Children of the Atom #3
Gimmick has a secret in Children of the Atom #3, by writer Vita Ayala, artist Paco Medina, colorist David Curiel, and letterer Travis Lanham. After the action of the first two issues, Ayala slows it down in this one. It’s more character-focused than before and has clues about the group’s past and future.
This issue focuses on Gimmick and her life- helping her parents with her twin siblings, making videos about creating cosplay costumes, making costumes for the team, and quietly loving Buddy, aka Cyclops Lass. She’s visited at home by Buddy and Gabe, who want her to go with them to Cole’s, their friend who just got better and may be a mutant. She demures, and they leave. Interspersed throughout the issue are flashbacks to when the kids had somehow gotten on a crashed alien ship and launched it and how they escaped. At Cole’s, the group meets a man named Arthur Nagan, who represents a group called Real Unity, which is all about studying humans and mutants and making humans better. Nagan used mutant tissue to help heal Cole, and when the group asks him about it, he gets angry at them for only caring about him because he may be a mutant. At Gimmick’s house, she gets very sick, a harbinger of what’s to come.
Ayala has been writing every issue so far, sort of the same- using a framing device of one of the team members narrating the comic. This allows readers to get into that character’s head and get to know them. It’s extremely effective, and this issue showcases the best use of it so far. Gimmick is all about longing, and Ayala does a marvelous job of laying this out for readers. She feels like her whole life is all about serving others, whether it be her family, her friends, or her viewers. All she wants, though, is for someone to do things for her, and she wants it to be Buddy, something that she feels is impossible. Ayala lays all of this out perfectly. It’s the best emotional throughline for any of the characters so far and quickly sets this issue apart from the first two.
Beyond that, this issue throws out some intriguing clues to the team’s past. Somehow, they found their way onto an alien spaceship and got it working. Could this have something to do with their abilities? It’s pretty obvious that Ayala will reveal they aren’t actually mutants, which means their abilities have to come from tech. Maybe they used alien tech? Maybe there was something else that gave them ingrown powers on the ships or in the wreckage of the escape pods? These are baited hooks for readers. On top of that, there’s Arthur Nagan and Real Unity- there’s obviously more going on there than just an organization that wants to help humans and mutants find unity. He also says some things that are very reminiscent of pre-retcon Apocalypse, about Darwinism and survival of the fittest, cementing that he’ll definitely be a villain at some point.
Medina’s art is gorgeous as usual. He really captures Gimmick and how she feels, and it makes Ayala’s script work that much better. There aren’t any great action scenes in this issue, but Medina’s character acting really anchors the whole thing. The character acting in the dinner scene at Cole’s is top-notch as well, really capturing what’s going on under the surface there.
Children of the Atom #3 is the most emotionally resonant issue of the book so far. It’s easy to feel for Gimmick- she’s the one friend everyone has who will do anything for her friends but never gets the thing she wants or needs. Ayala does an amazing job of illustrating who she is and the ending of the book is just perfect. Medina’s art makes the whole thing work, bringing it all to life. This issue starts to answer questions and set things up for the future and is the most intriguing issue of Children of the Atom yet.