Empyre Fallout – Fantastic Four #1: From Old Battles, New Growth (SPOILERS!)

Is it really the end of the Kree-Skrull War?  Really, this time for good and all?  We’ve seen that conflict that has raged across the Marvel Universe for hundreds of millennia come to an “end” before.  So is this only the latest “end” or the real end? 

The Fantastic Four, Avengers, and friends are all gathering on the Moon for the final reckoning after the events of Empyre #6.  Spider-Man for some reason is acting as if he’s never been to space before.  Jo-Venn and N’Kalla are excited to be actually in the prehistoric Kree city whose construction was part of what started the battle that the little Kree and Skrull kids were bred to continue indefinitely as pay-per-view entertainment for the known universe.  They’re in awe when Hulkling, now the Emperor of all the united Skrulls and Kree, arrives.  And watching everything from afar—and detected by Wolverine’s animal senses—is the character known as The Unseen, whose fate is to stand and watch events of cosmic significance as a penance for the death of our Watcher. 

Sequoia, “the Celestial Messiah” and master of the Cotati, is a bound prisoner.  One of the last remaining questions about the conflict we’ve been watching all summer is the origin of the weapons the Cotati were using.  To try to clear that up, Mr. Fantastic—still clad in the Fantastic Four armor created by Iron Man, which Franklin asks Reed if they can keep—has called in a most unexpected consultant:  The Profiteer, who was using Jo-Venn and N-Kalla and their reenactments of Kree-Skrull battles as fighting dogs for intergalactic wagering.  While The Profiteer examines the Cotati weapons, Thor has another last bit of business to wrap up.

With The Invisible Woman and Franklin as backup, the Thunder God takes Sequoia to a distant planetoid in uncharted space, where he releases Quoi and the Cotati to begin their new lives.  When Sequoia protests being left in so barren a place, Thor unfetters the full power given him by Gaea (“Mother Earth”), his mother, and changes the planetoid into a vast, Eden-like garden where the Cotati will now live, separate and apart from Earth, the Kree, the Skrulls, and everything else they’ve known.  As the Cotati settle in to their new home where there is no animal life and they will no longer be a source of strife, Franklin asks Thor why he would sacrifice all the power that Gaea gave him for a thing like this.  (Remember, Franklin’s own limitless powers are in an unexplained state of attrition, which has been disturbing him and making him feel insecure; the Richards lad is naturally curious about anyone willingly giving up such vast power.)  Thor explains: 

“Power doesn’t make one godlike, child.  Why, I would sacrifice all my might a thousand times over if it were spent in the service of a worthy cause.  For what makes us true gods, heroes, and good men is not the greatness of our power, but the goodness of our hearts.”

Which only goes to show you that in spite of all the recent story controversies about how “worthy” the Son of Odin is, there are very few heroes anywhere near as noble—OR as powerful—as the mighty Thor.  So be it, mortals. 

After Mr. Fantastic and Captain Marvel lay to rest the ashes of the Kree and Skrull warriors Bel-Dann and Raksor (whom we first met in Uncanny X-Men #137 and who are among those who laid down their lives to make the peace possible), and after The Human Torch and Spider-Man have a heart-to-heart talk about their respective romantic lives (remember the Webhead’s reaction to Johnny and the alien Sky being “soulmates” in Fantastic Four #22?), The Profiteer has some announcements to make.  The Cotati weapons are of an origin older than even she as an Elder of the Universe can identify.  She is claiming their power source as part of her payment for examining them—and she is also reinstating her claim on N’Kalla and Jo-Venn.  This latter meets with unanimous opposition from The FF, The Avengers, and company. 

The Profiteer says her claim on the kids is a part of her legally binding deal with the Kree and the Skrulls, who will wipe out all of our heroes if they don’t hand over the children.  The only problem with that, says Hulkling, is that there are no more Kree and Skrull Empires as The Profiteer knew them.  There is now only the united Kree-Skrull Alliance, under his rule, and he snatches the contract from The Profiteer and shatters it, rendering it null and void and sending the cosmic capitalist away empty-handed!  In the end, by royal fiat, Hulkling gives custody of N’Kalla and Jo-Venn to The Fantastic Four, to be raised not by Reed and Sue Richards, but by The Thing and Alicia! 

With all said and done, The Unseen continues to ponder the origin of the weapons of the Cotati and, with his cosmic senses, gleans the truth that their technology is older than anything else in the whole universe, including the Celestials.  (But, to be sure, not Galactus.)  No sooner has he discovered this than his cosmic eye takes on a life of its own and leaps from his head, growing and regenerating into the living body of… nah, that would be telling!