EMPYRE #1
I decided to pick up the first issue, just to give it a fair shake and know the actual plot of the story that is going to invade most of the Marvel titles for the next six to eight months. Thankfully, I’m not collecting too many of them.
The story continues from where the Fantastic Four left off, with the team arriving home with the Kree and Skrull children who want to kill each other. On the way, they bump into a Kree/Skrull armada led by Hulkling, since he’s part of each species. Of course, they have no idea about his leadership ability or wartime strategy, they just drafted him for his DNA apparently. (I’m really over Reed having a beard, by the way. I have an urge to send him a razor.)
Sue makes the ship invisible, but the Super Skrull detects them and the FF are pulled aboard, but not before Franklin and Valeria (I have no idea why they’re giving them code names, they’ve been Franklin and Valeria for years, why change it now?) get the alien kids to safety. Also, I missed what happened with the FF vs. X-Men. I thought Franklin was taken to Krakoa.
They try to talk Hulkling out of attacking a group of plant people that are being protected by the Avengers. Black Panther leads a ground assault team, while Tony, using Mjolnir as a delivery system, infects all the ships with a virus at once (which make no sense why all of the ships’ guidance and navigation systems would be connected, but the script says so, so let’s roll with it. So, he takes out the entire Kree/Skrull armada in one fell swoop only to learn that everything is topsy-turvy
Down on the surface, the plant creatures have a “flowering.” You heard it right. Does that mean when this is all over, they’re going to have a “Deflowering?” This new species of Poison Ivy’s show their true colors and scream out that they are going to attack everyone and take over the universe since it’s rightfully theirs. They are the avengers now since they are declaring that they are owed vengeance for the way they were treated. I have no idea how they were treated or why they want vengeance since I never heard of this race before and we have been given no back story on them. Tony and the gang feel stupid for helping them and doing absolutely no due diligence on them while the Fantastic Four is brutally attacked.
The one good thing that came out of this for me – it appears that She-Hulk is returning to how she normally looked. Thank goodness. She’s still a little thick, but it’s a definite improvement over the gargantuan thing she’s been over the last couple of years.
The question is: Do I care enough about this storyline to sink hundreds of dollars into it? Nope, not one bit. The original Civil War was interesting as was Secret Invasion, but this really has no hook to it at all, and Marvel just expects you to pick it up because it’s an “Event.” This issue was 30 pages and has a price tag of $6.00. I’m going to stop right here. I’ll still get the Fantastic Four tie-in and Captain Marvel, as I normally collect those titles, but that’s about it for me. If anyone collects the whole thing, let me know if it gets any better.
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