Reed Richards and Tony Stark helped save Earth once again and they did it this time with Marvel’s favorite deus ex machina: Unstable molecules.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers from Empyre #6 by Al Ewing, Dan Slott, Valerio Schiti, Marte Gracia and VC’s Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
The end of the Empyre storyline featured a lot of technical prowess, some subterfuge and a bit of good, old-fashioned fisticuffs. However, what saved the world was Marvel’s favorite deus ex machina.
When it came to stopping the sun from blowing up the entire Earth, it took a little bit of scientific know-how and work from two of the smartest men on the planet — Reed Richards and Tony Stark. They accomplished this feat by using the famed Marvel invention known as the unstable molecules.
Unstable molecules are a synthetic material discovered by Reed Richards. Scientists can alter this material to adapt to any environment, because unstable molecules remain resilient to intense heat, cold, density, pressure and more. Hence, superhero costumes are made from unstable molecules, which is what allows them to stay mostly in tact.
When they were first introduced, unstable molecules gave Marvel the excuse to allow its heroes to do anything they needed to do and not end up naked when they finished. This didn’t apply solely to the Fantastic Four, either: In Tales to Astonish #35 (1962), the first appearance of Hank Pym as Ant-Man showed him using unstable molecules for his costume, allowing it to shrink with him while still providing body armor.
In Empyre, unstable molecules gave Reed Richards and Tony Stark a way to save Earth. There were two issues that needed to be addressed: The Death Blossom in Wakanda and the inevitable ignition of the sun.
Iron Man was tasked with stopping the sun from exploding. He realized the threat was adding iron to the sun, which is denser than the elements at the star’s core. When Reed Richards went to Wakanda to fight in armor, Tony took Mr. Fantastic’s original suit and programmed the unstable molecules in it to replicate and attack the iron in the sun, which would remove it.