Had no idea Incoming #1 had 80 freaking pages of story in it! Definitely made up for the "technically only 3 issues for $20" issue of this collection. Overall a good primer for Empyre, especially as I haven't followed much of anything outside of the X-books since Secret Wars. Though I'll admit I didn't read through all of the Handbook entries at the end.... ( )

The first chunk of the book reprints Incoming #1, which is a murder mystery round-robin story told in 4-page segments by dozens of writers and artists. A dead body turns up and the story thread jumps through the perspectives of various Marvel superheroes as they tag team and segue around the 616 to figure out whodunnit and whydunnit. Ho-hum overall, but there is a big callback for very minor characters recognizable to longtime Marvel fans.

The next chunk is a sequel to Meet the Skrulls that has some beautiful art by Mattia De Iulis and a script that might be good if it were allowed to focus on the family and let them do anything other than brood, but mostly is given the duty of providing a recap for the long-running conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls.

The final chunk is an Empyre Handbook that has tiresome and repetitive summaries of all the stories from the many Marvel titles that lead up to Empyre and profiles of some of the major and minor characters who will probably play a role. A real chore to read, the dry and removed narration just highlights how ridiculous comic book writing in shared universes can be. What seems fine in the moment with splash pages and four-colors becomes ludicrous when given a history textbook treatment.

This does not excite me about Empyre, but I'm still going to read it anyway. ( )