UK EDITION
 
By various (Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-905239-67-2
This celebratory compilation collects a selection of obvious — and not so well known –Â tales featuring the fabled Sentinel of the Spaceways. The volume opens with the deservedly lauded and legendary introductory story. Although pretty much a last minute addition to Lee’s plot for Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s gleaming creation became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe, and one Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.
Sent to find planets for Galactus to consume, the Silver Surfer discovers Earth, but the latent nobility of humanity reawakens his own suppressed morality and he rebels against his master and helps the FF save the planet. In retaliation, Galactus imprisons the Surfer on Earth, the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice. The Galactus Saga was a creative highlight of a period where the Lee/Kirby partnership was utterly on fire. This tale has all the power and grandeur of a true epic and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment.
Following that is a two-parter from the anthology comic Tales to Astonish, which sees the Hulk meet the Surfer – although only on the very last page of ‘Turning Point’ (#92). The concluding ‘He Who Strikes the Silver Surfer,’ from TTA #93, made up for this deficit by cramming a huge amount of cosmic mayhem and misunderstanding into its ten pages, and the vastly underrated art of Marie Severin and Frank Giacoia is always a joy to see.
In 1968 the Surfer got his own title at last. ‘The Origin of the Silver Surfer!’ is by Lee, John Buscema and Joe Sinnott, the inker of the original Kirby FF trilogy, and detailed how Norrin Radd, last brave soul of a civilisation in comfortable stagnation, offers himself as a sacrifice to save his world from Galactus’s hunger. The stories in this series were highly acclaimed both for Buscema’s truly beautiful artwork and Lee’s deeply spiritual scripts, with the alien’s travails and observations creating a metaphoric status akin to a Christ-figure for an audience that was maturing and rebelling against America’s status quo.
The next story, from Tomb of Dracula #50 (1976) was one of the few not scripted by Lee, but Marv Wolfman kept the messianic overtones when the Devil tricks the Surfer into attacking the Lord of Vampires, in an attempt to prevent the birth of Dracula’s son. Whether the baby was truly destined to be the new Messiah is a tale for another time and place, but ‘Where Soars the Silver Surfer,’ drawn by Gene Colan and inked by Tom Palmer is certainly a magnificent art-job, capturing the eerie unworldly nature of the character.
Lee returned to script John Byrne’s 1982 one-shot. ‘Escape… to Terror’ was plotted and pencilled by Byrne, and Palmer again inked the Skyrider in a pretty but sadly vacuous yarn wherein the Surfer escapes Earth and returns to his devastated homeworld only to find he’s been manipulated by the demonic Mephisto. The only way to thwart the corrupter is to forsake his greatest love and return to his earthly prison.
The volume concludes with the two part ‘Parable’, released as a Epic Comics micro-series in 1988-1989, featuring an all-new interpretation of Galactus’s first attack on Earth, illustrated by legendary French artist Jean Giraud/Moebius. As with the 1978 Silver Surfer book by Lee and Kirby ((Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster 1978, ISBN: 0-6712-4225-3) the saga is removed from the normal Marvel continuity allowing Lee and the artist to focus on the unique nature of the Surfer and his ravenous master without the added distraction of hundreds of super-heroes.
Prompted, I’m sure, by the second Fantastic Four film, this is nonetheless a useful and entertaining primer to the character, and if there are some glaring omissions in content, the rarities should somewhat compensate for that, and still leave great material for new converts to seek out.
© 1966-1968, 1976, 1982, 1988-1989, 2007 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.