Bill Reinhold

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)

Oy. Jack of Fables should probably have ended back with [b:Jack of Fables, Vol. 6: The Big Book of War|6378575|Jack of Fables, Vol. 6 The Big Book of War|Bill Willingham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375395534l/6378575._SY75_.jpg|6566346]. It wrapped up everything nicely enough. Instead it just keeps going. But here, we have a finale! Except... everyone dies Not even kidding. After we've come to know and love all these characters, the big finale is them all getting together for one last battle ... and every one of them dies. I guess that's one way to end a series.

Sucks.



Heh. It's funny because dragon. I guess. Why does Gary stick around with him?

The sections with this art style are at least pretty amusing, specifically because of the style.



Woo Page sisters. Who for some reason are carrying around a baby? When did that happen? And then the baby is sent to his father, never to be seen again.



Oh right. John. He's still around. Only to die like everyone else.

That was kind of a bummer ending to what was never my favorite of the Fables series. So it goes. Onward and back to Fairest and the mainline for the last few!… (mehr)