The trio of X-Men sent to confront the Children of the Vault have returned, but their mission inadvertently threatened the entire Marvel Universe.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Men #19 by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar, Sunny Gho & VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now
The Children of the Vault might not be the most aggressive enemies of Krakoa at the moment, but they’re certainly one of the most potentially dangerous. Their sped-up evolution makes them a genuine challenger to the mutant race.
In X-Men #19, the X-Men sent into the Vault have been returned to Krakoa — and although their recon mission was a success and the X-Men now have a better knowledge of the Children of the Vault, the capture of Darwin might make the Children of the Vault even more dangerous to the X-Men and the world at large.
After being held and experimented on by the anti-mutant conspiracy known as Orchis, the Childre of the Vault have quietly been at work evolving themselves within their near-impenetrable base in South America. Needing to find out more about the potential threat before it spiraled out of control and into the world, Cyclops sent a small team into the Vault all the way back in X-Men #5. The team, consisting of Synch, Wolverine and Darwin, were chosen for their abilities to overcome almost any threat and adapt to it. Their full mission into the Vault is finally revealed in full within X-Men #19, with the trio forced to endure a century as a part of their assignment. Due to the amplified timeline of the Vault, the three mutants live for decades within the Vault, growing in terms of both skill and potential.
Over the years, Synch ended up forging a deep connection with Wolverine. After returning to Krakoa, he reflects on how much Wolverine has come to mean to him. Eventually, the mutants learned that the Children of the Vault — who had been previously designing their third generation of warriors — had been able to recover a body sample from Darwin and work with it to improve their own genetics. Having accomplished their mission to test the Children of the Vault, the trio tried repeatedly to escape — resulting in the capture of Darwin and Wolverine. Although Synch is able to eventually save Wolverine, the Vault effectively atomized Darwin and imbued his potential within the new fourth generation of the Children of the Vault.
Wolverine and Synch finally find a way to breach the Vault and escape back to Earth, although Wolverine is forced to sacrifice herself and stay behind to cover Synch so he can escape. Luckily, she succeeds — and although Synch is promptly killed, he’s able to have his mind uploaded by Cerebro before the Children of the Vault kill him. In the long run, the mission into the Vault was a very mixed bag for the X-Men. The team is now fully aware of the Vault’s potential, thanks to Synch. His decades of additional experience should make Synch an even more fearsome figure in fights going forward. The X-Men now have an idea of what the Children of the Vault are planning, and how they’re planning to do it.
However, the mission also resulted in the Children of the Vault escalating their attempts to make new perfect soldiers and even resulted in a version of Darwin potentially becoming their secret weapon in their future attempts to conquer the world. While the X-Men may have plenty of intel on their enemy, they made their enemy stronger in the process. There’s even a bittersweet moment of fallout from the mission for Synch — as Wolverine was not revived with the memories she experienced within the Vault, and subsequently losing the feelings she had developed for him during the mission.
