Okay,
now that we got the introductions out of the way, it’s time to start the meat
and potatoes of the story. If you do
pick up the individual issues (I’m not sure if they replicate it in the trades)
you will find that the graphic part of the story is bookended with blocks of
text. They both generally involve Uatu
and Machine Man, known here by his serial number X-51 because Uatu is a douche,
discussing the events of the current comic and recapping a lot of what has gone
on to make the world this way (remember, this was initially going to be a
future timeline until Marvel decided it was an alternate reality). While this is a smart way to convey a lot of
information without extending the limited series ad infinitum, it does get a
little heavy in terms of reading blocks of text that are not broken up by John
Paul Leon’s stunning art (as is the case in the rest of the book).
One of
the cool things that Earth X does is
recap the origins of Marvel’s greatest heroes and then follow them into the
“present day” and see how the change that the Earth went through affected
them. The first one to go under the
microscope so to speak was Captain America (naturally). We get a quick recap of Cap’s origin –
scrawny kid drinks super soldier serum and becomes a symbol for patriotism and
the American way.
The
America that Cap loved and defended for years is no longer the America that he
lives in. A quick interlude as the Inhumans,
who have been in deep space for years, are returning to Earth in time to see
that it is quite the dump. Not only is
it a dump, but Hydra Is now a hive-minded organism instead of just a cult. Octopus-like creatures attach themselves to
an individual and as long as that individual relents, they will be
possessed. They then become part of the
“hive” and fight for the Hydra queen, who just so happens to be the
She-Hulk. Unfortunately, one thing that
Cap is still really good at is losing partners as Falcon has already fallen
victim to Hydra, while Wyatt Wingfoot is fighting a losing battle with the
Hydra. 
A quick
look around the rest of the area in New York shows us that Cyclops is still
alive and kicking, blasting bad guys and being slightly less douchey than his
counterpart in the X-Men Cartoon from the 90’s.
Peter Parker has given up his mantle of Spiderman, despite Luke Cage
basically ordering him to not be such a pussy.
Oh Luke Cage, you know Petey has always been kind of a wuss. There is a Spider-Something lurking, but
we’ll have to wait to see what that is.
Back to
Cap and the Hydra. Cap is about to give
up when he gets his good ole American spirit back. This causes him to fight the Hydra and free
Wyatt and himself. They then escape to
an alley as Tony Stark’s Iron Avenger show up and blast the Hydra that are on
the street (this is apparently a pretty regular thing, collateral damage be
damned). The Iron Avengers are just what
you think they are: if you took Iron Man’s armor and patterned it after the
Avengers, there you have it. Of course,
these Iron Avengers were made in homage to the real Avengers who died,
somehow…I’m sure we’ll get back to that.
As the
dust clears, Cap walks out to see a piece of fabric on the ground, a piece of
fabric that contains a red skull.
Cue
ominous music.
We wrap
up with blocks of text explaining what happened to characters such as Black
Panther, Nick Fury and Falcon as well as explain the fact that Norman Osborn is
the big cheese (something that would be played up in later years in the regular
Marvel Universe.
Next Issue: Cap found
a picture of a red skull…is it the red skull, or is the punisher just changing
his color scheme? Find out next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment