Earth X is a 14-issue limited series published by Marvel from 1999 to 2000, written by Jim Krueger and drawn by John Paul Leon, with its story framework originating from the "Marvel future" conceived by artist Alex Ross for Wizard magazine. The story takes place in the parallel universe designated Earth-9997, roughly ten years after the age of superheroes: Black Bolt, leader of the Inhumans, releases the Terrigen Mists into the atmosphere in the hope of transforming all humanity into Inhumans so that his people will no longer be persecuted; before leaving, he also blinds the Watcher Uatu. Uatu brings Machine Man X-51, who long ago abandoned his heroic identity and lives imitating a human maker, to the moon and makes him the new Watcher of Earth. On Earth, most humans blame the worldwide mutation on the experiment of the Vibranium energy network built by Reed Richards to solve the energy crisis, calling it the "Terrigen plague." The boundary between superheroes and ordinary people disappears completely, and heroes lose their original meaning; the fates of an aged, balding Captain America, a boy "Red Skull" with powerful mind-control abilities, and characters such as the Fantastic Four, Namor, and Doctor Doom are all reshuffled. The work examines the end of the heroic age from the perspective of an observer, asking what remains of heroes when everyone can have superpowers. This work is the opening of the Earth X trilogy, followed by two sequels, Universe X and Paradise X.
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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.
