Earth X #6

Background

Captain America and Redwing have discovered that there is in fact a new Red Skull and he is controlling anyone that comes close enough to him, so of course he takes control of Redwing and then has everyone Cap cares about, attack Captain defeating him and then ignoring him, as if he's not worthy of consideration. Bruce Banner has been having strange dreams involving the end of the world and Captain Mar-vell so he and the Hulk go to meet with the new Sorceress Supreme, Clea, to ask for her help to talk to Mar-vell. The Inhumans have come to Latveria to seek out Reed Richards where they tell him that Vibranium, the chemical that is believed to have caused the Earth's populace to mutant, will also destroy the earth. Not being able to think of anything they can do about it, Reed decides to help the Inhumans in their search for the rest of their people to save them.

Story 'Chapter Six'

With the New X-Men on the cover it's a good guess that the background story in this issue would somehow involve the original X-Men. Uatu tells X-51 of the origins of Magneto and of his fight against Charles Xavier over the roles each believed mutants would play in the world. Xavier believing that mutants could somehow live in peace with the humans and Magneto believing that mutants were the superior race and how they live with the humans needed to reflect that.

Reed Richards, using Medusa's teleporter arrives at what is left of the X-Men's mansion to recover Cerebro, the device Professor Xavier used to search for mutants throughout the world. Reed hopes to make some adjustments to the machine so that he can search among the world's mutants to find the Inhumans living amongst them.

We cut to Scott Summers, aka, the Cyclops, walking through Central Park when he is suddenly attack by the New X-Men. Defeating them rather quickly, he learns that they attacked him as a show of their fighting skills (not very good fighting skills, though) and that they were sent to him by Captain America to ask Cyclops to be there new leader. He accepts this new role and goes into really teaching them how to fight as a team.

Clea, the Supreme Sorceress is meeting with Thor (now a woman) and the Hulk with Bruce Banner. The Hulk and Banner have split and have become two beings, the massive Hulk, and the small child, Bruce. Because of Bruce's dream involving Captain Mar-vell and the destruction of the Earth, Bruce feels the need to enter Death's realm to talk to Mar-vell, in the hopes that he'll be able to explain Bruce's dream to him and maybe stop whatever is coming. Clea says that to take someone into Death's land that person would have no need for their soul and they would have to give it up to Death once inside, but Bruce says she'll take the Hulk because he really doesn't have a soul to begin with.

It is shown to us that Tony Stark has been dealing with President Norman Osborn. Vision calls Tony on this, saying he shouldn't be aligned with such a monster but Stark believes that to make a difference with his inventions he needs freedom from government red tape and that's what Osborn gives him. The Vision tells Tony that what the people need more than just some new inventions is Tony himself, but since he has lived so long disconnected from the outside world Tony can no longer see that.

Thrown near the end of the issue we have a small conversation between Peter Parker and his daughter, May who is hanging out as Venom. Peter says that he needs to tell her that with great power, there must come great responsibility, but she throws in his face the fact that she's not him and the main difference between them is that she wouldn't have allowed the burglar to get past her in the first place. It's a nice exchange between a father who doesn't want his daughter to make the same mistakes he has made and a daughter who has no intention of making those mistakes in the first place and is just tired of the same lecture once again from her father.

Captain America and his new teammate, Daredevil, are riding the top of a train that is surrounded by the red Skull's army, going wherever the red Skull plans take them. Daredevil admits to Cap that the only reason why he is joining up with him is that he is sure that Cap is on the losing side and since Daredevil is obsessed with his own death (you'd have to be if nothing could kill you) being on the losing side is the only side for him.

General Comments

Reed Richards travels to Charles Xavier's mansion to find Cerebro so that he can help Medusa find the rest of the Inhumans. Scott Summers has agreed to reform the X-Men after having Captain America ask Daredevil's old circus group to find him and ask him to lead them. Bruce Banner gets Clea, the Supreme Sorceress to bring the Hulk into Death's realm to find Captain Mar-vell hoping that he can shed some light on the dreams Bruce has been having lately. And lastly, Captain America is not giving up trying to come up with a way to fight the Red Skull and he has a new partner, Daredevil, who is only interested in fighting a losing battle.

Overall Rating

The background story didn't seem as prominent in this issue. It was a small number of pages long and then we jump right into the current time line. I didn't like the fact that Reed Richards seems to think that he can just use Cerebro to locate the Inhumans left on Earth. I seem to remember that Cerebro only heights Professor Xavier's telepathic powers, widening his range throughout the world. Last time I checked Mr. Fantastic didn't have any telepathic powers I can think of.

The rest of the story was just average. We get a one page interlude with Venom and Peter Parker that just doesn't seem like it added anything to the overall story, that it was just thrown in in the hopes that Spider fans out there would appreciate the cameo. Who knows, maybe in a later issue Peter Parker and Venom will play a vital role. But right now it just feels like filler.

Footnote

I just thought I'd throw this in here. In the next issue Reed explains to the Thing that he got Cerebro to work for him by stretching his own brain so that it resembled a brain of a telepathic person like Charles Xavier. Lame fix, I know, but I figured since I mentioned this problem in this issue, I'm add the reasoning behind it from the next issue.

"Die before you die. There is no chance after." - C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces