Random Back Issues #64 - Silver Surfer #13

Ah, just in time for the 3 p.m. Emo Monologue. If we missed it, we'd have to wait for the 3:15 p.m. Emo Monologue!

There was only comic out this week I wanted, and I wasn't driving 45 minutes to get Way of X #3. So, the first issue of Silver Surfer I ever read instead. Englehart's well into the Kree-Skrull war that would run the entirety of his span on the book. But this issue is really more about maneuvering and backstabbing within the respective sides.

We open with three Kree trying to assassinate Nenora, currently running the Empire because the Supreme Intelligence has gone mad from trying to combine blue and pink Kree minds into one within itself. The assassination runs smack into Ronan the Accuser, who promptly kills the three of them, and hurls a little racial invective at the last one before melting his face off at point blank range. A racist, lethally violent cop. Unheard of.

Nenora rebuffs Ronan's attempts to cozy up to her, telling him the Surfer has been attacking their border worlds recently, even after she agreed to let him and Zenn-La remain neutral in the war. Ronan's stoked to see how he stacks up and leaves Nenora to gloatingly monologue about how she's actually a Skrull now in charge of the Kree Empire. Only three people know this, and she already killed one of them, her own lover, and is making plans to deal with the other two.

The other two includes one of the five Skrulls claiming to be the true Emperor, and Nenora feeds him information on where he can score a great victory by ambushing a Kree armada. She assures him the Kree defense shields will be down.

Spoiler alert: They were not down. Word of Kylor's defeat reaches yet another of the five, S'Byill, who sends one of her agents to Earth as part of a big scheme that will play out later.

In other threads, the Surfer has currently teamed up with Nova to find the Contemplator, one of the Elders of the Universe, on behalf of Galactus. The Elders tried killing him as part of some big scheme to cause the end of the universe, so they could be big deals in the next universe like him. Brilliant plan. That's the best they could cobble together with literal billions of years? The Heralds find what's left of the Contemplator's head, the guy having been killed and partially eaten by space pirate Captain Reptyl. Except, Death decreed the Elders can't die after Grandmaster pulled that stunt where he stole her power and tried to end existence in those Avengers Annuals.

After the Surfer spends a few minutes moping over Mantis' recent apparent death, he and Nova set off and come to a world the Surfer recalls having visited before. A Kree border world, which doesn't respond well to his arrival since he was just there rampaging. Ronan shows up and when Nova protests the Surfer's been with her this whole time, he encases her in a bubble of absolute zero and declares 'accusation is punishment', whatever the fuck that means. He and the Surfer fight a bit, Ronan appears to have the upper hand, but gets caught with the old "mentally command my board to smack you in the head" trick. 

 

Surfer says Kree science is impressive, but he's the Silver Surfer, and he and Nova leave to find the imposter. The Surfer's able to track the energy signature to another world, even as Nova wonders how someone could impersonate the Surfer. His look sure, but his power is another matter. Well, they'll find out because the imposter is waiting for them. Meanwhile, Ronan's back on his feet and made some adjustments to prepare for a rematch.

[9th longbox, 240th comic. Silver Surfer (vol. 2) #13, by Steve Englehart (writer), Joe Staton (penciler), Dave Cockrum (inker), Tom Vincent (colorist), Ken Bruzenak (letterer)]

An Ecstatic Silver Surfer is Kind of Disturbing

Geez, Surfer, excuse yourself to the bathroom if you're going to do that. This is looking like one of those movies where the old college buddy comes to visit and annoys his friend's wife because he's still a slob or a bum or whatever. Which makes the Surfer Owen Wilson in this scenario? I'm not sure which of them should be more offended.

The comics have not arrived, so in the meantime I'm going through the back issues I bought in 2018, trying to figure out what's worth keeping. Which brings us to this story, from Marvel Fanfare #51, looking at how Steve Englehart's run on Silver Surfer could have begun, paired with John Buscema rather than Marshall Rogers.

In the run we actually got, the Surfer slips past the barrier Galactus had trapped him behind by. . . hitching a ride with the Fantastic Four, rather than trying to fly through himself. Either Galactus is an idiot for leaving that kind of a loophole, or he thinks the Surfer is. Given how long it took the Surfer to escape, probably the latter.

In this story, Surfer doesn't make it off-planet. Yes, I know it looks like he's in deep space in the panel above, but the story says he can't get more than 600 miles off the Earth's surface. I wonder if there was a space shuttle with Bruce Willis out there somewhere during this fight. If so, it probably got blown up, as the Surfer gets attacked by the Kree, because the Supreme Intelligence is sure he'll stop them from killing the "Great Terror". Which happens to be a cheerful young boy who wants to be Joe Montana. I guess the Kree were Bengals' fans. Sounds about right. Oh yeah, and he's half-sentient tree because his mother's is former Avenger (and future Guardians of the Galaxy) Mantis.

After the Kree attempts to kill the Surfer through a combination of sapping his energy, antimatter blasters, and mediocre smack talk come up craps, the Supreme Intelligence ups the ante by siccing Thor foe Mangog on him. Even if the Surfer was at full power, he'd be in trouble, unless he was willing to lay waste to the Earth to win. So he pulls the old "let my enemy absorb my power" trick, and the purity of his soul drives out Mangog's thirst for vengeance. Since vengeance is literally all Mangog is supposed to be - he's the desire for revenge of a billion billion beings, if I remember right from my dad's Thor comics - he basically falls apart. And then it looks like the Surfer was going to settle into domestic bliss with Mantis and her son, which I'm sure will just thrill the homeowner's association.

I'm not sure whether it's the coloring or if Buscema needs a heavier line, but his Mangog spends a lot of time in this issue looking like a barely defined yellow mass with pincers.

Sunday Splash Page #29

"At Least He's Not Moping", in Annihilation: Silver Surfer #3, by Keith Giffen (writer), Renato Arlem (artist), June Chung (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Just to warn you now, the next couple months of these are going to Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest related stuff. Expect explosions.

This was one of the four 4-issue mini-series that led into the main Annihilation mini-series, each focused on a different character and getting them to where they needed to be for when the main show started, while kind of fleshing out the scope and direction of the larger story. Here, the Surfer's troubled by the mindless slaughter and devastation of the Annihilation Wave, but is slow to commit himself to fighting it, preferring to be sad about it instead. He's been a party to death on this scale himself, although he eventually rationalizes it that deaths on Galactus' behalf served a purpose. Hey, Annihilus has a purpose to all his killing, too! 

The Surfer finds himself hunted, along with the other heralds, but would end up dealing with an entirely different problem, as he gets sucked into helping Galactus throw down with a couple of elder beings that were inadvertently freed by the Wave and are after Big G for some revenge. And that's how the Surfer wound up back as Galactus' herald for a few years (this series came out in 2006, and that status quo persisted to at least some time in 2009-2010).

This is the only issue I kept. Partially for that double-page splash, and partially because Annihilus' hunter at one point refers to the Surfer as a 'sadly inadequate poltroon', which is just fantastic. So much better than me calling him a "mopey, overgrown hood ornament". I guess Giffen figured he had to have some fun with it. Until I double-checked the credits, I thought it was Alex Maleev on the art chores, but Arlem's style is a bit more sketchy, leans a bit less on shadows. Although this isn't set in a place where shadows would make a ton of sense..

Some Kind Of Nature

I was thinking about Steve Englehart's Silver Surfer run for various reasons last weekend. The major plot of the second half involves the Kree and Skrulls starting up their millennia-old conflict again, as the Kree try to take advantage of the Skrulls internal struggles over who gets to rule.

One thing Englehart brings in I don't remember seeing much in that conflict before or since is the idea that Skrulls are descended from reptilian ancestors, and Kree from mammalian, and that this has certain effects on their brains and societies, namely that the Skrulls are more ruthless and, dare I say it, cold-blooded. You can be their ally, but if another ally challenges you to a fight and kills you, they aren't going to mourn. You were too weak, tough shit.

