Empyre? More Like Endpyre! See How Those Mutants Get Out Of This One In Empyre: X-Men #4

The end is here as Wanda gets some help, a new X-Man gets a heart to heart, and everything gets back to normal. Jonathan Hickman, Jorge Molina, Lucas Werneck, Adriano Di Benedetto. Nolan Woodard, and Rachelle Rosenberg shut the door on Empyre: X-Men #4

Nola Pfau: So, Allison, I was thinking (I know, bad start) about this story after we left off last time and it lead me to the question of “Why wasn’t Explodey Boy higher on Krakoa’s resurrection protocols, given the nature of his power and the very specific means Krakoa has of recovering self-immolating mutants?”

Allison Senecal: WELL! We pretty much got the Explodey Boy Show this week. Was it everything you dreamed and more?

NP: It was! It reminded me of a few things, namely that a) just because we haven’t seen a thing happen yet, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, and b) that I was thinking about this fictional mutant in terms of his powerset viability, and not in terms of him being a child who maybe should not be thrown into warzones. In my defense, the zombie version of him made it very difficult to determine age.

AS: He’s literally baby. Of course, Hank is the one who let’s him through a portal and into a zombie wasteland, child weapon be damned. Do we want to start there, even though it’s kinda dragging us into the middle of the action? 

NP: Oh, I don’t want to get folks lost here, why don’t we start with a certain Ms. Maximoff?

She’s Just Really Into That One Foo Fighters Song OKAY?!

AS: I love to remember that I don’t like Doctor Strange very much. That said, the central message he’s trying to drive home to Wanda is Good. Don’t love all the talking down about sorcery. Do love his insistence that she move forward instead of trying to fix her %$&#. 

NP: It’s good! Honestly this section almost kinda turned me off the book? Like I got most of the way through it and went back to look at the credits, then went, “Oh, of course it’s Hickman again.” It just really felt like his writing. But also Strange being kind of an insufferable #%*&wad does read pretty true to the character for me. I did like the idea of pushing her forward but also, if you hadn’t given her cryptic advice in the first place, maybe she wouldn’t be in this mess…

This scene finally establishes a timeline for all of this, too; namely, that Wanda raised the Genoshan mutants almost a month before the Cotati invasion happened, and somehow…no one noticed. I feel like the X-Men keep an eye on Genosha whether anyone’s living there or not, by this point? I definitely would.

AS: Yeah, “ring a bigger bell” leaves a lot open to interpretation. I likewise skimmed this quickly, and went back later when I saw the staff pop up. 

I do hope this was an almost-28 Days Later joke. One of the few zombie movies I actually like. And that does seem kind of suspect. They do have their powers right? So wouldn’t Charles at the very least pick up on them telepathically with Cerebro or what? I assume they read as mutants.

Though!

No brain function! 

So maybe not. 

I love walking myself through this thought process in real time. 

NP: I mean, at least some brain function, right? They talk, they reason, they strategize. I dunno, I just assume it’s magic-related! It’s a great explainer that way. Anyway, they round up a bunch of macguffins for a spell that will deal with the zombies…in 30 days. Smash cut to the Cotati invasion, and the rise of the giant plant zombie at the end of #3, on day 29. The zombies have basically completely eradicated the Cotati on Genosha, and the spell will eradicate the zombies, so basically that’s that conflict taken care of, and I guess the X-Men probably didn’t need to be there at all? Neutralized by the plot in their own event add-on! [Ed. note: there’s some beautiful meta-commentary here]

AS: Look, I needed to see M and Angel in anything at this point, so this event mini had a purpose. It also ended up giving us a really touching extended scene with….

The Boy Formerly Known As The Worst X-Man Ever

NP: Formerly known as, because of course we know that title actually belongs to Beast.

AS: Ba dum tiss.

NP: Dr. McCoy managed the most delightful self-dunk in this issue, while also remaining blissfully unaware of how it makes him look. He steals some tech and then sends the actually-alive Explodey Boy through a portal to Genosha. It still hasn’t been explicitly confirmed to my knowledge, but is this Explodey Boy actually the 616 Bailey Hoskins? Judge? Mods?

AS: I super duper accept that it is. Good to see he never exploded in our universe, just died in another horrendous way instead. It seems like he came to Genosha just to seek out his zombie self? Whatever the reasoning, it leads to a very cute exchange that got ye olde tear-ducts limbered up. Hickman’s dialogue is always a toss-up, and it works miles better here than at the start of the issue. Though, I could go without seeing anyone else puke in a comic now for a year or so. 

