Essential Silver Surfer, Vol. 1 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Silver Surfer made his first appearance in Fantastic Four #48. This book collects his all eighteen issues of his first solo comic book series and his first solo appearance in a back up story in 1967's Fantastic Four Annual #5. While Jack Kirby created the character with Stan Lee. With the exception of the FF Annual #5 and Issue 18, John Bouscema handles the art duties.

The first seven issues featuring the Sky Rider of the Spaceways are doublelength stories. The Silver Surfer began as a 72-page magazine with a Watcher story back up.

During this period, the Surfer was Earthbound as he would be until the launch of his third series in 1987.

A 40 page comic book story with no need of extraneous recaps can work great if you know what you're doing and Stan Lee did. Though the books were without their first flaws. The first Issue and a half were very talk as our brooding hero could go on for pages about the insanity of humanity. But, this is more than balanced by the quality of the stories.

While the first issue is mostly a recap and set up with the Silver Surfer's origin more fleshed out. The next six that follow are epic and complex plots that use the 40 page format brilliantly.

Issue 2 has the Surfer stopping an alien invasion. Issue 3 introduces Mephisto, a demonic power who would be the Surfer's biggest rival and send ripples through the Marvel Universe. Issue 3 has the Surfer fighting Thor under the deception of Loki. Issue 4 has the Surfer trying to escape Earth and finding a human friend, and then facing off against the Stranger, a Marvel baddie who power could equal the Surfer's Issue 6 had the Surfer finding a way to escape present day Earth by travelling to the future, only to find a hostile post-apocalyptic world.Issue 7 has the Surfer meeting a descendant of Frankenstein who plans to use the Surfer for his own ends.

With normal size comics, Issues 8 and 9 were originally one double length story but tell of Mephisto's second attempt to gain the Surfer's soul with the help of a lost soul called the Flying Dutchman. Issues 10 and 11 have the Surfer in an oppressed South American country at the same time that Shala Bal is travelling from his homeworld of Zenn-la with a man who hopes to win her heart away from Norin Radd (the Surfer's actual identity) in a tale that has quite a few twists in it. Issue 12 is a battle against witches and the Abomination. Issue 13 has him facing the robotic doomsday man in a countdown to save Earth with several great twists along the way.

You could tell the book's sales were lagging despite good stories because the next five issues were crossovers. Issue 14 had a meeting between the Surfer and Spider-man which ended with an epiphany for Spider-man. Issue 15 had a meeting with the Human Torch when he becomes convinced the Fantastic Four is determined to capture him and turn him over to the military only to learn how wrong he was at the end. Issues 16 and 17 sees Mephisto return again, and try and make the Surfer destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. or see Shala Bal's life as forfeit. In Issue 18, the Surfer crashes into the middle of a Civil War amongst the Inhumans.

Overall, this was a good book. The stories (particularly in the first thirteen issues) were very good and expertly crafted. The Surfer despite his rough spots and weaknesses makes a good hero and his battles with Mephisto are some of the best good v. evil stories in comics. Some of the dialogue is over the top and there's some unintentional comedy here as a result of that. The Surfer is a noble soul at heart and that comes across multiple times.

On the downside, the latter issues did seem to suffer due to efforts to get people to buy the book somehow by introducing team ups that didn't let the Surfer shine. The worst of these was the final issues which ended on a very down note and seemed mainly designed to plug the inhumans.

This version of the Surfer also seems to have some very inconsistent morality. As the Surfer judges humanity for being bigoted and needlessly aggressive, he never touches on or recalls that he was the herald of the Devourer of Worlds. Indeed, if you read Issue 1, you get the idea that Earth was the first populated planet he led Galactus to even though logically that couldn't have been the case. While later comics addressed this, failing to do so in this one really seems like a major blindspot.

Also, in Issue 4, he steals a new scientific device from Reed Richards in hopes of ending his exile but then recoils in disgust when it occurs to him to steal money from a bank to get parts for the man he has working on it because it would be stealing something that didn't belong to him. You mean like the device you stole in the first place?

Still, despite these concerns, the book is worth a read. These stories are memorable with great art and truly good science fiction storytelling. While not Lee's best work, these Silver Surfer comics are a good read for fans of the silver age.



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