Battle of the Atom. Time is fragile.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, sticking exclusively to DC, or salivating over all of the start-up indie books, you’ve probably noticed the Marvel universe is in shambles. Marvel as a company isn’t in dire straights like it was in the nineties, but rather the actual universe has been spiraling out of control since the Avengers decided the X-Men were enemies of the state. Then Ultron dropped by, the original X-Men were kidnapped into the future, Galactus thought it was a good time to hunger, and Thanos and all of his Infinity friends just wanted a piece of their proverbial pie. So yes, the universe is in shambles and all of its mightiest heroes are hard at work doing what they can to salvage the wreckage. All of this is hard to follow, and it’s even harder when it’s all so damn good. Every one of those stories and events are from books that should be read, but what about Battle of the Atom? Why are the 5 original X-Men so important to the universes infrastructure?

Answer: I don’t know, do I look like I can see into the future? But that’s why Battle of the Atom is so crazy right now, and we’re only  into Chapter 4. I’ve been following the story since the first chapter and didn’t quite know how to feel about it. I waited a few more chapters, following the parts through All-New X-men, X-Men, then onto Uncanny X-Men #12. I’ll admit, the X-Men issue had me confused, wondering what was up, what was down, time ticking forward or backward. There was so much time travel even Doc Brown would be scratching his skull. But in Uncanny X-Men #12, excuse my language for a sec, shit got real, and part 5 in Wolverine & The X-Men #36 we’re about to see an event happen that we haven’t seen since Uncanny X-Men #131 (Vol 1), a book that’s just a small portion of one of my favorite X-Men stories of all time. I’m not going to divulge any more information than that, those keen to X-Men history know exactly what I’m talking about, if you don’t, “google it”. Uncanny X-Men #12, Chapter 4 of the Battle of the Atom is the defining issue where my verdict for the series came to a head, and I highly recommend you start reading this event now.

Battle of the Atom is 10 parts spanning over five different books, add them to your Cosmic Comics! pull box right away! More reviews from Burke can be found over at nerdfarmblog.com.