Rating: 
Summary: Longtime Marvel Fans Will Revel In The Dense Plotline......
Review: Universe X is the sequel to Earth X, and the middle section of a huge trilogy. It continues the basic plot threads from the previous series- In the Marvel Universe of the future, many of the heroes we know are dead, many more are changed beyond recognition, the population of the Earth has been mutated by the Terrigen Mists of The Inhumans, and The Celestial Plot has been foiled.... This chapter starts with Reed Richards (Of the Fantastic Four) trying to keep the hordes of Mutated Humanity from dousing his "Human Torches", Giant pyres that will reverse the effects of the Terrigen Mists....Seems that most of the world doesn't WANT to be normal again. From there the story becomes positively byzantine, and I expect readers who aren't well-versed in the particulars of such obscure characters as The Living Mummy, The Micronauts, Captain Universe, etc., will feel totally lost. I, on the other hand, have been a comic-book geek for my entire life, so this was like a trip down memory lane, revisiting characters I haven't seen in ages. (It's nice to know that Alex Ross and Jim Krueger, the creative forces of the "X" books, are apparently bigger geeks than me! Who else would wonder why the omniscient Captain Marvel didn't forsee the cancer that killed him?) As dense as the book sometimes is, it's worth buying. Especially good is the Captain America chapter, as Cap struggles to protect the child-incarnation of Mar-Vell. A very moving story that captures, maybe better than any other story, the essence of the Cap character. I was truly touched. The art varies throughout the book, and sometimes it's hard to tell who's who. The art serves it's purpose, and it's easier to follow than the art in Earth X, but I still wasn't too impressed. The art in the Fantastic Four, Spidey, and Cap chapters are vast improvements over the rest of the book. Longtime Marvel readers should be impressed.
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