This week on View from the Gutters our topic work is Universe X, by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, with art by Dougie Braithwaite and Bill Reinhold. The sequel to Earth X (which we discussed previously), Universe X takes the next step forward in plumbing the depths of the Marvel Universe, past, present, and alternate.

Created by the same team as the previous series, Universe X could, perhaps, be thought of an anti-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Rather than tear its universe apart at the seams in order to start fresh, Universe X seeks to bind together all of the loose cloth of the Marvel U, binding it together into a single cohesive quilt. It is at times ponderously slow and inscrutably dense in its pondering of the many hows and whys that have piled from over (at the time) 40 years of continuity. However, for the right reader it is a deeply engrossing work with many rewards for a close reading.

In our recommendation section our hosts nominated Paradise X; Formerly Known as the Justice League; Journey into Mystery featuring Sif; Hellboy Vol. 1 & 2; and Lazarus #1-9 for discussion on the next episode, and our selected title is Hellboy, Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil (collected together in Hellboy Library Edition, Vol. 1).

We invite you to discuss both this episode and its topic on our subreddit.

Our hosts for this episode are Andrew Chard, Tobiah Panshin, Joe Preti, Brant Gillihan-Eddy, and Cade Reynolds.