There's some things you could argue with there - that reptiles are capable of showing concern for others, and the Kree and mammals in general are more than capable of being ruthless and indifferent to suffering - but it did present a different angle on it, especially that there were certain characters, Captain Reptyl mostly, who saw it as a larger struggle for dominance between the two types of lineages. When he sees the Badoon working for the Kree against the Skrulls, he's actively stunned to see two reptilian-descended species at each others throats. Kree/Skrulls had always seemed like your basic nationalist struggle between empires, but this framed it in the eyes of at least some characters as a more basic biological struggle for dominance, or survival. I'd say the end results would be the same, but for a pirate with no consistent political ties to either side, maybe not.

The main thing I was thinking was, the Shi'ar stayed out of it. I think Lilandra was probably running things at the time, so they're usually less imperialist when she does. But if they had gotten involved, they'd have been expected to side with the Skrulls then, right? Because the Shi'ar are descended from avian ancestors, and birds are descended from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs trace their lineage back to reptiles eventually. Of course, mammals are descended from ancient reptiles if you go back far enough, but I guess the idea is the Kree (and Earthlings, and Zenn-Laians like the Surfer) evolved from organisms that emerged after the types diverged. Their brains went in different directions and that's the difference. So if the Shi-ar are avian-descended, they might be in the same boat, despised by biological fundamentalists on both sides of the universe.

I have no idea what the space-spanning empires founded by bacterial descendants have to say about all this, or the pure energy ones like Galactus' former Herald Stardust.

It's Not So Easy Going Back To The Way Things Were

While reading Nova this week, I had the impression that the Surfer is having a bit of difficulty getting used to being Herald of Galactus again. Sure, he tosses Nova around when our hero gets too close to the Planet Devourer, and he spouts the usual spiel about Galactus not interacting with lower beings, and how, as his Herald, the Surfer really shouldn't be talking to Rich either. Still, he keeps slipping out of character, only to catch himself mid-sentence.

On two occasions he starts to tell Nova something, only to stop and say he need not explain himself to Rich. His willingness to discuss why he seems different, or to explain how casually he can shield the ark ships from electromagnetic disruption, seems to be a holdover of the days when he routinely interacted with costumed heroes, having misunderstanding battles, followed by team-ups, and the like. That was his life for a long time, and even if he didn't find it entirely fulfilling (since the reason he rejoined Galactus was at least partially a lack of direction) it became a fairly regular occurrence, and so it wasn't out of the ordinary for him to explain what he was doing or feeling. In fact, given the Surfer's tendencies to zip around on his board bemoaning his fate (whether he's trapped on a planet of madmen, or otherwise separated from his love), the hard part was usually getting him to shut up.

Now though, he's back on the clock, and he's apparently serious about being a loyal Herald*, and that means he's supposed to follow Big G's lead, which means limited interaction with lesser beings, and that you do not explain your actions. He's supposed to be above all that once again, and he's at least trying to act like it. The fact that he's not entirely successful, that he keeps slipping into old habits, is something to keep in mind for the future.

Given the cyclical nature of comics at Marvel and DC, it's pretty much a given the Surfer will turn against Galactus again at some point. I find it unlikely that after all those years protecting lives that are inconsequential to Galactus, and now having helped Nova with a planetary evacuation, that he'll ever easily fall back into his ways from before he encountered Alicia Masters. Which could be bad for him, as Galactus figures the Surfer will turn against him someday, thus Galactus accepted Stardust back to serve as co-Herald alongside Silverado**. In the event he turns against Galactus, he's going to have to contend with perhaps the most fanatically loyal Herald Galactus has ever had, and if Galactus opts to remove the extra power he gave the Surfer***, well, that would be bad news for Norrin.

*Serious enough he has no qualms about leading Galactus to inhabited worlds.

**See Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus #1!

***In Annihilation: Silver Surfer #3 - Footnote Favoring Calvin!

He Was Sooo Faking

I think this week is going to be kind of up-down. Happy post, sad post, and so on. Fortunately, today's a happy post, because I'm talking Annihilation #3. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to sort out how I feel about Ms. Marvel #8, and I'm sure that won't be cheerful. Oh well.

