Empyre #0: Fantastic Four Review

Writer: Dan Slott / Artist: R.B. Silva and Sean Izzaake / Marvel Comics Another week, another puzzle piece to Marvel’s upcoming Empyre event. Comic book events can feel overtly bloated and convoluted (no one should have to read 10 different series to follow a story). However, these prelude issues to Empyre have been pretty solid so far. The same is true of Empyre #0: Fantastic Four, an issue that acts more like another Fantastic Four adventure than a lead up to the event.  Empyre #0: Avengers laid out the groundwork for the new Kree/Skull alliance. You can read our review here to find out more about how it foreshadows the upcoming event and the Avengers’ role in it. What Empyre #0: Fantastic Four does is show the impact of this new alliance on the galaxy. The Richards family gets to see firsthand how the galaxy is reacting to the unexpected union of the two most powerful feuding races.

Readers follow the team in space as they basically run out of gas in the Fantastiship. This leads them to hitchhike their way to the Casino Cosmico, an underground casino and battle arena once run by The Grandmaster but now in the hands of his sister, The Profiteer. While the team tries to find a way to get some fuel, the usual superhero shenanigans are afoot as we learn more about the Casino and the Kree/Skrull alliance. The adventure is a fun read that makes a better Fantastic Four one-shot than an Empyre tie-in, which is my only problem with this issue. Dan Slott works wond…