What do you think?
Rate this book
Silver Surfer Epic Collection
Silver Surfer Epic Collection, Vol. 5: The Return of Thanos
Collects Silver Surfer (1987) #24-38 And Silver Surfer: The Enslavers.
Kree-Skrull War II! The Silver Surfer has been manipulated into joining the conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls, and now his homeworld of Zenn-La has become a target! What sacrifice must Norrin Radd make to protect his people? As the war becomes ever more complex, Shalla-Bal learns that one side has a traitor in its midst! Both empires are being manipulated by outside forces, but can the Surfer discover the truth before the bloodshed gets any worse? Then, to correct what she sees as "the great imbalance," Death has resurrected Thanos of Titan - and he means to kill half of all living beings in the universe! Can the Surfer dissuade Thanos from this grim task, or will Drax the Destroyer and the Impossible Man get in the way?
Kree-Skrull War II! The Silver Surfer has been manipulated into joining the conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls, and now his homeworld of Zenn-La has become a target! What sacrifice must Norrin Radd make to protect his people? As the war becomes ever more complex, Shalla-Bal learns that one side has a traitor in its midst! Both empires are being manipulated by outside forces, but can the Surfer discover the truth before the bloodshed gets any worse? Then, to correct what she sees as "the great imbalance," Death has resurrected Thanos of Titan - and he means to kill half of all living beings in the universe! Can the Surfer dissuade Thanos from this grim task, or will Drax the Destroyer and the Impossible Man get in the way?
475 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 31, 2023
4 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Steve Englehart
1,395 books97 followersSee also John Harkness.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 29, 2023
Another awesome Silver Surfer epic. In the books leading up to this, Silver Surfer has always done what was necessary to keep his home planet, Zenn-La, out of the Kree/Skrull war. However, here, though deceit, he has been tricked by the Skrulls and drug into the war anyway as an ally to them. It was cool and weird at the same time seeing Surfer fight along side Kl’rt and the Skrulls. The Kree worked up a crazy scheme to take out the Surfer while Clumsy Foullup got some more page time as he was brought back into the plot. There was an interesting scenario that had been running for the past few books that came to a head that helped bring on a conclusion to the war. Then Thanos is revived by Death and given the plan to eliminate half the universe to stop over population and the running out of resources just like the movie. This is where Jim Starlin took over the book. With Death bringing back Thanos, the ether in the air of course made Kronos summon Drax back to life again also. The interactions between Drax and Surfer were funny. Then, at the end of the book, we get the Marvel graphic novel, The Enslavers by Stan Lee. A simple plot where an all powerful being is flying around the universe enslaving whole planets and taking their population on to his Jupiter size ship using them to power the ship and himself. This is until of course Silver Surfer comes after him. Again, simple plot but it still ended up being decent.
January 28, 2024
Wow this volume is loaded with cosmic adventure.
What i read before this volume - two previous silver surfer epic collections, Guardians solo omni, Thanos wars omni, Rise of skrulls TPB, when galactus calls, kree skrull war tpb, collected formats i had to jump back and forth with the reads
but this epic collection just fits so perfectly with all that was previously read before it.
This epic collection unravels story lines in a clever way by using what took place with ground level heroes and space heroes by calibrating them in a team up debriefing in present day time while telling each other about past events, and the info they give up makes a wider interesting background story even though you already know the end results of what they are referring to.
in this epic collection story we get a supposedly dead god telling us in a contemplating manner what has been manipulated in past story line, and what the bigger picture is starting to look like that only he would know (well now you too would know). The plans that are building in this epic collection shouldn’t be passed up, its juicy.
in this epic collection silver surfer meditates across space and turns some earth person into his doppelgänger. More thanos blood line, lots of genocide going on
Surfer meets thanos family, Drax returns, surfer vs drax, Multiverse explaining for example what’s an in-between-er to a living tribunal to how him the stranger came to be and what’s his place, and the stranger vs silver surfer, trinity explained, how pink skrulls minds and blue skrulls minds only co exist because of soul gem mind control, skrull espionage.
this epic collection just makes a read like mine so far one big blockbuster movie moment. i definitely recommend adding silver surfer to your reads and also this is the best surfer epic collection so far that’s why i choose these stars.
