In what seems to be the first X-Men story arc after AXE: Judgment Day, the terrifying Children of the Asylum come to attack the mutants of Krakoa, in an attack the Cyclops team may not survive. Every time the X-Men leave Children in their Shelter, thousands of years pass, which means that the next generation of Children appears with stunning improvements.
The Asylum Children were created by writer Mike Carey and artist Chris Bachalo, debuting in 2006 in X-Men Vol. 2 #188 as highly evolved offshoots of the original humans, created in a hermetically sealed, time-altered “Asylum” where their creators could quickly develop them. The children were released from the Asylum after Scarlet Witch’s “Decimation” and were quickly defeated by Sabretooth and the X-Men, although they reappeared in the 2010 X-Men Legacy, fighting against Magneto’s X-Men in Mumbai.
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Jonathan Hickman completely redesigned the Children of the Asylum in his acclaimed relaunch of the X-Men franchise in 2019, establishing that the Children are technically Homo Novissima, a new class of “post-humans” destined to outlive humanity and mutants. During Hickman’s work on the X-Men, one of the Asylum’s Children, the extremely dangerous Serafina, was abducted by the villainous Orchis before returning to the Asylum, prompting the X-Men to send their team to the Asylum to gather valuable information. Once inside the Shelter, the X-Men team made a mistake that could lead to the termination of the mutant race, allowing Darwin, a mutant capable of adapting to any environment, to be captured by the Children for use in their experiments. Now, in the new cover for X-Men #15, drawn by Martin Coccolo and published by League of Comic Geeks, it seems that Children have evolved again and are going to destroy mutants:
BE AFRAID OF CHILDREN! The children of the Refuge are super—developed people from a society whose time moves much faster than our own. Every time the X-Men defeat them, they retreat to their home, evolving further into a new, more advanced generation. This time they are not so easy to stop.
The current Hideout, located in an abandoned Master Mold factory once used by the despicable Cassandra Nova, is run by a sophisticated AI, and if anything is known about the Quiet Council of Krakoa, it’s that they fear AI more than anything. The most advanced AI in Marvel history, Nimrod, is designed to exterminate mutants, so it’s not surprising that mutants dislike AI so much, and now it seems that they will have to continue fighting powerful AI that are trying to destroy them. .
Now that the creators of the Asylum Children have Darwin’s DNA, they were apparently able to create their fourth generation of Children, which led to a new enemy that had centuries to prepare to defeat the X-Men. In the past, Darwin was able to survive the attacks of Omega-level mutants and even gods, so if the Children of the Refuge claim his powers, they can become literally invincible. The gorgeous cover of Cóccolo shows that the last generation of Children has completely destroyed the three main leaders of the X-Men, Jean Grey, Cincha and Cyclops, and Marvel is still incredibly careful not to reveal which new X-Men will join the team in the upcoming Hellfire Gala.
Although there are still few details about the upcoming A.X.E.: Judgment Day event, it is clear that this will be an incredibly traumatic and difficult time for the X-Men, especially for their leader Cyclops, so hopefully a terrifying attack from the ever-evolving This storage will happen after the new team has time to catch its breath and regroup.