NP: I also could do without that. I wouldn’t call myself emetophobic, but I’m not exactly a fan of it, either. Anyway, yeah…love that a genocide is written into this kid’s backstory as he’s visiting the place where it happened and talking to his own corpse! What a great journey for a child to undergo. [Ed. note: it’s a very X-Men backstory tbh]

That aside, you’re right, it’s such a heartwarming scene I teared up a little? Alive Explodey Boy (AEB) talks to Dead Explodey Boy (DEB) and tells him the story of his first kiss on Krakoa. It’s just this delightful bonding experience, and it gives DEB this sweet note to go out on, as he takes AEB’s jetpack and flies at the head of the giant plant zombie before…well, you know. It’s a delightful end for a zombie with more compassion than I expected coming into this. That of course, takes us to the last thing to be resolved in this issue…

Illyana Rasputin In: The Demon Bare Saga

AS: Unfortunately for everyone, Yana still has the magical World-Tree staff for another 2 minutes. I love that she essentially uses up her last bit of time with this power doing a long-winded villain speech, and making sure the remaining mutants know that they’re all her personal slaves now. Warren gets a “Silence!” which is Good Food. 

NP: Were this series only being written by a middle-aged white dude, that line would’ve been a little skeevy to me, but given the range of talent throughout and the significant presence of the Trash Queer Squad, it was exactly the kind of fun I was looking for. [Ed. note: Tini Howard, Leah Williams, and Vita Ayala, who picked that name out for themselves]

I loved the imperious demands followed by the immediate end of the undead threat, and I loved that the closest she gets to an apology is “I had a little moment, there.” Also, Beast once again running his mouth; what’s more embarrassing, Hank a brief undead possession, or casually committing a genocide in your own ongoing? Which is the bigger oopsie?

AS: For Yana, this is about the equivalent of having some light gas, so. 

Hordeculture make a quick exit, thank God. I’m left a bit unsure as to how I feel about the series as a whole? I liked it. I could have done with fewer zombies and more X-Men, especially considering this is the first major Dawn of X appearance for many of them. Now I wonder how long it will be before we see some favorites like M (colored well for the first time in this series, if memory serves), Angel, and Multiple Man again. For what was basically a game of comics telephone, it’s been fun. [Ed. note: just realized this zombie story was how they started a game of Exquisite corpse]

NP: Yeah, I feel the same. It was a surprisingly fun zombie-related romp, even if another zombie-related romp was absolutely not what we needed more of. It felt directly targeted at the two of us in particular, with starring roles for both Yana and Warren. The Hordeculture exit was welcome, given our opinions of them, but also, it makes them feel so very pointless? They literally showed up, did some pointless stuff, and then Beast stole their tech. They’re not doing a lot to endear themselves to me here, they can’t even be interesting antagonists! 

Going back to Yana, she expresses some very unambiguous thirst for Kurt before the whole thing wears off, after which she immediately says “I regret nothing.” How’d you feel about that one?

AS: I’m a little miffed, haha. After the throwaway scene in the current New Mutants run, which was fine but also my least favorite brand of “heat of battle ambiguously queer trash talk”, I was hoping any future innuendo from Yana would lean, you know, gayer. But, here we are, and she remains ambiguous. It seems like a small thing to be ticked off about, but it happens time and time again when comic book women “come out as bi or pan”. I put that in quotes because it’s usually never explicit enough! If we’re sitting here wondering, it wasn’t. I pretty expressly have always read her as a lesbian, so really none of this helps, but whatever. 

NP: It’s kind of frustrating that we’re still dealing with characters that are Ambiguously Gay decades after that joke was made on SNL, the safest comedy around. It feels downright behind the times, in fact. I’m with you in that I’ve never read the character as anything but a lesbian? Like, even Rachel, the butchiest butch around, has had at least a couple of canon male love interests but Yana’s never had anything like that; she’s only had the subtextual stuff with Kate back when they were young. So making her explicitly thirst after a guy who…basically watched her grow up? Didn’t love it, and didn’t love doubling down on it after she was free of corrupting influences. Add to that the fact that she only acted this way toward the men on hand and…I’ve used the phrase “embarrassingly heterosexual” in my writing before. It applies here, certainly.

The final bit is Wanda still feeling sad about all those mutants she got killed. I have no feelings about this. I know I’m meant to but…moping doesn’t accomplish anything, and I feel like she’s just right where she’s been for the last fifteen years.

AS: I want to give that whole scene the benefit of the doubt. Like it WAS an outside influence possessing her. “I regret nothing” could have been the whole situation, and not just that line, yada yada. It’s just frustrating. Anyways, I hope fan reaction to this series at least nets us an X-Corp annual or something. That’s really all I want from this. Give! Us! X-Corp! Content! 

NP: X-CORP! X-CORP! X-CORP!

X-Traneous Thots

  • We kinda glossed over it, but whew that panel of Warren being all WE STAND AND FIGHT…whew. 
  • He was VERY! SEXY! Through this entire series. Good for him. 
  • The X-Men being bad at the game Telephone as well as actual telephones does at least track.
  • How did DEB explode an entire plant zombie yet leave an intact jetpack for AEB to retrieve? Are jetpacks not combustible by nature?

Allison Senecal buys books professionally and comics unprofessionally.

Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.