Earth-X
Earth-X's trade paperback collects the 1999-2000 maxi-series that chronicled a post-Apocalyptic Marvel Universe. Writer Jim Krueger and cover artist, character designer, and co-plotter Alex Ross created a deep, complex, and pitiful world where all humans are mutants, and the Marvel heroes we have grown up with are "done".
Earth-X was created in direct inspiration to Kingdom Come (which was DC's answer to Marvels). Krueger and Ross, however, presented Earth-X in a much different style, enlisting John Paul Leon, who has a dark, obscure style as opposed to Ross's photo-realism painting.
Unlike most superhero team-up mega events, the big guns don't lead the ship. The protagonist is Jack Kirby's Machine Man (X-51), a minor character. The antagonists are the mysterious Celestials, also a Kirby creation.
We learn about Marvel's dark future through dialog between X-51 and the blind (and evil) Watcher.
Along the way, we find out about how messed up the world is, and how much it changed.
If you've read the Marvel Saga maxi-series, you can see that Krueger used that as a basis to tie in all of Marvel's continuity and coincidences.
Krueger tackles nihilism, existentialism, the search for identity, biology, evolution, religion, predestiny, genetics, free will, morality, and other philosophies, mostly dialog driven, which rubs some critics the wrong way.
Full disclosure: I'm a deep, sensitive guy, and Earth-X spoke to me. At the risk of sounding like an intellectual snob, I get frustrated when I read "critics" attack Earth-X for being a "pseuo-intellectual" college course, with disappointing artwork.
Tony Vahl and I were inspired by Earth-X, and we told Jim Kreuger that in person at a comic book convention. Jim was such a nice guy, and told us that he inserted a lot of his Jesuit and philosophic background into Earth-X; it's all about giving life meaning.
Is Earth-X complex? Yes. Is it aceessible to a casual reader? Probably not. But I'm tired of fanboys complaining about comics getting "dumbed down" to be mass-marketed only to complain about a comic with philosophical debates.
After reading Earth-X, I said to myself, "Everything fits, now". At the time, I believed it totally tied up and wrapped up Marvel history and continuity in a nutshell.
The earth is really an egg, as the Celestials planted their seed in its core eons ago. These gods tampered with earth's evolution to create super-powered beings to protect the earth from outside invaders and to an extent each other.
Maybe I will further expound upon Earth-X's continuity retcons in the other parts if this site. But for now all you have to know is that every aspect and origin of superheroes are explained.
Yes, the artwork is not for everyone. (Keep in mind, the hype for the series was all from Wizard, who teamed up with Alex Ross to promote it). But the artwork totally fits the mood and tone of Earth-X, as in Earth-Done...the end of the Marvel Universe.
Yes, it is odd to have X-51 and The Watcher have debates to push the plot forward, but not only does their dialog explain and show everything on Earth-X, but it also sets the helplessness of humanity, and sets up the impossible battle versus the Celestials.
Yes, you need to have a background in Marvel history, but Krueger does his best to explain everything. Earth-X is something that requires multiple reads anyway since it is so detailed.
With all of that being said, Earth-X is an epic, and should be mentioned along side the other great Marvel and DC maxi-series. On the whole, it is an entertaining mind-trip that totally fed my need to see older versions of Marvel heroes and as a continuity junkie, my retcon fix.
Ratings
TPB Score: 5/5
Writers Jim Krueger and Alex Ross: 5/5
Artist John Paul Leon: 3.5/5
Individual comics ratings: Later