YMMV / Battle of the Atom

• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Battle of the Atom is not an X-Men story about X-Men. It's a story about certain fans, for certain fans. It's a story about message boards. It's about Tumblr. It's about holding a fun house mirror up to 50 years of X-Men history for laughs (At or with whom?). It's about writers wanting to write what they want to write, and not having to owe a property, its fans, or its legacy anything. It's about defiance in the face of the same Jean Grey fan constantly asking about when Jean Grey will be back over the years, and creepy and angry stalker-y blogs and what-have-you about editors/creators. It's about the quality standards of events in the age of Web 2.0. It's about how fans continue to buy the book(s) even though they complain endlessly about them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Teen Jean tells Teen Scott she's not eager to go back to the past and die twice. Adult Scott would get killed shortly afterwards and he would be brought back by the Phoenix only to die again.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Even though he claims otherwise, Emma maintains Cyclops wants to help the young X-Men out because he wants to get on with Teen Jean. The same Emma who would later try to mind-rape Teen Scott into being her sex slave after Adult Scott's death.
• I Knew It!:
  • The future Kate Pryde being an impostor, and her real identity being Wolverine and Mystique's son.
  • Ice Hulk being a construct of Ice Master's.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • The biggest problem some readers have with Battle of the Atom is it's trying to create a debate over something that shouldn't even be debatable: that the original five X-Men have to be sent back to their time. All-New X-Men #16 proved that if one of the original five X-Men were to die, it would wipe out their present self in an instant and alter reality up to that point, yet several of the X-Men such as Kitty and Rachel Summers want to make that decision the O5's choice and make any attempt to force them back out as immoral. Hell, Rachel even outright states that what the pair are doing is irrational.
  • In the Jason Aaron-penned parts, Wolverine and Storm spend a lot of time telling Cyclops off for his actions and shaming him, with him only mildly defending himself. When he does defend himself, it's followed by them getting the last word in to remind him, and the reader, that he's doing some very naughty things. The reason it's informed, however, is that they never specify what it is that they're blaming him for (they never specifically mention the fact he killed Xavier (which many would argue he wasn't at fault for), and Wolverine briefly comments on him taking inexperienced students out into the field as a reason he's angry at him (which many could easily point out that the X-Men have been doing that since their inception, and that Cyclops' current students are college-aged at youngest) while Storm doesn't give anything beyond 'you're a villain now', though it could be because of his talk of 'revolution'), and the fact they do it in the most childishly immature moments (such as reminding him that he has no right to call anyone a bad guy, despite the fact that there's some things going on that are much more important). It basically comes off as Wolverine and Storm reminding the reader that they think Cyclops' behaviour is appalling, without explaining what it is they don't like, or why they don't like it. Given Jason Aaron is the one who started Wolverine's current dislike of Cyclops and is the one who penned the story that resulted in him being seen as a villain, and that no other writer but him has even had anyone comment on the fact that the others don't like him right now, it makes you wonder if he's got a problem with the character and is using them to vent it.
• Misblamed: Brian Bendis gets all the heat from those who aren't liking this event, but many forget that the idea is Jason Aaron's and his alone.
  • As it later turned out, Bendis apparently had little control over the plot, despite doing most heavy lifting and Aaron vetoed some of his ideas. It's no surprise he later would go completely Armed with Canon on the story in All-New X-Men.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The shot when Future Kitty Pryde transformed back, revealing her/his true identity, Raze Darkholme◊.
  Kitty/Raze: Hey, Logan. *SNIKT!*
  • Another one from Raze◊.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • Maria Hill's rant against Beast pleased many fans.
  • For those not enjoying the Schism, Xorn!Jean gives a similar rant to Wolverine and Cyclops that basically tells them to get over their never-ending dick-measuring contest.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Attempts to paint Scott as the villain has once more came to mixed results. When Scott mentions that he's only killed one person compared to the laundry list of people Wolverine has killed, Logan bites back that no one he has killed matters.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The death of Future!Dazzler/President Blair and Future!Multiple Man, followed with Future!Beast's Despair Event Horizon. While new generation of X-Men fans is probably not very familiar with Dazzler or Multiple Man, they definitely know Beast as a genuinely kindhearted person due to his appearances in TV show adaptations, video games, and live action movies. Really, it is hard to see Future!Beast's Face–Heel Turn as he is corrupted with grief and losing his idealism.
  • The event above also marks that neither Xavier nor Magneto got their wish in the storyline's future as the first mutant president in USA was assassinated and anti-mutant activities were still going on.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • After repeatedly coming to their aid, working with them and even appearing to be on good terms with some of them, it looked like Cyclops may have been able to make peace with Wolverine and his team...then the first epilogue shot down this plot point by having Wolverine return to his hypocritical accusations about Cyke's morality. Instead, the members of his side who didn't seem to hate Cyclops switch over to him instead after getting sick of Wolverine's hypocrisy.
  • Fans have also noted that the remaining members of the Future Brotherhood didn't exactly get much in the way of personality or motivation sketched in, that the future X-Man remaining behind in the present is more or less a complete cipher.
  • The other plot twist given such weight in the finale, Kitty Pryde and Bobby's relationship ending really doesn't have much impact. They went on a few dates. Period. It just doesn't seem like that major a change. Given that Jason Aaron is the one that made the two a couple, it seems that only he thinks this was a satisfying dramatic pay off to the thing.

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