Another Marvel book that’s had the scaffolding of mythology constructed around it which doesn’t actually warrant it. As ever with the early Marvel books, what’s striking is the sheer energy of the piece, the relentless movement from one story to the next without a lull. The heroes don’t even seem to get time to stop for lunch and refreshments as waves of supervillains batter at them, even during Reed and Sue’s wedding. God alone knows where they found the time to plan that – whilst battering the living daylights out of Doctor Doom or the Mole Man? Anyway, the obvious reason for this book being selected is the first encounter with the virtual force of nature Galactus. Again, images kaleidoscope past, such as the Silver Surfer and bizarre skies over New York City. Heedful of the limited attention span of youngsters Lee and Kirby don’t build in pauses and reactions to give weight to these events. Ultimate badass that he is, Galactus is just another threat to earth for the heroes to beat down. Still, good fun despite it being prime evidence for how fast pop culture and attitudes date. ( )

The Silver Surfer seems to me to have been a really cool looking character who explode the Marvel Comic stage from Earth bound super heroes to a massive Universal stage. It seems that Kirby was sick of drawing spaceship and created the ultra cool silver dude flying through space on a surf board. He began the herald of Galactus in his fight against the Fantastic Four. He was so super cool he got a back store the rest is history. I person have always felt that the Silver Surfer is the Royal Flush of super heroes. There is no one who can best the silver surfer. So you purest are like what about Galactus. He made the Silver Surfer, he could Un-make him. Sorry the Power Cosmic can do anything. Beside if the Silver Surfer did beat Galactus this universe would be at an end. So as such the Silver Surfer know better than to tangle with Galactus.

But the power cosmic leads to the problem with any Silver Surfer story. It is basically the ultimate Deos-Ex-Machina (sp) issue. Every story is dancing with a completely un-satisfying ending. How do the writer solve this? Well mostly the stories are deeper than Wham Bam fights. The best stories to me revolve around Love and Sacrifice.

Give the Silver Surfer a try. He is more powerful than Superman, more brooding than Batman and cooler than, well any one.

PS There is a story in this collection where Human beings are held captive for the excess production of electricity, HA take that Matrix. ( )