EMPYRE #1

It seemed that, not so long ago, the big, comic book event series were actually a big deal. Not that they were any good (when was the last time an event comic was any good?), but that they seemed to get a lot of press and people talked about them and they were kind of a big deal at the moment. I’m thinking of Civil War, Secret Empire…and maybe that one where Captain America was evil (it was so great I forget the name of it). But these last few years have produced a bunch of plodding, monotonous, forgotten event series that have kind of just ended up being regular mini-series that are going on with a bunch of side books that don’t garner much attention. Marvel and DC have kind of given up on having big event series that figure into every corner of their respective universes. Now the event books are just with one character, like how Thor had his War of the Realms event and Carnage had Absolute Carnage and Batman is amidst  “The Joker War” at the moment. Empyre is Marvel’s big event book for 2020, and while it does feature The Fantastic Four and The Avengers, I’m not sure it was ever meant to be any kind of monumental game changer. Supposedly the companies have to do these event books to help their profits every year (added books mean added sales I guess)…so they’re not doing them because they had a good idea or thought it’d be cool. No, they do them because they have to. And Empyre is kind of a lame duck idea anyway. It’s kind of a sequel to the “Kree/Skrull War” storyline that was in The Avengers book back in the 70’s. When this pandemic started I wrote 30 comic book reviews in 30 days because, well, I could. And I just happened to review the Road to Empyre book which set up this new event series. Because the “Kree/Skrull War” is always talked about as being this great, famous, legendary story I decided to go read it and review it. It didn’t turn out that great! No, not the reviews, those were fantastic…the “Kree/Skrull War” storyline wasn’t that great. It started off good but didn’t really go anywhere interesting. And comic books must have really sucked back then for that storyline to have been so momentous. I’m still curious why it’s so famous…I think because other writers just used those characters again and again and it became this long story that could only be understood if you read the original. So it wasn’t so much a great story as just a template. Either way, the Skrulls and the Kree are back in Empyre #1. They’re not fighting anymore, though, they’ve joined together to form an alliance. There’s another alien group now that are living on the moon and are apparently a peaceful people until the end of this issue when it turns out they’re not and they’re evil and their leader is the big bad. Okay. Which means I guess that Empyre is basically the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the Kree, and the Skrulls versus this new, evil group, the Cotati. At the end of this issue, the Cotati’s leader shouts, “We begin our Empyre!” Not sure why he’s calling it “empyre” and not “empire.” It’s…cooler? There’s also a smorgasbord of popular Marvel heroes here, considering this is a big event book and they’re supposed to just be packed with a thousand characters. Black Panther, The Thing, Iron-Man, She-Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Ghost Rider. The book isn’t exactly boring, though it’s not particular good. Al Ewing and Dan Slott came up with the story and Al Ewing wrote this first issue. Ewing, for whatever reason, has gotten accolades for his current run on The Immortal Hulk…which I tried reading but didn’t like at all. Maybe Empyre will get more entertaining and fun when Dan Slott writes an issue. As for the art…Valerio Schiti did the art and Marte Gracia did the colors. The book is definitely colorful and vibrant. I had heard that Marvel was cancelling some of the side books to this event…so who knows if any of these exist…but there’s a checklist for Empyre and there are 53 books in all. Jesus Christ. Do you think anyone is reading (and can afford) 53 books? They’ve got to be out of their minds. Here’s a taste of the great books you could read: Empyre: The Invasion of Wakanda #2, Lords of Empyre: Swordsman #1, Lords of Empyre: Celestial Messiah #1, Empyre: Stormranger #3. Ugh. Who comes up with this crap? This checklist is old, though, and should have been changed, because Empyre #4 just came out on August 5^th when the whole thing was supposed to be over in July. So we get…what? Another two months of this epic space yarn? Yay. *