Earth X (sometimes translated in Chinese as Diqiu X, also known as Yishijie: Diqiu Pian) is a 14-issue limited series published by Marvel between 1999 and 2000, written by Jim Krueger based on Alex Ross's concept notes, with interior art by John Paul Leon and hand-painted covers by Ross for the entire series. The story takes place in an alternate future designated Earth-9997: roughly a decade after the age of heroes has ended, Black Bolt secretly releases the Terrigen Mists into Earth's atmosphere so that the Inhumans will no longer be ostracized, and blinds the Watcher Uatu; Uatu then brings the long-retired robot X-51, who has been imitating human life, to the moon to serve as Earth's new Watcher. Meanwhile, Reed Richards's Vibranium energy network experiment, built to solve the energy crisis, spirals out of control and triggers a global chain explosion; the mass mutation that follows comes to be known as the "Mutant Plague." Captain America retires from the Avengers after killing the Red Skull; Benny Beckley, son of Comet Man, awakens the ability to control others' actions, calls himself "Skull," and leads his mind-controlled army toward New York; the Inhuman royal family returns from space to investigate the truth of the mutations, ultimately uncovering the ancient secret that the Celestials engineered Earth's life and use Earth as an incubator for Celestial embryos. This volume is the second of the series' 14 issues, collecting issue #2 and continuing the above storylines.
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Alex Ross is an author who writes about music. Publicly available information about his nationality, education, and life experience is limited, and the library holds only one of his works, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. Judging from the title and subject, the book explores twentieth-century music and seeks to guide readers through the century's dense and varied sounds and musical developments, combining music appreciation with cultural commentary. The site classifies this author under film and television, suggesting that the work is often read alongside film and audio-visual material. Based on the available information, Ross focuses not on personal narrative but on tracing the development of modern music through the act of listening, in a style of commentary aimed at general readers rather than a technical manual.
