Silver Surfer: Parable by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects two separate Silver Surfer stories that both have to be considered out of continuity. The first is "Parable" in which original Silver Surfer writer Stan Lee teams up with European comic legend Moebius who provides the art. Galactus has landed on Earth but after his promise not to destroy it. Instead, he sets himself up as God and proclaims a lifting all moral code and have yourself good time, putting the Earth in peril. It turns out his plans to feed his hunger is letting the Earth destroy itself.

The story intentionally plays into the typical Silver Surfer religious overtones with style and without apology. The Surfer as a sort of Christ trope has never been quite so obvious as in this story. The art is superb and very appealing and different style by Moebius.

There are some surface level points about what happens when you throw off all morality or moral control as well as people killing in the name of religion, but I have to say that this story is far shallower than it appears in terms of it's overall thrust. This is problematic because Parable is an often illogical story particularly it's central plot point. Galactus isn't going to sit around for years and wait for humanity to destroy itself because he'd starve. For us to ignore that problem, we need a very deep, very involved story. Far more involved than we actually get.

The second half of the book is the 1990 Graphic novel, the Enslavers where Stan Lee teams up with artist Keith Pollard. The story's art is decent. It's the early 1990s, but Pollard hasn't surrendered to the garishness which overtook that decade. Despite a few digressions, the Enslavers is a far more straightforward story than, "Parable." An intergalactic overlord comes to invade the Earth and subdues all of its heroes in short order and it's up to the Surfer to find out the truth, save the Earth, and save Shalal-Bal

It's pretty much a straightforward space adventure. Of course, there are logical problems. Mainly the creation of the villain Mrrungo-Mu who conquered galaxies and subdued all the Avengers and hasn't been heard from in 25 years. Of course, that might be believable with his ending, but still not given the track records of villains like Thanos in the Marvel Universe. Given what happened to these characters, particularly the Silver Surfer, it's fair to question whether any of these events are/were canonical.

However, that doesn't matter much. If you're a fan of the Silver Surfer, the Enslavers gives you a chance to see the Surfer fighting his demons and then opening up the full force of the Power Cosmic with perhaps, the most upbeat ending to a Silver Surfer story ever.

In some ways, it's an interesting contrast. You have two different Silver Surfer stories by the character's creator. There's the brooding homeless philosophical wanderer of "Parable" and the heroic Sentinel of the Skyways whose as large a legend as any pulp hero.

This is one case with two unrelated stories where the whole is greater than the sum of the two tales as the flaws of the two stories balance out to give us an interesting if somewhat unusual collection.



View all my reviews