Empyre (2020)

[Journey]

Daaaamn.

Journey got herself a thirst for blood that just don't quit. hahaha.

You good babe? All this "Teddy needs to OFF WITH THEY HEADS NAOW" and this "BILLY SHOULD DISMEMBER THESE FOOLS" energy got me worried you need a sandwich baby doll.

I need a blunt! Supply is rare and few in my area people so scared of Miss Rona tired ass.......

That's beside the point... I'm just saying

spoilers:

Dude committed treason than just said nah fam not for this old bitch, and was seen at the end all behind Teddy (probably ready to shove a knife in his back) he can't be trusted kill the bitch!!!

end of spoilers

[Fokken]

The beautiful narrative being crafted for our precious Teddy, however, is that he is KIND and his HEART is his greatest weapon, and therefore he MUST BE BETTER than our baser instincts and rise above.

He is a HERO.
He must show compassion and mercy and strive to find non violent solutions -- even consequences.


So.
All that said, I'm not perfect so if any OTHER character (Not Billy and Teddy) that wants to reign down some life threatening judgement on some of these fools, well.....I'M not gonna be mad.
Paging America Chavez? haha

[Journey]

The beautiful narrative being crafted for our precious Teddy, however, is that he is KIND and his HEART is his greatest weapon, and therefore he MUST BE BETTER than our baser instincts and rise above.

He is a HERO.
He must show compassion and mercy and strive to find non violent solutions -- even consequences.


So.
All that said, I'm not perfect so if any OTHER character (Not Billy and Teddy) that wants to reign down some life threatening judgement on some of these fools, well.....I'M not gonna be mad.
Paging America Chavez? haha

America, Tommy, Noh, hell even Loki I don't care someone needs to take out the trash!

[Drops Of Venus]

The last issue felt a bit rushed, as expected due to so much having to be resolved in one single issue, but I think it managed to be a satisfying ending. The issue felt a little cheesy sometimes with the ''we're in this together'' message throughout it, but I guess it was also a nice love letter to the Avengers. I liked how the writers managed to find a role for almost all of the key players in the event. Everyone helped out a little and it didn't feel like just one character saving the day.

spoilers:

I was a little bit confused about the whole Pyre thing, to be honest. I think the execution of this particular plot point was perhaps the weakest one and it wasn't really that clear to me how they managed to stop the sun from exploding. I know Tony talked a lot, but I feel like the art needed to show us more to get the point across, you know? But I liked the team effort, and it was nice to read Billy saying ''Avengers Assemble'' for maybe the first time, I think. The whole thing with Jo-Venn and N'Kalla and the Kree/Skrulls being telepathically forced against each other felt so out of the blue (and just reinforces what I said about this event working better when you're reading the tie-ins). I'm not sure if that last minute distraction was really necessary when they had so much to deal with already, but I'm a sucker for ''overcoming adversity through will power'', so it was a cool moment when the kids were able to break the omni-wave. I liked that little moment between Sue and Mantis using their powers together. It didn't end up being too relevant to stop the main threats of the event itself, but at least we got to see them doing something instead of just being there. I wasn't expecting Jen to already come back from the dead on this issue, but I guess Ewing was already laying the groundwork for his Immortal She-Hulk one-shot. One thing that I really liked was Thor's power-up. It's really a shame his tie-in leading up to that moment got cancelled, but it was nice seeing what his quest was for, and I think it really payed off. Man, his whole speech there and power showcase was cool. I mean, come on, he was channeling power from Gaea and controlling all flora across the world! How amazing is that? I wonder if he's gonna keep this sort of power in future stories or if writers are just gonna conveniently ignore it. I think he should keep it. I really like the idea of Thor having nature-based powers other than just thunder. I'm... still not sure why Reed needed that suit. Was it just because of the bio-acoustic thing? Couldn't Tony have given him a device that did the same thing without building a whole damn armor just for one feature? LOL. It feels really silly, but I guess that's comics for you. They just wanted an excuse to have a cool looking armor, I guess. As we all expected, Black Panther was alive and well. I think he had a good showing. He ended up being the one who defeated the real baddie, and destroyed their MacGuffin. That page of him stabbing Swordsman and the Death Blossom at the same time with Excelsior was EPIC. Swordsman was such a loser. I knew he was probably be the one killed off instead of Quoi, but seeing him turn against his son like that was quite... pathetic. What I wasn't expecting was Quoi to still be an ******* after the whole thing. It seemed like he was far from redemption... but I guess we'll see. I'm curious about what his role post-Empyre will be, since we know he's appearing somewhere. Also, QUOI AND TEDDY DIDN'T EVEN MEET ONCE DURING THIS EVENT?????? That was definitely a disappointment, specially since they even had a variant cover with the two of them fighting. Oh well, I guess we could save that for another day, since Quoi is still alive... I wasn't sure if R'Klll was going to make it out of this alive, but I'm kinda glad she did. I want Teddy to have more family to interact with, even if it's this crazy old bitch. I wonder what's gonna happen to her now... And I realized we never got an explanation as to how she survived in the first place??? It definitely feels like we need to see her again. But anyway, I'm glad Teddy was the one to take her down... not with the violence, but by being the soft good boy he is. That's really on brand for him, and that last page got me smiling from ear to ear. LONG LIVE THE KING!

