Silver Surfer Epic Collection, Vol. 7: The Infinity Gauntlet

Silver Surfer Epic Collection

by Ron Marz, Ron Lim

To Infinity and beyond! Follow the sentinel of the spaceways into a Marvel Universe-spanning cosmic extravaganza against the Mad Titan Thanos - who wears the Infinity Gauntlet! Drax battles Firelord, the Surfer fights the Rhino and Thanos forces Norrin to get introspective! But is this dimension big enough for the ultimate duel between the Silver Surfer and the Mad Titan? When the dust settles on Earth, the Surfer heads back into space, only to face Midnight, the Inhumans and the Collector! But how will that lead to him coming face to face with...Captain Mar-Vell? Plus, the Surfer faces the undead, joins Mr. Fantastic on an emergency mission, and takes on the Guardians of the Galaxy in the 26th century! And Nova goes solo! COLLECTING: VOL. 7: SILVER SURFER (1987) 51-66,ANNUAL 4; MATERIAL FROM COMICS PRESENTS (1988) 69 , 93-97

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Collections, Superheroes

488 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2017

About the author

Marz is well known for his work on Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, as well as the Marvel vs DC crossover and Batman/Aliens. He also worked on the CrossGen Comics series Scion, Mystic, Sojourn, and The Path. At Dark Horse Comics he created Samurai: Heaven and Earth and various Star Wars comics. He has also done work for Devil’s Due Publishing’s Aftermath line, namely Blade of Kumori. In 1995, he had a brief run on XO-Manowar, for Valiant Comics.

Marz’s more recent works includes a number of Top Cow books including Witchblade and a Cyberforce relaunch. For DC Comics, he has written Ion, a 12 part comic book miniseries that followed the Kyle Rayner character after the One Year Later event, and Tales of the Sinistro Corps Presents: Parallax and Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents: Ion, two one-shot tie-ins to the Green Lantern crossover, The Sinestro Corps War.

His current creator owned projects include “Dragon Prince” (Top Cow) and “Samurai : Heaven and Earth” (Dark Horse).

Photo by Luigi Novi.

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this book does some double dipping with the Infinity Gauntlet omnibus that I just finished reading. So this is for the issues that weren’t in that omnibus, the annual #4, issues 61-66 and the material from Marvel Comics Presents. That annual was one part of the Korvac Quest dealing with the O.G. Guardians of the Galaxy hunting down the remnants of Korvac. Decent stuff. I would read the whole story if I had the other annuals. Then the Collector has Surfer go on this mission to contain this deadly virus and bring it back to him. However, on the return trip, Sliver Surfer gets spirited away to some other realm where he has to deal with his inner self so to speak. This part was just ok. But after it was cool seeing SS deal with the new evolved more powerful Cap’n Reptyl. The Marvel Comics Presents issues had Nova, herald of Galactus, trying to help the people of a planet, Galactus recently destroyed, find a new home. That was quick but pretty cool. Well, onward to Warlock and the Infinity Watch and Infinity War omnibus.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly filler and what if stories.

[Quinton Baran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of books, many of them set during the Infinity Gauntlet. However, they are best viewed as supporting stories, and require the main Infinity Gauntlet series to fully understand them. There are also a few Marvel Comics Presents stories at the end, but they don't provide continuity with the rest of the stories. I also felt that the last Silver Surfer issue left on a cliffhanger. I was also missing the lead-up material to the Infinity Gauntlet - I think this collection would have been better with that being included then some of the later material.

I love Ron Lim's artwork and the prose is decent.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to start off this review by saying it probably helps a lot if you have read the Infinity Gauntlet story ( and maybe the Aftermath collection to) before you read this. Otherwise, you are missing out on some really big parts.
It's a fun book, for sure. It has some very 90's artwork, but not in the gritted teeth and a million pouches sort of way. It definitely made me think of the comics I read as a kid.
My big problem with the book is that Silver Surfer is not the main focus of several issues, his support cast is. Only they aren't really his supportive cast, since they all leave in an issue or two. There is also one story that simply doesn't happen. So, about, 100 pages or so of this book isn't about Silver Surfer at all.
Still, it's a good read and I definitely want to get more Silver Surfer in my collection.

