WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Empyre: X-Men #1, by Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, Matteo Buffagni, Nolan Woodard, and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
While the events of Empyre have begun to spread throughout the pages of the Marvel Universe, the X-Men and their new nation, Krakoa, have found themselves caught amid a battle with an army of undead mutants, courtesy of the Scarlet Witch. While the Cotati's plan of universal domination has been may have delayed by mutantkind's pariah, it has led to an unexpected, and likely short-lived, team-up between the X-Men and a group of their newest foes.
The issue begins with Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, attempting to redeem herself for her actions in the House of M event, which left a large number of Marvel's mutants depowered. She intends to do this by resurrecting the 16 million mutants that were killed in Genosha, but something goes wrong and instead of completely resurrecting them they return as zombies.
When the Cotati arrive on Earth and land on Genosha in Empyre: X-Men #1, they unexpectedly encounter the newly resurrected Genoshan zombies. After the two factions begin fighting, Charles Xavier to sends the unsuspecting group of Angel, Magik, Monet and Jamie Madrox to take a look at a malfunctioning gate to Krakoa.
While Multiple Man attempts to fix the gateway, the rest of the group quickly spots the Cotati and realizes they are running from a group of Genoshan zombies, who are quickly approaching the Krakoan gate. But just as the undead are about to rush through the fate, the zombies are stopped by Hordeculture and their slime weapon that stops the zombies in their tracks.
The elderly group of villains was introduced in Johnathan Hickman and Leinil Francis Yu's X-Men #3, where they quickly humiliated the mutants. In their last appearance, they warned the X-Men to switch sides as they did not fit in with Hordeculture's vision of the Earth, which favors botanical life. And now that Empyre is seeing an alien form of plant life essentially take over the Marvel Universe, Hordeculture fits right into the X-Men's place in the event.
While they may have helped the X-Men take down a group of zombies at the end of this issue, their position on botanical life seems to indicate that their role in this event is far from over. It's possible that this is the moment Hordeculture was warning Krakoa about, and they could even join the Cotati in their efforts to dominate the universe and bring about the end of a world dominated by humans. However, Hordeculture could also see the Cotati as an invasive species that's against Earth's natural order, and they could find themselves fighting alongside the X-Men to stop the invasion.
While there are still a lot of questions surrounding Krakoa, an alien invasion by the Cotati almost certainly doesn't fit into the plans for the longterm survival of mutantkind. Although there's no love lost between the X-Men and Hordeculture, the two groups may have to rely on each other to survive the invasion.