Geek Syndicate Issue 8 | Page 99

Geek Syndicate
X-MEN: Battle of the Atom
Image © Marvel Comics, 2013

COMIC REVIEW

Writers: Various
Art: Various
Publisher: Marvel Comics

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for the Battle
of the Atom Event throughout.
Marvel recently published an
X-Men event across several
of their titles. Running from
September 2013 to October
2013, Battle of the Atom is
a time-travel event with future X-Men arriving in the
present to persuade the All
New X-Men to return to their
proper place in history. Failure to do so would have disastrous consequences for
the time line …
Now that the dust has settled,
Bernice and Shane, hosts of
the Children of the Atom podcast look back over the course
of the event.
Shane: So Bernice, Battle of
the Atom chapter ten, the final
chapter, came out this week
and just five minutes ago you

finished reading it, as did I approximately twelve hours ago.
So, it’s all over. What did you
think? What are your immediate thoughts?

quickly recap the key points?
B: Yeah.

B: AvX. I was amused to discover recently that A+X is still
going. It’s like, let it go. I don’t
know, I wonder how many
people are still buying that title?

S: So, Battle of the Atom is
basically a direct continuation of the story that Brian
Michael Bendis has been writing in All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. Each of those titles since AvX has focussed on
either Scott Summers’ team
of rebels or Wolverine’s team
back at the Jean Grey School.
So, to understand Battle of
the Atom, you need to have
caught up on those two titles.
The other current X-Men titles
aren’t as relevant, maybe little things here and there from
X-Men and Wolverine and the
X-Men.

Anyway, my other thought
with regards to Battle of the
Atom is that it was really, really complicated. I didn’t have
too much trouble keeping up
but, man, so many X-Men!

B: In a nutshell, Battle of the
Atom is where a team of XMen from the future arrive and
say, “You’ve got to send the
original X-Men back because
you’re ruining the future!”

S: So, for the benefit of people who don’t know, shall we

S: We should clarify that a key
plot point from All New X-Men
is that Hank McCoy from the
present brought the original

Bernice: I have two immediate thoughts. The first one is
that, like so many events, it
started off really strong and
then slightly overstayed its
welcome for me.
S: What other events would
you say that happened to?

The event took place during September and
October 2013, in these comics:
Part 1: X-Men Battle of the Atom #1

Part 6: All-New X-Men #17

Part 2: All-New X-Men #16

Part 7: X-Men vol. 4 #6

Part 3: X-Men vol. 4 #5

Part 8: Uncanny X-Men vol. 3 #13

Part 4: Uncanny X-Men vol. 3 #12

Part 9: Wolverine and the X-Men #37

Part 5: Wolverine and the X-Men #36

Part 10: X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2

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