WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Empyre #5, by Al Ewing, Dan Slott, Valerio Schiti, Marte Gracia and VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
The fallout of the Avengers' mistaken support of the Cotati has brought Tony Stark back to a place with which he is all too familiar: the drawing board. In typical Tony fashion, he has retreated to Avengers Mountain to spend sleepless days developing a new suit of armor. However, it's not for him this time. Instead, it's for Reed Richards.
Because of Mister Fantastic's stretching abilities, Tony designs the suit to accommodate Richards' power. Thus, it bears a resemblance to an infamous piece of body horror by Junji Ito.
Valerio Schiti's character designs in the backmatter of Empyre #5 reveal the Fantastic Four power armor created by Tony Stark for Reed Richards. The suit looks more or less like a blue and grey Iron Man suit, with the iconic four in place of the arc reactor. The sketches give a front and back view, in addition to a look at how the suit stretches with Reed's body. It's cool, yes, but it also bears an unnerving similarity the final horrific product of Junji Ito's The Enigma of Maigara Fault.
The Enigma of Amigara Fault is the story of two teens, Owaki and Yoshida, who hike Amigara Mountain following an earthquake in a nameless Japanese prefecture. A recent earthquake revealed a series of indeterminably deep holes in a cliff face, which are shaped exactly like specific human silhouettes. Many hikers have gone to the mountain in search of their hole, saying that when they saw the news story on TV, the hole called out to them.
One by one people begin to enter the holes, even though they know they will be lost inside the mountain, unable to move any way but forward. The holes have an irresistible draw that eventually overtakes Yoshida and Owaki. The story then jumps ahead by months, to reveal a group of scientists discovering a similar cliff face with similar holes -- only these holes are far more abstract shapes, incredibly long and spindly. One of the researchers looks inside and sees a horrific, completely stretched out human creature coming toward him from the darkness, still a perfect fit for the hole.
It is relatively common now for fans to recreate the panels of Ito's manga with popular characters like Mario, Plague Knight and Diglet. These panels have been memed. However, it is unlikely Marvel is making an intentional reference to Junji Ito.
This does, however, harken back to the roots of the Fantastic Four. While the group wasn't body horror per se, the idea of their mutations as being initially disturbing was a part of Stan Lee's original concept. Ben Grimm famously grappled with this in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's classic, "This Man... This Monster!," in which the darker side of the Thing's transformation is explored. The idea of the body horror inherent to Marvel's first family is also toyed with -- albeit unsuccessfully -- in Fox's 2015 Fantastic Four film.
Still, Empyre #5 makes it clear that it's better not to think too much about the properties of Mister Fantastic's semi-disturbing, bone-crunching anatomy.