Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: empyre, marvel, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

Empyre: X-Men #1 – Plants vs. Zombies vs. Soulless Event Tie-Ins [XH]

Published Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:30:50 -0500

Well, that was a fun San Diego Comic-Con. And by fun, I mean boring and a complete waste of time. Was anything worthwhile even announced at the show? How many people sat through those Zoom videos? Hopefully, this pandemic gets taken care of by next year because I think I'd rather get the coronavirus than watch another pre-recorded video panel. Hi, and welcome to X-ual Healing, the number one sex-themed weekly X-Men recap column on the web. Five X-books came out last week, so let's get right down to business with the first issue of a new miniseries, Empyre: X-Men #1. Oh, and by the way, in a new feature, down at the bottom of this week's articles, you'll find a table of contents linking to all the X-ual Healing recaps of the week. Go ahead. Scroll down and see.

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

EMPYRE X-MEN #1 (OF 4)
MAR200834
(W) Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard (A) Matteo Buffagni (CA) Mike McKone
Plant people from outer space have come to Earth and, wouldn't you know it, they just happen to be here when millions of mutants rise as undead creatures hungry for human flesh. The X-Men return to Genosha in a tale so crazy, it's taking the entire writing crew of the X-Men line to tackle it!
In Shops: Jul 22, 2020
SRP: $4.99

Empyre: X-Men #1 Recap

As if there weren't already enough X-Men comics to buy every week, the X-Men are getting their own four-issue miniseries tying into the Empyre super-mega-crossover event. The premise of the event is that the Kree and the Skrull have reunited under Emporer Hulkling and are headed toward Earth to eliminate a race of plant-people called the Cotati. The Avengers and Fantastic Four, ever the arrogant busybodies, attempt to stop them and even pick a fight on a spaceship, effectively thwarting the invasion. Of course, it turns out that — surprise!! — the Kree and Skrulls were right, and the Cotati actually have plans to take over the universe and destroy all animal life.

So Empyre: X-Men #1 starts off with a flashback to a year ago, with The Scarlet Witch begging Doctor Strange to help her undo her "No More Mutants" thing. Doctor Strange admits that there are lots of things about Marvel continuity from the last twenty years that everyone would love to undo, but it's just not possible. Wanda won't take no for an answer, so she goes to Genosha and studies and practices for the entire year until, finally, one month ago, she casts a spell that brings all the dead mutants back to life. Unfortunately, they're flesh-eating zombies.

In the present time, the Cotati land on Genosha to stage an invasion of Wakanda. They've captured a single resurrected Genoshan mutant, and he's brought before Science Minister Qqoi for interrogation. He's a mutant named Explodey Boy, and he reveals that everyone on the island are mutant zombies. Then he explodes. Then an army of undead mutants charges.

Angel and Penance are eating lunch in Paris, where they're doing some work for X-Corp, the details of which don't really matter. Magik is there to supervise them. They get mad about that, so Magik brings them back to Krakoa to complain. Angel interrupts a conversation between Professor X and Black Tom about malfunctioning in Krakoa's gates. Xavier explains that it's not that's he's worried Angel is wasting X-Corp resources, but rather that he's concerned the job is a waste of Angel's time because Angel is too valuable. Basically, he blows smoke up Angel's ass.

But all of that is just to transition to the problem with the gates. Angel is going to take Magik and Penance with him to investigate the problem on Genosha, and Magneto tells him he's allowed to bring one more, so he chooses Multiple Man. When they get there, they find a stamped of Cotati running toward them. The mutant zombies are chasing them. They take out the first wave zombies, and Multiple Man figures out what's wrong with the gate: weeds. They get to pulling them as another wave of zombies approaches. Angel is worried they'll trample the gate, but Monet points out that even though they're zombies, they're also mutants. They can go through the gate. Oops!

Fortunately, before the zombies can breach the gate, Hordeculture, the gang of old lady plant scientists who tangled with the X-Men recently, arrive and coat the zombies in slime.

On the bright side, this series appears to, at this point, only tie in with Empyre in the flimsiest way, which is good, because super-mega-crossover events are dumb and I don't want to have to understand Empyre just to understand my X-Men comics. On the not-so-bright side, it's still more X-Men comics to buy in an already over-saturated market. Ah well. You win some; you lose some.