Warning! Spoilers ahead for Marvel’s Empyre #1
At this point in their superhero careers, it seems as though Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic have seen it all. At the very least, the two men of science have grown more used to the presence of magic within the Marvel Universe. In spite of that, Tony Stark and Reed Richards have pretty different views on magic, regardless of its frequency in their day to day work as heroes, and that contrast is highlighted within the pages of Empyre #1 when the Kree and Skrulls have united under one banner under their new emperor.
In Empyre #1 from Al Ewing, Dan Slott, Valerio Schiti, and Marte Gracia the Fantastic Four and Avengers discover that the Kree and Skrull empires, who have long been at war with one another throughout the cosmos, have agreed to a truce. Teddy Altman (Hulkling), whose father was a Kree and mother a Skrull, is placed as their new emperor to unite the two forces an appealing figurehead. As a show of force and a symbol for their new union, the new Kree/Skrull fleet travels to Earth’s moon to eliminate a shared rival: the Cotati people and their garden on the moon’s surface. While the Fantastic Four are trying to grapple with the situation, the Avengers spring into action against the invaders. It’s here where fans get to see Tony and Reed’s interactions with magic, specifically with Thor’s hammer: Mjolnir.
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Iron Man relishes the supposed simplicity and classic good vs. evil dynamics of the situation (though he’s DEFINITELY proved wrong by the first issue’s end). In the midst of the fighting, he works with Thor, attaching his own tech to the base of the hammer, instructing the God of Thunder to let his hammer fly towards the command ship. He comments that magic just doesn’t really excite him anymore. Rather than question the mechanics of Thor’s hammer, he just trusts that it will do what it always does, and adds his own tech to it to try and win the day, sending a virus to all of the fleet’s ships. In his confidence, Iron Man says that he makes his own magic. Tony has grown to view magic as another process of which he can adapt and work with.
For Mr. Fantastic, It’s a bit of a different story. When Thor’s hammer blasts down and into the command ship, Hulking surprisingly blocks it with his hammer, an extremely rare and impressive feat. At this moment, Reed claims that while he’s seen plenty of wonders in his lifetime, including his wife, there are still times where he’s reminded of his capacity for awe, like in this moment with Mjolnir. Reed still retains the wonder of what magic truly is, and its ability to defy the laws of science, logic, and conventional reason. Sure he’s gained some experience in dealing with it like Tony, but he hasn’t lost his sense of wonder towards it.
The reason for the differing perspectives can most likely be boiled down to the fact that at the end of the day, Tony is more of an engineer, as opposed to Reed who’s more the explorer with a desire for discovery. It would make sense that Reed would still have those moments of awe while Tony would seek to process, adapt, and move on to the solution more or less. In any case, hopefully, Reed and Tony will gather their teams and be able to deal with a more problematic conflict than Iron Man initially assumed as Empyre continues.