end of spoilers

Just read Empyre #6 and I won't spoil anything. All I'm saying is that it's an Avengers event with FF in glorified supporting roles. I've been saying this from halfway through the event, but the ending just cements it for me. You can take the FF out of the book and nothing changes.
It's just irritating that it was touted as this big crossover event between the two teams, but it really isn't. It's an Avengers event, call a spade a spade.

I think that was the result of the book being clearly an Al Ewing work. I think if Slott was more involved and they both got equal billing on the title, perhaps the FF was going to be more instrumental. But Slott was there just to help polish the story, which really ended up being Ewing's baby, and since he is more of an Avengers guy, that's what we got. They probably slapped the FF name on the title for recognition. This was the first time they were at the center of an event since Secret Wars, so I think they wanted to show off.

Thanks for the spoilers Crimz. Sorry you didn’t get what you wanted. The FF should have gotten more shine. What did Reed actually do?

Reed actually wasn't useless.

spoilers:

He used the armor Tony gave him to make sound in a certain frequency that would affect the plants and basically mess up Quoi's control over them. He arrived just in time too, because if he hadn't, Quoi could've easily used his powers to kill Black Panther at that moment (he even mentions how he could control T'Challa's very blood due to the heart-shaped herb going through his system). So he saved T'Challa, which in turn allowed him to proceed with his plan to defeat Swordsman and destroy the Death Blossom.

end of spoilers

That being said, spoilers:

it's an improvement that Hulkling is now the king of the Skrulls and Kree. I hope that Ewing stays in charge of space for some time, because I'm sure there are already writers itching to bring things back to "evil Skrulls and Kree" or to ignore that new statut quo.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I think it's all a matter of balance. You can still have stories with Kree and Skrulls being villains, you just don't need to generalize the entire species. I'm sure that even Teddy himself will have to deal with some rogue Kree/Skrulls like R'Klll during his time as king. I hope we get some interesting political stories out of this new status quo.

end of spoilers

And by the way, I hope this applies for the Cotati too. I think one of the mistakes of this event was making it seem like an entire peaceful race just turned genocidal overnight, which is not realistic. I hope we see that there were other Cotatis who were not on board with what Quoi and Swordsman were doing.

spoilers:

BTW are we just supposed to be okay with Captain Gla-Rhee/whatever the hell his name is cause I'm not dude is a traitorous snake who should be beheaded accordingly.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Honestly, I'm fine with him being forgiven. He was an ass at first for siding with R'Klll, but I think he redeemed himself before he could do anything too atrocious or that he couldn't come back from in this event. I think it's going to be a lot harder to redeem someone like Quoi, assuming that's where they're going.

end of spoilers

[Sutekh]

All that said, I'm not perfect so if any OTHER character (Not Billy and Teddy) that wants to reign down some life threatening judgement on some of these fools, well.....I'M not gonna be mad.
Paging America Chavez? haha

Just the person to punch someone into the Punch Dimension!

[H-E-D]

spoilers:

BTW are we just supposed to be okay with Captain Gla-Rhee/whatever the hell his name is cause I'm not dude is a traitorous snake who should be beheaded accordingly.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

maybe Teddy doesn't believe in the death sentence?

end of spoilers

[Huntsman Spider]

And by the way, I hope this applies for the Cotati too. I think one of the mistakes of this event was making it seem like an entire peaceful race just turned genocidal overnight, which is not realistic. I hope we see that there were other Cotatis who were not on board with what Quoi and Swordsman were doing.

spoilers:

Lords of Empyre: Swordsman explains it. Long story made short, blame Alchemax and its greed, even after Quoi and Cotati-Swordsman literally gave them an olive branch Alchemax could plant and nurture until it was fully grown in 30 years. They didn't want to wait that long, so they had a goon squad raid and destroy the Cotati grove Swordsman was hibernating in, causing Swordsman to flip his s*** and kill them all, then start radicalizing Quoi against all non-plant life.

end of spoilers

[Journey]

I saw someone on Twitter saying due to the ending with the defeat of the Cotati, that this story normalizes "Imperalism" something along the lines the Skree allaince basically enslaved the Cotati and T and B are now glorified dictators for allowing that.

So my question is one did anyone else get that kind of takeaway from the ending? Number 2 where exactly did it say the Skree alliance is now enslaving the Cotati?

[H-E-D]

Empyre was as good as a sequel to a plotline that's been dormant for 18 years could be, given that they only allowed for like three issues to ramp up to it.

[H-E-D]

I saw someone on Twitter saying due to the ending with the defeat of the Cotati, that this story normalizes "Imperalism" something along the lines the Skree allaince basically enslaved the Cotati and T and B are now glorified dictators for allowing that.

So my question is one did anyone else get that kind of takeaway from the ending? Number 2 where exactly did it say the Skree alliance is now enslaving the Cotati?

That's a bit of a runaway conclusion there.

All that Empyre #6 establishes is that the Cotati have surrendered to the Kree/Skrull Alliance. If you presume that their surrender leaves them as prisoners of the Alliance, and if you presume that the Alliance treats it's prisoners the same way as the United States does... that's the only way I can see it, but that's a lot of mental gymnastics to get there.

[Journey]

That's a bit of a runaway conclusion there.

All that Empyre #6 establishes is that the Cotati have surrendered to the Kree/Skrull Alliance. If you presume that their surrender leaves them as prisoners of the Alliance, and if you presume that the Alliance treats it's prisoners the same way as the United States does... that's the only way I can see it, but that's a lot of mental gymnastics to get there.

It was a long ass thread of tweets I couldn't really follow it, the logic just wasn't adding up to me.

[Chainsaw Vigilante]

For an event, this was very uneventful, the ending was something that could be seen coming from a mile away (the entire battle and on to Hulkling being a uniter force), so there was no real dramatic wait or suspense to be had, and the basis for the story with the Celestial Messiah/Cotati deal was a slap in the face to Englehart (though his Celestial Quest mini was pretty bad). The Kree-Skrull alliance was really the only new thing we got out of this, so let's hope it lasts so this story means something in the end. I have higher hope for X of Swords, I just hope Hickman doesn't mess up what the Excalibur writer has been doing (she has a big say in the story, but ultimately Hickman is in charge of the X-line at the moment).

[Beetle]

I saw someone on Twitter saying due to the ending with the defeat of the Cotati, that this story normalizes "Imperalism" something along the lines the Skree allaince basically enslaved the Cotati and T and B are now glorified dictators for allowing that.

So my question is one did anyone else get that kind of takeaway from the ending? Number 2 where exactly did it say the Skree alliance is now enslaving the Cotati?

My only real issue is the whole "Divine Right of Kings" thing going on with Teddy. I don't have a problem with them taking the Cotati prisoner.

But the Kree and the Skrull blindly following Teddy because he was destined to rule is kinda suspect.
He has absolutely no familiarity with the Kree or Skrull cultures, their politics, or even what planets they control.

He has no training or experience with state affairs. He doesn't know how to be a leader.
But because of some accident of birth he has more power than anyone else.

And even just following the sword is creepy because a lot of them are intimidated by it and afraid it's power. "Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!"

[XPac]

I saw someone on Twitter saying due to the ending with the defeat of the Cotati, that this story normalizes "Imperalism" something along the lines the Skree allaince basically enslaved the Cotati and T and B are now glorified dictators for allowing that.

So my question is one did anyone else get that kind of takeaway from the ending? Number 2 where exactly did it say the Skree alliance is now enslaving the Cotati?

I'm not sure it's terribly clear what hey will do with the Cotati ... but considering the Cotati were going to commit genocide of all plant life in the universe they frankly deserve whatever they get. You don't get to play victim after attempting mass universal genocide.

[XPac]

My only real issue is the whole "Divine Right of Kings" thing going on with Teddy. I don't have a problem with them taking the Cotati prisoner.

But the Kree and the Skrull blindly following Teddy because he was destined to rule is kinda suspect.
He has absolutely no familiarity with the Kree or Skrull cultures, their politics, or even what planets they control.

He has no training or experience with state affairs. He doesn't know how to be a leader.
But because of some accident of birth he has more power than anyone else.

And even just following the sword is creepy because a lot of them are intimidated by it and afraid it's power. "Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!"

My own personal head canon is that people largely view Teddy as a ceremonial ruler, and the day to day running of the empire is left to actual government who presumably are experienced enough to know what they're doing. But in comic book monarchys, being able to wield a magical sword often is enough justification to be in charge. Even in Avengers: Age of Ultron I think they were joking that if you can wield the hammer, you rule Asgard. Fiction has wield rules like that.