Details: This miniseries is currently completed. More information can be found at https://www.marvel.com/comics/series/30527/empyre_x-men_2020
Score: 7/10
Despite Empyre being a big disappointment, this Empyre: X-Men spinoff miniseries was a lot of fun. It even has a bit of emotion to it.
As per the Empyre miniseries, an alien race called the Cotati are invading the Earth and one of them decides to land on the former mutant nation of Genosha. Unbeknownst to the Cotati, Wanda Maximoff has temporarily turned the millions of mutant corpses on the island into zombies for about thirty days. Hijinks now ensue as the Cotati and the X-Men battle each other while battling millions of superpowered zombies.
My main enjoyment with this book is the comedy. There are lots of funny moments between the X-Men has they deal with this threat. Despite the Cotati being a potentially world ending threat, the X-Men don’t really take it seriously. I mean they do, but they mess around a lot too. Throw in some evil, elderly botanists that were introduced in Hickman’s X-Men series, and you get even more jokes thrown in.
What surprised me though was one specific scene involving the zombie of a mutant and the actual mutant the zombie was based off of. If you’re unfamiliar with the current state of the X-Men in the Marvel Universe, all mutants are basically immortal… but not really. Whenever a mutant dies, a clone of that mutant is created with all their powers and their memories. So in a sense, all mutants are immortal.
Anyways, a mutant named Explodey Boy who has the power of blowing himself up meets with the zombified corpse of himself on Genosha. They have a very moving conversation among themselves. It’s very science fiction-y in that it’s like your future self talking to your younger self, except that it’s your future self talking to your younger, currently dead self and talking about how life has turned out all right for them. It was very strangely moving and elevated the whole story.
Overall, this was a fun read and had just the right amount of emotion added onto the end of it. If you haven’t read Empyre and have a grasp of X-Men comic book lore, you might feel a bit lost though.
