Empyre #5
J.A. Fludd
Recap
In what must be one of the most pleasing plot surprises of the year, Teddy “Hulkling” Altman and Billy “Wiccan” Kaplan eloped before this whole mess of the Kree/Skrull alliance and the menace of the Cotati got started.
Yes, those two Young Avengers in love were cuddling in bed when Teddy decided they shouldn’t wait until the end of the current intergalactic imbroglio to tie the knot. So they nipped off to Las Vegas—where else?—and called the rest of The Young Avengers to join them. And just like that, our young super couple became a super married couple.
All of this serves Wiccan well now, because their marriage has bonded him and The Hulkling so powerfully that no alien technology can stop Billy tracking down where Teddy has been imprisoned by his treacherous subjects. And while one battle is brewing, another is fully under way—in Africa, between The Thing and the monster Cotati that until the end of last issue was She-Hulk! The fearsome, florid female is actually drawing blood from Bashful Ben, but you know the muscles of The Fantastic Four. You can bloody The Thing, but as his Cotati combatant is destined to learn, you can’t make him bow.
Meanwhile, The Black Panther, battling the Cotati hordes that are trying to root themselves in the soil surrounding Wakanda’s Great Vibranium Mound, learns that these Cotatis are Kamikazes, willing to perish to accomplish their mission. And that’s exactly what they do, giving their lives to take root in the very place that will make the Cotati powerful enough to overgrow not just Earth, but the galaxy itself. Out of a space warp at the Vibranium Mound appear Sequoia and The Swordsman, impaling The Panther’s shoulder, dropping him, and claiming their victory!
And, out in space, Wiccan, The Human Torch, and Captain Marvel confront the impostor Hulkling with the real Hulkling, whom they have just rescued from the brig aboard the Kree/Skrull flagship. Captain Marvel thus confronts the pretender to the throne and tells him he is being deposed, and he’d better not think of triggering “the Pyre” to blow up the Sun. This demand, however, has come too late: the Pyre has already been triggered, our Solar System is doomed—and, oh yes, the spurious ruler of the Kree/Skrull alliance demands to face his accusers in battle!
Only one man can possibly turn this around: Earth’s most brilliant hero, Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, leader of The Fantastic Four, in a new stretching Fantastic Four armor designed by Tony “Iron Man” Stark! But Reed has only nine minutes to do it! That’s cutting it awfully close, but remember, The Fantastic Four, with an assist from The Watcher, saw Galactus off by page 11 of Fantastic Four #50. Reed’s got this. Too bad he doesn’t also have a stylist to give him a shave and fix his hair, but for sure, he’s got this.
To be concluded the week of September 2!
Review
Once again, there’s a lot going on in Empyre. But this does not read like a story whose pace has been slowed down and padded to make it big enough to fill up a trade paperback. Empyre juggles a lot of related events going on at the same time, but does it with skill and good concepts. The Cotati growing themselves in Vibranium-enriched soil to make themselves cosmically super-powerful is a neat trick, and this “Pyre” with which the Skrulls and Kree plan to glow up our Sun reminds me of the Tox Uhtat from the Star Trek episode “Captain’s Holiday,” which could do the same thing. On Star Trek, Jean-Luc Picard kept the Tox Uhtat (which was a diamond-like jewel containing an alien super-technology) out of the hands of the Ferengi and the Vorgons by having Will Riker beam it “one way” into the Enterprise transporter, disintegrating it. I suspect the task facing Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man will be rather more complicated and daunting than what Jean-Luc and Will did—but it will be all the more fun for that reason.
The resolve of The Thing shines through in this story as it has in so many others. Whether battling The Hulk, the cosmic-powered Dr. Doom, the Champion of the Elders of the Universe, or any number of other seemingly unbeatable foes, the many-splendored Thing proves time and again that his will to persevere and stay in the fight cannot be quenched. Aunt Petunia’s favorite nephew just takes a pounding and keeps on clobbering.
And how about that Wiccan and Hulkling anyway? Once again, Marvel is to be commended for portraying the love of two young lads as being so strong and profound that nothing, including the plotting and scheming of two alien empires, can keep them apart. If Marvel continues to play its cards right, Teddy and Billy will become one of the truly great comic-book couples, as enduring as Reed and Sue Richards, and more so than just about every other romantic pair we’ve ever seen in Marvel Comics. Please let it be so. There are so many young people in the world who should be able to look to these two characters as an example of love being a universal property of all humanity, not just couples of opposite sexes. The time has come for a couple like this.
Final Thoughts
There’s just one more issue of Empyre to go. After that, there will be a lot of one-shots and specials about the consequences of this epic for the Marvel Universe, including one that deals expressly with Reed Richards and The FF, and another celebrating the Wiccan/Hulkling marriage. For now, though, we’ll have to wait until the beginning of September to see how Reed and Iron Man will rather literally pull us all out of the fire.
Empyre #5: Everything’s Coming Up Cotatis
- Writing - 9.5/109.5/10
- Storyline - 9.5/109.5/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10