The primary thing I wanted to discuss was Ronan's fight with Ravenous, which I would have to say Ronan lost. That kind of surprised me, because power-wise, I've seen him do better. There was a Silver Surfer comic, I from the series that ran through the '90s, issues 12-13. In #12, he finds the Surfer and accuses him of attacking Kree worlds, which the Surfer denies. They fight anyway, and Shiny-Boy eventually wins - with the old "you're focused on me, so I'll have my surfboard fly up and smack you from behind" trick" - and immobilizes the Supreme Accuser. Afterwards, Ronan gets a power boost designed to counter the power and abilities demonstrated by the Surfer. Meanwhile, the Surfer finds a fake Surfer, who actually defeats him.

It turns out the phony is a Skrull, masquerading as Surfer, and he's stuck in this form after a bomb detonated that robbed Skrulls of their shape-changing abilities. Like Super Skrull, he was getting power from various Skrull stations, which made him strong enough to beat the former Herald, and using that power to attack Kree settlements. Ronan catches up, and with his enhancements, kills that Skrull-Surfer, and then proceeds on his way.

As far as I can tell, Ravenous is roughly equal to that version of the Silver Surfer. Certainly, he couldn't defeat the Kirby version, which is what the former Norrin Rand has been restored to. Yet, Ronan could do little more than slow Ravenous down. I suppose one can argue that Ronan's tech is out of date, since he's fallen out of favor with the Kree Empire, or that he was more concerned with protecting his allies, since the blast that ultimately immobilized him hit when he was shielding the Rigellian doctor (that was a Rigellian, I think).

Suffice to say, I'd like to see Ronan get a rematch. Next time, clock him over the head with that hammer, instead of shooting green energy out of it. Thor will tell you (or would, if he were around), few problems can't be solved by repeatedly smashing things with a hammer.

Other thoughts:

- I'm waiting for Thanos' betrayal of Annihilus. As Len pointed out, he wouldn't be Thanos if he didn't double-cross Annihilus, and the line about telling Annihilus "all you need to know" about the Power Cosmic certainly left me inferring that he's withholding critical info. What that may be, I don't know.

- For Quasar's inevitable return, I'm going to predict that when Nova goes after the Big Bug, he breaks that Cosmic Control Rod, and since that seems to be where Annihilus stores energy, all the energy he took when he killed Quasar escapes, and Wendell reforms on the spot. And then everybody will be happy!

- I love how Giffen didn't really bother to explain how Super Skrull came back. Some vague stuff about Ravenous and Firelord's energies washing over him and reviving him, and away we go. I think Giffen's saying "I could give you some long-winded explanation, but we're in a full withdrawal, and the reason would be pure b.s. anyway, so let's just enjoy his return, ok?"

To which I say "Yes sir, Mr. Giffen, sir. I'll believe anything you say. If I had a sister, I'd try to convince her to bear your children. And then she'd beat me up, but anyway..."

- Given Thanos' revelation that the Power Cosmic is something that replaces souls, does that mean Super Skrull might now have cosmic powers, given they probably played some role in his return?

- And what are the odds Marvel will completely ignore that explanation of Power Cosmic the first time that Bendis or Millar (or JMS, I'm stunned he hasn't said that Power Cosmic resides in people because of the Cosmic Totem) wants to screw around with Heralds and such? (My guess? 100%)

- Do you think Peter was flirting with Phyla when he said 'Have we met?' She thought so, I didn't, but I'm usually dense about these things (I had no clue Ultimate Colossus was interested in Ultimate Wolverine until Wizard mentioned it).

Now Who's A Sadly Inadequate Poltroon?

Can you tell I really love that he said "poltroon"? I was talking with Len about the book on Wednesday as I was reading it, and he commented that he felt that Annihilation was definitely doing a better job of conveying the size of the conflict than Rann-Thangar War. Annihilation (thus far) has done a good job of spreading things out, none of the characters in one mini-series are overlapping into another. Of course, Annihilation is an entire event, Rann-Thanagar was just part of one. A neglected part, so maybe it's not fair to compare. I do know I can follow this a lot easier than R-T. So, bit more in-depth look at the issue, what I like, and what I didn't.

Positives:

- Firelord chides the Silver Surfer for just sitting around moping, instead of, you know, doing something.

- Silver Surfer decides to, you know, do something.

