After an amount of time that is either roughly a year or 84, depending on how you determine time these days, a long-awaited book claims its destined Book of the Week spot. Let’s get to that and more in The Pull.

Book of the Week: Children of the Atom #1

Vita Ayala and Bernard Chang’s Children of the Atom had the misfortune of being announced at the beginning of a pandemic, both in the sense that it totally messed up the totality of the world and comics industry but also in that it made the length of time it’s been missing feel like an eternity. In reality, it was only a little longer than the amount of time it took the first Conan series to arrive at Marvel after announcement, or, more recently, one one twentieth the time Battle Chasers needed to move on to issue #10 from #9. So it’s a while, but also…not so bad?

I weirdly feel like that span of time has helped, as it’s built up the myth of this book and the excitement that comes along with. It probably doesn’t need it. Ayala’s a great writer, as they’re proving over on New Mutants, and Chang is a veteran talent who brings it on each and every project he works on. Pair that with new mutants and a title with a real angle behind it – a mysterious group of young mutants who follow very specifically in the footsteps of some of our old favorites while trying to find their own place on Krakoa – and this is an easy sell to me.

Will it live up to the long buildup and the anticipation that has come with? I’m not sure. But there’s only one way to find out, and I’m excited to be able to do so, finally.