In the
summer of 2015, Marvel Comics is going to revisit a good portion of their
alternate universes, most likely tied in to their year-long “Secret Wars”
event. I am going to take a look at one
of those alternate universes that holds a special significance, the Earth X
Universe. The special significance of
this universe is that many of the changes that have taken place in the regular
Marvel Universe over the past few years, were already done in the Earth X
Universe years ago. Were Alex Ross and
Jim Krueger (the masterminds behind the universe) prophets, or did the “house
of ideas” become the “house of out of ideas”?
I lean towards the latter, but it would be interesting to see how
everything goes together. So please,
join me for a journey into a different timeline where everything you know is
turned on its head.
I
remember buying this issue when I was in tenth grade. At that point I had just read Marvels for the first time and was a
huge fan of Alex Ross’s work (I had yet to read Kingdom Come, that would have to wait until college). Instead of waiting for Earth X to be collected, I wanted to get in on the ground floor, to
collect his next bonafide hit from the beginning. Of course at that time I did not realize that
he would not be drawing the interiors, but it didn’t matter as once I started
reading the book I was hooked. Yes, it
was a little wordy, and quite dense, but the prospect of a dystopian future for
these characters I had grown to love was too much to ignore (it was not
revealed until later that this was an alternate reality running concurrently
with the regular Marvel Universe, and not a possible future).
This
introductory issue brings us face to face with Aaron Stack, also known as
Machine Man for those individuals that are not well versed in superhero
codenames. Aaron has been chosen by
Uatu, the Watcher to become the new Watcher, cataloging the exploits of the
inhabitants of Earth. Why does this
mantle need to be passed down, you ask?
Because Uatu is now blind. How
does someone known as “The Watcher” not see that coming, you ask? Well, just pay attention as that will be
explained. So Uatu coaxes Aaron to come
work for him through the subtle art of telling him that he is just a machine
and therefore has no real family, friends or humanity (something Aaron has
tried desperately to acquire in recent years).
Uatu is a dick, but we are soon to find out that Watchers are dicks by
their very nature. That’s what happens
when you just watch bad shit go down without ever intervening. But Uatu did intervene, you say, remember the
Ultimate Nullifier? I haven’t forgotten,
and we’ll get to that as well.
The
most interesting part of this issue to me was the way that Ross and Krueger
were able to interweave the history of the Marvel Universe with actual
historical events. Now Marvel has been
doing this since they were known as Timely Comics, but this gives complete and
total relevance to the Marvel Universe and makes it a lot less fantastic and a
lot more “believable” than the DC Universe (something I always enjoyed about
Marvel more than DC). For example, the
asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was not just a random event. That asteroid hitting the Earth created the
Moon, which was created as a place for the Watcher to watch from. If nothing else, this book uses the idea of a
benevolent God (in this instance the Celestials) to full effect. We are not in control of any portion of our
lives as the Celestials have everything mapped out. This is a crazy notion and one that, somehow,
someway, Krueger ties in to just about every major Marvel milestone of the last
thirty years. 
Krueger
explains the creation of the gods (the traditional Greek and Norse ones
especially) as beings created by the Celestials to protect the planet from the
first race of life forms they created known as the deviants. Eventually, the Celestials created
humans. Once the humans get there we get
a nice little montage (with beautiful art all the way through by John Paul
Leon) of the many different eras, from conquistadors, to the West, to the
beginning of the Marvel Age. We get a
brief history of the Invaders (the original Human Torch, Namor and Captain
America) and then move through World War II to take a brief glimpse at many of the
other inciting incidents of the Marvel Heroes (something that will be a
hallmark of the rest of this series).
Throughout, Leon does a great job of capturing the essence of the
various Marvel Heroes in a style that I was not too keen on at the time (I was
a Madureira/Bachalo fan and this was a huge departure from that) but has grown
on me considerably since then. In fact,
the issue ends with a double page spread involving the majority of the major Marvel
characters. A beautiful piece that I
would love to have hanging in my office.
Next Issue: With the introductions complete, it’s time to
actually tell a story. And if you
thought this issue was long-winded, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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