- The other Heralds start fighting the Annihilation Wave

- Morg (a crappy extreme '90s version of Terrax) is dead.

- Annihilus gets a little chippy with Thanos, and Thanos calmly reminds him who he's talking to. 'Do not threaten me. I am not one of the Lord Annihilus' drones.' In other words, Don't #$%^ with me, Bug-Boy, I wiped out half the universe. And Annihilus is a little shook. His reply, 'Of course not. . . of course not.' You can tell he's intimidated.

- Annihilus should be intimidated. Thanos is not to be trifiled with.

- Ravenous said "poltroon". I can't stress enough how much I liked that.

- Galactus smiled. Jack didn't like this, feeling Galactus shouldn't smile. Me, I liked it, because it gave you a sense of just how outmatched Ravenous and his boys were, but they had no idea.

- 'Behold the. . . SILVER SURFER Herald to Galactus!' Is this an homage? I feel like I've seen this picture somewhere before. Either way, that smile on the Surfer's face, brought an equally frightening grin to mine.

- KA-BLAM! SKRAK! BOOM! CHOOM! KROOM! That is how you wage war! Hell yeah!

Negatives:

- First page rundown of what's come before. It says that by Day 19 the Surfer has witnessed the destruction of the Skrull Empire and 'not a single Skrull world is intact.' Which is fine, except the Super Skrull was still fighting on Skrull worlds on Day 46. Damnit Marvel, could the editors get some coffee and cellphones, so they wake up and confer with each other?

- This means Super Skrull will fail to protect his son. That's not so bad, I figured the kid was pretty much a sacrificial offering to give Super Skrull a reason to keep fighting - revenge. If he could save his son (and the Skrull Homeworld with him) he'd probably call it a day. This keeps him in. Still, I would have liked to not have known that for certain until the Super Skrull mini-series was over.

- The Beyonder essence was still around? I thought Molecule Man killed it. Oh well, it's dead now, but that was a little disconcerting.

- Follow me on this one. Ravenous spots the Surfer parting ways with the other Heralds. He figures his forces can follow Surfer to Big G. They follow, and find the Devourer. Then Ravenous demands to know where the Surfer is, and he's quite confident, given who he's squaring off against. But then, next page he says 'Oh no. . . The Surfer's here -- Take Galactus! Take him NOW before --', and he looks terrified. Why? You were ready to attack Galactus, you and you wanted to know where Shiny-Boy was, why so freaked out when you get your answer? I know the Surfer had just gotten a power boost, but come on, you were getting ready to attack Galactus, why sweat the Herald? It just seemed like an abrupt turn, like he's manic-depressive or something.

Uncertains:

- Tenebrous and Aegis. I'm not sure this is a neccessary addition to Annihilation. I mean, I don't see how that's going to be resolved in the remaining issue of this mini, which means it'll carry over to the actual Annihilation mini-series. But doesn't that mean the Surfer isn't actually going to play a part in fighting the Annihilation Wave? He's going to be busy helping his master against Those Two, and probably the Fallen One, who looks like he may be adapted to a weapon for those two. I suppose one could argue with the power of those involved it's more important than Annihilus' army, but does that mean that Annihilus was just a set-up to kick start the real conflict?

- I suppose that would lend strength to the argument that this was supposed to be an Infinite Crisis rip-off. They had four mini-series that set up several different problems, but it was all really a prelude to the true problem, the Pocket Dimension Quartet. God I hope Annihilation don't go like that.

- Wait, Galactus is the only person left from that battle not imprisoned in the Kyln? What about the Stranger? If Tenebrous and Aegis were, as Galactus said, going to defy the creator and remake his works in their image, shouldn't Eternity have gotten involved? I mean, wouldn't he be what they were changing, wouldn't he object? Am I overthinking this?

UnCalvinPitt: Yeah, probably.

CalvinPitt: Quiet, you!

Guess I'll just have to wait and see like everyone else, but damn if this doesn't feel like it has the potential to be freaking incredible. Unfortunately, like anything that has the potential to reach great heights, there's also a chance of plummeting to horrid depths, where there's no light, and all you can do is watch a slide show of Infinite Crisis play across the insides of your eyelids.