Children of the Vault, however neither of their powers is anywhere close to Marvel’s evil new Flash. Cable has incredible telekinetic and telepathic abilities, and Bishop can absorb and redirect energy, but neither has any protection against being aged at a rate that renders a black hole harmless in seconds. What the two do have is an arsenal of future weaponry and the guile of soldiers who fought their way out of their respective apocalyptic futures, but their latest assault suggests they have no concrete plan for ending the threat posed by the Children.
Cable and Bishop are on a deadline – the Children’s plan is to enact a process which will kill the majority of life on Earth while turning the few remaining humans into members of their kind. With this one assault confirming at least three of their number can take a black hole face-on and triumph, that plan is so far going on without a hitch. To save humanity and mutantkind, the X-Men‘s Cable and Bishop will need a plan – and a weapon – that can kill Marvel’s evil Flash… and then hundreds of thousands more like her.
Children of the Vault #3 is coming from Marvel Comics October 18.