What i read before this volume - two previous silver surfer epic collections, Guardians solo omni, Thanos wars omni, Rise of skrulls TPB, when galactus calls, kree skrull war tpb, collected formats i had to jump back and forth with the reads
but this epic collection just fits so perfectly with all that was previously read before it.
This epic collection unravels story lines in a clever way by using what took place with ground level heroes and space heroes by calibrating them in a team up debriefing in present day time while telling each other about past events, and the info they give up makes a wider interesting background story even though you already know the end results of what they are referring to.
in this epic collection story we get a supposedly dead god telling us in a contemplating manner what has been manipulated in past story line, and what the bigger picture is starting to look like that only he would know (well now you too would know). The plans that are building in this epic collection shouldn’t be passed up, its juicy.
in this epic collection silver surfer meditates across space and turns some earth person into his doppelgänger. More thanos blood line, lots of genocide going on
Surfer meets thanos family, Drax returns, surfer vs drax, Multiverse explaining for example what’s an in-between-er to a living tribunal to how him the stranger came to be and what’s his place, and the stranger vs silver surfer, trinity explained, how pink skrulls minds and blue skrulls minds only co exist because of soul gem mind control, skrull espionage.
this epic collection just makes a read like mine so far one big blockbuster movie moment. i definitely recommend adding silver surfer to your reads and also this is the best surfer epic collection so far that’s why i choose these stars.
April 16, 2025
The Return of Thanos begins with, not the return of Thanks, but the culmination of the new Kree-Skrull War.
This collection completes the end of the Englehart run on the character, as well as the beginning of the Jim Starlin run.
So, in my opinion, it is very much back end loaded. Englehart's run ends....fine. Personally, I don't think he quite sticks the landing with his run, but is hard to not give him some credit because he has been writing this book for a real long time by this point and over all, his run was great. Englehart and Marshall kicks off this series even.
But after a bit of a dude finale to his run, we get a brief and over all fun couple fill ins by Jim Valentino and then.....and then the whole reason you picked this book up. We have the start of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run with the return of Thanos and it is absolutely great. So much of what is going to evolve into the Infinity Gauntlet is set up right here.
This collection completes the end of the Englehart run on the character, as well as the beginning of the Jim Starlin run.
So, in my opinion, it is very much back end loaded. Englehart's run ends....fine. Personally, I don't think he quite sticks the landing with his run, but is hard to not give him some credit because he has been writing this book for a real long time by this point and over all, his run was great. Englehart and Marshall kicks off this series even.
But after a bit of a dude finale to his run, we get a brief and over all fun couple fill ins by Jim Valentino and then.....and then the whole reason you picked this book up. We have the start of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run with the return of Thanos and it is absolutely great. So much of what is going to evolve into the Infinity Gauntlet is set up right here.
June 27, 2023
I started reading the Silver Surfer during the Infinity Gauntlet series back in the early 90s. He was one of my favourites, so the chance to catch up with what he got up to just before then was terrific. There’s an awful lot of plotting and story going on here, but there’s at least three issues that are just filler material, telling of adventures or encounters that are just patches of breathing space between the big chapters in Norrin Radd’s ongoing storyline. There’s also the epic Enslavers tale included with this edition, but I’m not sure exactly what this was for: it posits an Earth that has just received proof of alien life… despite being a universe where Galactus has almost destroyed the world and aliens are regular visitors… it’s a fun yarn but makes no sense in the bigger Surfer world.
January 16, 2024
Start of something much larger
Oh this is good stuff. Starts out finishing up some kree-Skrull war stuff which isn't half bad just kinda reads choppy. Then the back part really kicks this into high gear. Jim starlin and Ron Lim give it the gas and don't stop.
Oh this is good stuff. Starts out finishing up some kree-Skrull war stuff which isn't half bad just kinda reads choppy. Then the back part really kicks this into high gear. Jim starlin and Ron Lim give it the gas and don't stop.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews