WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Children of the Atom #4 by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina, and David Curiel, on sale now.
One of the lingering mysteries of the Reign of X era of X-Men has been the newest band of heroes on the scene, the Children of the Atom. Seemingly gifted with mutant potential but not considered actual mutants by the Krakoa Gates, the team -- and mutants on Krakoa -- have all been trying to figure out their full story.
But in Children of the Atom #4, the young team is captured by the U-Men, which could end up giving them some answers in the most gruesome and invasive ways imaginable.
The Children of the Atom are publicly being called the Young X-Men, thanks to their clear appreciation of the mutant heroes and their own amazing abilities. But in secret, something is different about the young "mutants" -- including their inability to move through the Krakoa Gates and their use of advanced technology to fake their powers. However, their public perception as mutants has attracted more than just the X-Men's attention. When the Children of the Atom hear about the Hellfire Gala, they try to use the opportunity to once again sneak through a Krakoa Gate.
But instead, the group is surrounded by a number of armed soldiers who deploy a series of tasers and non-lethal blasts that incapacitate most of the group. Only the youngest member of the group -- Jay Jay, the teleporting Daycrawler -- is able to evade capture and escape. By the time the team regains awareness of their surroundings, they've been brought back to the base of operations for the soldiers -- who reveal themselves to be members of the U-Men, intent on ripping the young heroes apart to steal what they believe to be their mutant attributes.
Introduced in the New X-Men 2001 Annual by Grant Morrison and Leinil Francis Yu, the U-Men are a group of human mercenaries and scientists who believe in the idea of transpeciesism -- i.e. the act of becoming stronger than mutants by killing them and using advanced surgery to graft their attributes onto themselves. Doing so created the Third Species, the term for successful transplants, as part of the schemes of the villainous Sublime. This has led the U-Men to attack the X-Men and the students of the Xavier Institute multiple times, all as a part of their mission to kill as many mutants as possible to claim their powers for themselves. It turns out the U-Men are responsible for the capture of the young heroes and have every intention of carving them up to learn how their powers work.
With few moral scruples, they likely don't intend to spare the Children of the Atom, even if they were to discover they technically don't appear to be mutants. But luckily, it seems Daycrawler was able to inform the X-Men of his team's capture -- and is seen on the final page of the issue rallying Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Pixie, Magma, and Maggot to rush to the rescue. With the group now fully confronting the X-Men, it's unlikely the U-Men have much of a chance of actually getting away with their intended crimes. But there's a chance the X-Men will arrive late enough for everyone to discover what's really going on with the Children of the Atom-- and discover whether or not they are really mutants after all.