YMMV / Empyre

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Nick Fury asks a resurrected Uatu to say something, and he replies "There shall be a reckoning." Vagueness Is Coming? Or Uatu's personal reckoning against Nick Fury, his killer?
• Ass Pull:
  • In the first issue, Captain Glory somehow manages to resist the Ghost Quinjet’s penance stare and the reason given for this is because he is genetically engineered to be incapable of feeling guilt due to being a kree soldier. However, as any fan of Ghost Rider will tell you, that is not how the penance stare works. The penance stare’s power draws upon the sins of the victim, not their guilt. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you feel guilt or not, because if you’ve commited sins, then the penance stare will hurt you no matter what.
  • Due to his tie-in miniseries getting cut, Thor disappears from the main story in its first issue and shows up out of nowhere in the climax, having fortunately gained the power to stop the Cotati from turning all plant-life on the planet on organic life in an entirely off-panel adventure.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Surprise! The incredibly shady and suspicious Cotati and Quoi turn out to be the actual villains of the piece. To be fair the story wasn't trying too hard to hide this, and Incoming had ample Foreshadowing.
  • Because of the above reveal, it also became clear ever since the very first issue that the Cotati will somehow turn She-Hulk against the Avengers.
  • Teddy went from exploring every option BUT destroying the Earth's sun to suddenly ordering it after a quick nap. Wiccan is obviously not fooled for a second.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Fantastic Four's storyline in Empyre #0 was generally panned—except for the adoption of the Kree and Skrull children Jo-Venn and N'Kalla. The adolescents were born to be the living history of their peoples, with all their history and culture ingrained into their very DNA. Then they were thrown into an arena and forced to fight each other day after day. Even after they're freed/adopted by the Richards family, the two speak in veiled (or overt) threats of murder to one another like two siblings in the back of their parents' car. For some reason, the internet found these two to be a perfect addition to Marvel's First Family.
  • A late entry to the series is Lauri-Ell, a Kree warrior accused of murdering an entire city. Marvel's online fanbase fell in love with her antics while hiding out on Earth. And her enormous arms.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The end of issue 4, and the shot of Teddy and Billy's marriage, attended by (most of) the Young Avengers.
    • Tied into this, after the wedding became public knowledge, Marvel announced the book sold out everywhere, and they had to order a second printing.
  • Teddy overturns the Profiteer's attempts to reclaim the Kree and Skrull children, then appoints two people as their legal guardians: Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters. To say that the two kids are overjoyed is an understatement. Jo-Venn (the Kree child) being a Tsundere about it is also adorable.
  • The Avengers toasting to a long-departed friend: Captain Mar-vell.
• LGBT Fanbase: All criticism of the event aside, Empyre garnered heaps of praise from Marvel's LGBT fans for featuring one of the most well written and proudly gay characters as the event's central focus.
  • After Lords of Empyre: Hulkling was released, the LGBT fanbase started heaping more praise on the writers.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • A big twist in issue 4 is that She-Hulk has been killed by a Cotati. Even if there weren't solicits for an Immortal She-Hulk tie-in coming up, nor Immortal Hulk having firmly established that Hulks and other Gamma-powered beings have Resurrective Immortality, nobody was terribly convinced Jen was down for the count anyhow.
  • In Lords of Empyre: Hulkling, Teddy is forced to break up with Billy. Seemingly ending the relationship of one of comics' most iconic and beloved gay couples only for it to be revealed in Empyre #4 they already got married before the whole event, and they get an official wedding in Aftermath.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Swordsman taking Quoi, his own son, as a human shield against T'Challa.
  • The revelation that R'Klll left her own daughter (Teddy's mother) to die in their homeworld as it is destroyed by Galactus, even though her means of escape can actually accommodate the two of them.
• Nightmare Fuel: There's something about the vines and flora erupting from the Cotati's hosts that would make even a Xenomorph's skin crawl. She-Hulk goes from a big green superhuman to a mass of choking vines and vaguely fleshlike plants in the space of a few panels.
• Squick:
  • She-Hulk getting taken over from the inside, then throws flora up that it becomes her new "face". With the color of the plant, it even looks like blood.
  • Uatu emerging from Nick Fury's eye in a process that's painful to both of them, and then the book ends with a Gross Up Closeup of Uatu's face, including his still-empty left eye socket.
• Wangst: While it is a change from his usual attitude to problems he's caused, Tony's It's All My Fault attitude is also incredibly overdone.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The announcement of the Britain-centered miniseries The Union was greeted with lots of head-scratching from Marvel fans in the United Kingdom. A comic centered around a super-team from the UK's member nations coming out at a time when the fallout from both Brexit and the 2019 election brought renewed cries for Scottish independence and Irish reunification looked more like it was a slapdash publicity stunt or Propaganda Piece and less like a story that was probably drafted months before any of these elections took place with too much money already spent on development to scrap it. Ultimately, it ended up being rescheduled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and rewritten as a tie in to King in Black.

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