Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger’s Earth X collects issues 0-12 and X of the monumental series illustrated by Ross and John Paul Leon; inked by Bill Reinhold; and colored by Matt Hollingsworth, Melissa Edwards, and James Sinclair. The series begins with X-51, the Machine Man who first appeared in Marvel’s ongoing 2001: A Space Odyssey comic following its adaptation of the film, being transported to the Moon by Uatu the Watcher to become Earth’s new Watcher following Uatu’s blinding. He sees a world set twenty years into the Marvel Universe’s future from the late-1990s.

The dystopian future features a world fully populated by mutants and other empowered beings. Reed Richards, in attempting to harness vibranium to solve the world’s energy crisis, believes that he accidentally transformed the planet. In truth, Black Bolt of the Inhumans blinded the Watcher and set off his brothers’ Terrigen bomb in order to transform the world’s population into Inhumans, thereby making the Inhuman nation safe from the effects of twentieth-century pollution as they left Attilan. X-51 learns all of this as well as the Celestial plan, in which they transform worlds to contain the eggs of future Celestials.

On Earth, as Steve Rogers recruits forces to fight the Skull, who has the ability to control all of humanity with his mind, the end of the world approaches an unknowing human populace. Reed Richards becomes aware of the Inhumans’ actions while Uatu explains to X-51 that the various empowered humans on Earth are part of the Celestials’ plan to ensure the world’s protection from outside forces until such time as the Celestial egg at the planet’s core is ready to hatch. Vibranium nourishes the egg and begins the process of mutation in humanity. Truthfully, no human has ever been unaffected by the Celestial plan. Galactus served as a check upon the Celestial population and – in warding him off all those years before – the Fantastic Four inadvertently doomed the planet. Now they must call upon him to counter the Celestials.

In his afterword, Jim Krueger notes that his and Alex Ross’ story sought to explain all the accidental heroes in the Marvel universe while also drawing upon the highest internal mythology underpinning the comics’ continuity. This story launched a trilogy with Earth X followed by Universe X and Paradise X. They form the Divine Comedy of Marvel Comics. While more than twenty years have passed since Earth X’s publication, it remains a critical Marvel text well-worth revisiting. ( )

Felt more like an overview than a story. The conversations between Uatu and X-51 felt more like info dumps than anything else. I expected more from an Alex Ross project--though I do love his art, especially his Cap. ( )

I actually read the signed Graffiti black and white version. I found it at an inexpensive price so I went for it.

In concept this story was supposed to be a Marvel Kingdom Come. And there are a few similarities. But some of the most poignant moments of Kingdom Come don't hit me in this book. Perhaps it really needs to be in color for me to get into it better.

Overall the story was interesting and I believe there is more story that follows the events in this book. I would really like to see an omnibus version printed at some future point with all the story. ( )

http://books.moonsoar.com/archives/2013/10/02/earth-x/ ( )

This is one of those ones where you would really need to be familiar with the Marvel worlds to understand what is going on and the whys of the character motivations. Still it's an interesting twist, what would happen if everyone had superpowers? What would happen with the few superheroes who had a lot of power?

It's interesting but somehow I didn't really click with it. ( )