X-Men: Battle of the Atom

Battle of the Atom
Cover of Battle of the Atom 1 (September 2013). Art by Arthur Adams.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Publication date	September – October 2013
Main character(s)	Past X-Men Wolverine's Present X-Men Cyclops's Present X-Men Future X-Men
Creative team
Writer(s)	Brian Michael Bendis Jason Aaron Brian Wood
Artist(s)	Frank Cho Stuart Immonen Chris Bachalo David Lopez Giuseppe Camuncoli

"Battle of the Atom" is a 10-part comic book crossover storyline published by Marvel Comics that debuted in September and October 2013 and ran through multiple X-Men books.

The story involves the X-Men of the future traveling to present time in order to force the All-New X-Men (original five X-Men) to return to their rightful time, as their presence in the current timeline will result in disastrous consequences.

Battle of the Atom was announced in April 2013. The story involves the X-Men of the future traveling to present time in order to force the All-New X-Men to return to their rightful time, as their presence in the current timeline will result in disastrous consequences.

Brian Michael Bendis, writer of All-New X-Men, stated that the use of time travel in the story is less important than the theme of characters exploring how the choices they make early in life affect them later on in life, in a manner similar to the 1986 feature film Peggy Sue Got Married. Musing on the nature of fate, and how these ideas inspired both his previous comics work, and "Battle of the Atom" in particular, Bendis explained:

When Kitty Pryde's group of time displaced Original Five (O5) X-Men and Cyclops' Uncanny X-Men are forced to team up to stop an out of control new mutant, young Cyclops is killed by a Sentinel. He is resurrected moments later by one of Cyclops' recruits, who is a healer. However, in the brief moments that Young Cyclops was dead, the adult Cyclops blinked out of existence and the world around the two groups suddenly began to shudder and shake, as if reality was collapsing from the time paradox.

This causes another round of debate from Wolverine’s X-Men about returning the O5 to their proper place in the timeline. The debate is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a group of older X-Men led by an aged Kitty Pryde, the grandson of Charles Xavier, and an adult Jean Grey (the time displaced O5 Jean Grey, having never returned to the past), dressed as the new Xorn. They seek to force the X-Men to go back to the past.

Realizing that something does not seem right, O5 Jean escapes with O5 Cyclops. The X-Men and “Future X-Men” pursue, with Xorn explaining that a catastrophe will soon befall the X-Men if the O5 do not return to their original place in the timeline. The exact nature of that catastrophe is left ambiguous.