[William Cardini · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel for Ron Marz because at the beginning of his Silver Surfer run he was given a difficult task. The summer of 1991, Silver Surfer went biweekly to promote the Infinity Gauntlet crossover. So for issues #51-58, Marz had to turn in two Surfer plots a month for issues that happen in between issues of The Infinity Gauntlet event series, a series which prominently featured the Silver Surfer. Surfer #59 also happens in between Infinity Gauntlet #5 and 6 but at least the Surfer had gone back to monthly at that point. So more than half of the Surfer issues in this collection show how Thanos’ possession of godlike power affects what’s happening in other parts of the Marvel cosmos, or they’re dream / altered reality sequences that occur in between panels of Infinity Gauntlet. #55 and 56 are the cleverest in that regard and #57 depicts a suicide in an image that was deeply burned into my mind as a kid. So Marz managed to make something of what Marvel’s publishing schedule delivered him, but it’s definitely not the strongest stretch of his Surfer run. Ron Lim, the main artist for the Surfer before and during Marz’s run, was pulling triple duty for some of these issues because he also did the back half of the Infinity Gauntlet series. So it’s not surprising to see co-pencillers and fill-in artists but it also affects the reading experience.

These issues get better after the Infinity Gauntlet is over. #63 and 64 are a particular highlight because they depict a possibly hallucinated inner conflict for the Surfer that is very Jungian and reminiscent of Wizard of Earthsea. Also the artwork of the final scenes in #64 from Lim is very weird and amazing.

[Fez Vaccaro · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know what the biggest problem of crossovers are? When they exist to cash in on an event and offer throwaway stories. Unfortunately that’s what we get here. The main brunt of the collection are support stories to the main Infinity Gauntlet mini. It seems like Surfer was double shipping in these months and we get side stories to the action over there. This makes up 200 pages to the collection and unfortunately, they’re all absolutely forgettable. Drax and Firelord hanging out on Titan. Surfer going to wander Central Park Zoo despite the fact reality is falling apart at the seams. A mind battle between Surfer and Thanos is as exciting as it gets - and it’s not really that exciting either.

The rest of the collection includes an Annual that was part of Guardians of the Galaxy (original team) crossover. There's a battle with a fedora and trench coat wearing android. Surfer has to help to help out the Collector in anotehr story, while dealing with probably the most uninteresting team of mercenaries in the universe. There’s an internal battle with Surfer’s psyche that is ultimately underwhelming and some uninteresting characters after that I can’t be bothered going into. To close, there’s some shorts from MCP featuring Nova but they’re all pretty uninspired and the story offers nothing new.

Starlin did solid work in the previous collection but handing the writing reins to Marz is ultimately disappointing. Stick to Infinity Gauntlet only. There’s nothing here worth reading - except for maybe that page where Surfer meets a penguin. And that’s because it’s a penguin and they’re cool.

[Dilly Kong · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is kind of fucking bad. I am reading the Infinity saga and let me tell you something, if you too are doing that, fucking skip this one. I've seen people say you should skip Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath, but this you skip. about a third of this book is half of AFTERMATh, actually. The only difference is that you get to see Silver Surfer's dead brain when fighting Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet, but after that is all stuff you see in AFTERMATH. I'm not saying this shouldn't exist, I'm saying this should not be listed as a book in the Infinity saga. It's a collector's item. This should be it's own thing. Anyway, even when not reading the whole saga, it kind of sucks. It was really boring. Black Silver Surfer is probably a better hero than Silver Silver Surfer. 2 stars.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects Silver Surfer issues #51-66 and Annual #4, plus material from Marvel Comics Presents issues #69 and #93-97

Full disclosure - I skimmed almost all of this collection after the early Nova story, but read more thoroughly whenever Adam Warlock was on the page (Warlock is a favorite character of mine). I also took time with some of the Thanos parts, because I was reading this for the "Infinity Gauntlet" tie-in information. In the end, this was only very loosely a tie-in story, and nothing that happens in here seems to have any true impact on "The Infinity Gauntlet" itself.

