Review: X-Men - Battle of the Atom

When a group of mutants claiming to be the future X-Men show up on the doorstep of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, they make it their mission to ensure that the time-displaced X-Men from the past return to where they belong. There’s just one problem – they don’t want to go back. Fleeing from Wolverine and his school, the time-displaced Jean Grey and Cyclops go on the run, and find unlikely allies in the elder Cyclops and his rogue team.

X-Men: Battle of the Atom collects X-Men Battle of the Atom #1-2, All-New X-Men #16-17, X-Men #5-6, Uncanny X-Men #12-13, and Wolverine and the X-Men #36-37, and is written by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, and Brian Wood.

As the first major X-Men crossover since 2011’s Age of X, Battle of the Atom is fairly modest in comparison to its predecessors. It’s not as expansive and intense as Messiah Complex or its sequel Second Coming, as it takes a more intimate approach with its narrative and character treatment. Rather than dealing with the assembly of multiple teams of X-Men as they fight a common foe, this crossover places Jean Grey and Cyclops at the core of a conflict that divides the X-Men themselves. There’s a minimal amount of action and drama. There’s quite a bit of debating amongst the mutants about the presence of the original five X-Men in the present, which amounts to a whole lot of dialogue. This is a problem that runs through Bendis’ All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men runs, as he spends so much time focusing on character interactions that it consistently deflates tension and slows the pacing of his stories to a brisk walk. Unfortunately, pacing and lack of action are but two of the major issues with Battle of the Atom.

Since the very first X-Men crossover in 1986 (Mutant Massacre), Marvel has used these events as a catalyst to shake up the status quo and incite tangible change within the various X-Books. They typically result in line-up changes, new costumes and the death of at least one major character. Battle of the Atom doesn’t even come close to doing any of that. Bendis, Wood and Aaron provide a promising set-up, one which had the potential to bring about some major changes in the titles involved. As far as Bendis’ books were concerned, All-New X-Men had been treading water as the time-displaced X-Men mulled over whether they should return home or not, while Cyclops’ team in Uncanny X-Men struggled to find recognition as a legitimate force for good. Battle of the Atom could have and should have been the catalyst for bringing about the changes both titles needed. The original X-Men should have returned home and Cyclops’ group should have finally been given a break. What we got instead was a whole lot of the same old, same old.

There’s this overall sense of impending doom that is never quite earned in Battle of the Atom. We’re consistently told that something very bad is going to happen if the original X-Men stay in the present, but we’re never shown why. There’s a rather gruesome sequence where we see the assassination of Dazzler in the future (we get it Bendis, you have a Dazzler grudge), but we’re shown very little other than that. It’s implied that humans are to blame for the plight of the mutants in the future, but without being shown the full extent of this the story can never truly move forward. Of course, we’ve already seen futures where humans have all but eliminated all of the mutants on Earth. This further hinders Battle of the Atom, as it pales in comparison to the beloved Days of Future Past and the more recent (but less critically lauded) Age of X.

Ultimately, Battle of the Atom is an unnecessary crossover and its conclusion is so infuriatingly mundane that it is sure to leave even the most diehard of X-Men fans feeling like their time has been wasted. After multiple battles between the X-Men (past, present and future) and against S.H.I.E.L.D., the end result isn’t a shocking shake-up of team rosters or even the death of a major member of the team. The whole purpose of the crossover, as it turns out, was to get Kitty Pryde to switch sides from Wolverine to Cyclops. This low yield payoff is unsatisfying and does very little to change the status quo. The only lasting effect this conclusion has is that Kitty became no longer available to appear in X-Men and Wolverine and the X-Men. This could have easily been done in the pages of All-New X-Men, rather than derail Brian Wood and Jason Aaron’s work on their respective titles. Battle of the Atom is entirely optional for X-Men fans, so you won’t feel lost or like you’re missing out if you decide to opt out of this crossover.

RATING: C