Marvel Review: CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #1
Serafina and the rest of the Children of the Vault have served as a peripheral existential threat for nearly the entirety of the Krakoan Era, including an appearance in Jonathan Hickman’s X-MEN #1 back in 2019. Though they’ve played a supporting role during that time, the Fall of X wouldn’t be complete without the Children getting a chance to make an impression. And that they did in Deniz Camp’s CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #1.
Camp opens the new limited series with a quick retelling of what happened to Forge’s Project Blackbox after Krakoa fell. While it didn’t happen right away, the system’s failsafe mechanisms eventually stopped working leaving an open door for Serafina, Capitan, Perro, Prisa, Luz, and Atomo to leave their prison. Instead of immediately annihilating humans as they were previously programmed by the City to do, we see a more benevolent approach that has the Children becoming global celebrity heroes who help to eradicate large-scale societal issues like homelessness, hunger, and war. It seems like the same humans who turned their backs on mutants with a similar promise are ready for new saviors and popular opinion forces entire governments to completely submit to the Children. Camp does a great job building a world that feels eerily brainwashed by these new de-facto gods.
You may not have expected, but the Children aren’t actually the main characters of their self-titled series. Cable and Bishop act as the protagonists as begrudgingly team up to uncover how the Children were able to infiltrate society so easily. To get these two characters together after the ORCHIS attack, Camp shows us how a kidnapped Cable was able to resist torture and was broken out of captivity by Bishop. Via the effective use of a data page, Camp also informs us how Bishop has been taking out strategic targets and learned where Cable was being held as part of his larger plan to wipe out ORCHIS. Camp shows his knowledge of the pair’s complicated past throughout their time-traveling histories. These are two men who aren’t on each other’s holiday card mailing list and Camp doesn’t shy away from building tension between the two. This isn’t a buddy-cop adventure comic by any means, but Camp also finds way to showcase each character’s strengths and why they make a great team when they’re able to put their prior issues behind them.
Art by Luca Maresca and colors by Carlos Lopez offer a wide-range of skill, complementing Camp’s script well. Action-heavy scenes, such as when Bishop is breaking Cable out of the ORCHIS facility, move effortlessly from panel to panel allowing you to feel like you’re in the thick of things. One highlight for me was the color work Lopez does during an early scene in the book depicting a lithium field that is poisoning a local Chilean village but provides one of the only source of water for thirsty villagers.
With intriguing plot development, gorgeous artwork, and fan-favorite characters leading the way, CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #1 succeeds in further depicting a world turned upside-down after the Hellfire Gala. Not only does it keep your attention from start-to-finish, Camp is offering the type of social commentary that has always been the staple of a great comic book.
Rating: 8.5/10