For my purposes, this ended up being a hard pass. It wasn't really worth my time to read every word of this when there is so much else out there to read.

[Tyler Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable stroll through early 90s comics and cosmic Marvel; it tells the tangential stories going on in Surfer's solo series while the Infinity Gauntlet storyline was having its massive impact on the universe, and includes a few Marvel Presents stories. The ongoing itself is good, especially the art, which is some of the best comics art out there -- the writing is decent, too, though they are definitely reaching for plots to do in between issues of Infinity Gauntlet itself. If you love Silver Surfer, this is a solid read.

[Albert Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite infinity gauntlet tie in.

While the first few issues in this collection directly tie into the events of the Infinity Gauntlet event, the 2nd half of the story is a generic Silver Surfer story which wasn't what I was expecting.

If you're picking this up to read as part of the Infinity series with Thanos, you can probably skip it and move into the Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath story. There isn't much here that's worth the time and effort.

[Alexander Rivas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book 4 of 18 in the "Infinity Gauntlet" graphic novels series, and so far it was the least enjoyable. I did read a lot about Silver Surfer, and I hope all the content in the book will tie in somehow with the next books. There was a little bit of Thanos in the book, but for being on the cover, it was disappointing how little he is in the book.

[Matthew Ledrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silver Surfer deals with his own inner turmoil and regrets following the last volume's explosive revelations. This run is incredible, dealing with trauma and self-doubt using extreme cosmic scales as metaphors for deeply human stories. Brilliant. I never knew now cool Silver Surfer could be before reading these two volumes.

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Actual Infinity Gauntlet issues were great, he ones following were good, not great.

The few issue from Marvel Comics Presents were interesting, four of them were staring Nova (Galactus's Herald, Not Nova Corps Nova) Anyway, they were interesting, but nothing to write home about.

[Dubzor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of fun!

[Jipi Perreault · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story a of redemption and a nice complement to one the best Marvel event.

[Caleb Sommerville · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as the other compilations in the Infinity Stones saga. The Silver Surfer stuff gets kinda old after awhile and the Nova stuff at the end made no sense at all.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Internet has probably ruined me but looking at the cover if I didn't know this is superhero comics I would get totally wrong idea about this is about.

[Ginger Wolverine · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, the silver surfer doesn’t dissapoint

[C. Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some neat stuff in this collection. The art is great throughout, but the stories don’t do much for me. Often feels like late 80s, early 90s schlock.

[Harry Rubin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this graphic novel. Still I don't think it is necessary to read this book if you are trying to read about Thanos. The stories take place before, during, and after the Infinity Gauntlet series. Some of the stories enhance the Infinity Gauntlet series, but they are not important to the story. Some of the more important stories from the Silver Surfer are in the Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath collection. Also the stories about Nova are basically irrelevant and just corny. If you're like me, and you want to read more Silver Surfer then this is a good book. If you don't care then just pick up The Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath. You're not missing out.

[Lateef Amodu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as the followup to the The Infinity Gauntlet (1991). So, part of this shows what happened after Thanos kills members of the Avengers and wipes out half the population of the Universe; this is from all Silver Surfer's point of view or story line. It's a good continuation of the Infinity Gauntlet gauntlet story. Also, has some good metaphysical scenes (i.e. Silver Surfer faces his dual self). Artwork is brilliant. Excellent illustrations. Nice colours.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shows quick origin of SS. Gets confusing with timeline of infinity gauntlet. Nebula gets stones and Thanos teams up with avengers-lame. Side stories without gems isn’t too interesting, although the princess woman was funny.