Jim Krueger

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.… (mehr)

This volume had a pretty distinct shift in tone and story from the previous Season 8 volumes, and it was fun in its own (slightly gimmicky) way! The Satsu and Dawn issues were the strongest; they did a good job of continuing or wrapping up plot points from earlier all while developing the bigger picture (although Kennedy is mega-annoying here). Also three cheers for seeing more of the FaithxGiles team-up!! That issue felt like random filler but it was enjoyable to see them in action nevertheless. :)… (mehr)

Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and Doug Braithwaite’s Justice volume 1 collects the first four issues of the eponymous series from DC Comics. The story begins with supervillains around the world experiencing a vivid nightmare in which the heroes of the Justice League fail to save the Earth, leading to the end of humanity. Led by Lex Luthor, they gather to take on the Justice League in order to study them while also taking a more active role in preparing humanity for the nightmare they shared. Luthor and the other supervillains believe that the League held humanity back by not allowing it to face challenges on its own. Using Batman’s files, the Injustice League begins targeting the League one by one, with each falling. This is a fantastic start to the story, but it's only the first ¼ of the tale.… (mehr)

I read "Kingdom Come" first and really liked that, so when I found this I decided to check it out. The art style is still great - I love that the women are pretty muscular and how proportionate all the characters look (all the guys are still a bit funny-looking).

Overall, the story was somewhat enjoyable. It fell apart a bit over time. Every issue seemed to be leading up to something and it kind of led to half-second conspiracy explanations that were kind of off-putting and a bit of a let-down. One of the biggest problems was the Joker. I fail to see what relevance his part in the story had and it kept distracting from the plot. I suppose a case could be made for demonstrating how the villains would act if they WEREN'T mind-controlled (they'd just screw each other up), but it's kind of a long shot and it just didn't work.

I'm also confused about The Dream. If the characters are all already mind-controlled and their plan is to kill off the JLA and rule the planet, then why do they need The Dream? This seems like a fallback to one of my major issues with "Kingdom Come": the frequent biblical(?) text intermixed with shadowy fortellings of the future that broke up the story. It was irritating. It's kind of like overkill for what I'm sure is the primary story-telling purpose (besides sounding like an epic concept): in KC, it would be to explain to the human witness what MIGHT happen if things go badly so he has a stake in stopping things, and in J, it's part of the mind control to keep the villains in line. Except when they lose the overt mind control, all the villains abandon the cause anyway so... It's kinda stupid? The Dream fails to explain HOW the supers lose their powers or when all of this takes place or who is doing what's happening. It's full of so many unexplainables that I think SOMEONE among all the geniuses of the JLA would figure something out and cry foul.


There were a lot more cameos here that mattered than in KC, which I liked. More screen time was given to actual characters (particularly female characters) than oh... random human males that no one knows, and I liked that. The dismissive nature of Hawkman and Green Arrow was KIND of irritating, though. My favorite character interaction was probably Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. Their friendship was quite sweet. I don't see Marvel being really smart and thoughtful in a lot of comics (or you know... using his Wisdom of Solomon) and this was a nice change.

I also really liked how they played with Wonder Woman's character. That was interesting and enjoyable. And I love that she refused to stop believing in Rich. Batman also gets some interesting story moments, and I liked how Marvel came to Clark's rescue. It was quite interesting to see Marvel carrying Superman in his arms.

Overall... worth a read if you like JLA comics and "Kingdom Come". If you haven't read KC first, go read it. It's better.… (mehr)