Marvel Comics Universe and Empyre #0: Fantastic Four Spoilers and Review follows.
Empyre Begins!
Profiteer Revealed!
Avengers Loom and FF Not The Villains?!
Here we go.
This issue builds on Empyre #0: Avengers (full spoilers here) and leads to Empyre #1 (of 6) out on July 15, 2020.
We are invited into the Casino Cosmico and our host the Profiteer.
For our entertainment, we have a fight club duel between a Kree and Skrull.
Jo-Venn the Kree…
…defeats N’Kalla the shape-shifting Skrull.
We then pivot to outer space where the Fantastic Four have car space ship trouble and the Human Torch is their flare.
A space pirate finds them and tows them to Casino Cosmico.
We later see that the Profiteer patches up her fighters to battle again and again and again…
…this time with the Fantastic Four in the stands.
They sense something is up so they split up with Mister Fantastic and the Invisible heading out.
The Thing and Human Torch learn that the Kree and Skrull combatants are just kids!
That leads the Fantastic Duo entering the fighting field and becoming part of the show.
At the same time, Mister Fantastic confronts the Profiteer who we learn is an Elder; someone who took over the Casino Cosmico from her brother the Grandmaster. Where he is about sport she is about profit, naturally.
The Elders had their numbers expanded with the Challenger (revealed to be the OG Grandmaster who lost that title) and…
…Voyager (revealed to the current Grandmaster’s daughter) in 2018 as you may recall in Avengers: No Surrender.
…It would appear Empyre grows their ranks with the Profiteer.
The Kree and Skrull child combatants do not welcome the intrusion in their battle.
At the same time, the FF kids Brainstorm and Powerhouse, are gambling and getting a covert assist from the Invisible Woman on top of Valeria aka Brainstorm’s intellect.
Back in the combat field, the Fantastic Duo let the Kree and Skrull win their tag team romp leaving them confused as all they have know is their adversarial battles against each other.
The book ends with the reveal that the FF kids have broken the bank and now own the Casino Cosmico, but they will give back all that wealth in exchange for the Kree and Skrull kids; the Profiteer grudgingly agrees.
That leads to the FF heading home to Earth and encountering an armada of spaceships heading that way too as we saw at the end of Empyre #0: Avengers a book that also so the return, in a different way, of the Avengers’ Swordsman.
Here is the Empyre checklist the issue ends with.
While here is the updated checklist post-pandemic which saw fourteen (14) issues cancelled.
The Pulse:
Gorgeous art, but a plot that felt a third too long. Strong characterization and action though. 6 out of 10.
