Bride of the Blog
presents
Cosmic Anticipation: The Silver Surfer Heralds A Long-Awaited Re-Boot
As I sit here, thumbing through the pages of my brand-new Silver Surfer: Return to the Spaceways Omnibus (which, by the way is a beast of a book, easily three times the size of the first Silver Surfer omnibus that Marvel released a few years back). I am buzzing.
The artwork is vibrant and pushes the envelope in a way that only Marvel’s best artists can pull off. With the upcoming Marvel Studios reboot of The Fantastic Four on the horizon, I’ve been diving headfirst into the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe, and there’s no better escort than the Silver Surfer.
This silver-skinned wanderer, gliding through the stars, is a lens on humanity, a character who forces us to confront our flaws and pay heed to our potential.
A COSMIC FEAST
Stories In The Stars
The Silver Surfer: Return to the Spaceways Omnibus is a treasure trove of Marvel’s best cosmic storytelling. The tales take on a universal vastness, and they are filled artwork that bursts off of every glossy page: swirling nebulas, living planets, and that towering appetite of a character, Galactus, Devourer of Worlds.
MONSTER SIDEBAR: Check out the Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer, and you’ll see a Nosferatu-like shadow of Galactus’ giant head sweeping over New York City.
This collection doesn’t just revisit the Surfer’s adventures, it reimagines them, retelling the origin of Galactus and plunging us into the chaos of a new Kree-Skrull War.
The Surfer's Burden
This awesome tome of celestial swag is a reminder of why I fell in love with comics It’s a blending of the intimate with the infinite, the individual with the cosmos.
The Silver Surfer is not just a hero. He’s an observer. Born Norrin Radd on the utopian planet Zenn-La, he sacrificed everything to become Galactus’s herald, saving his world by scouring the cosmos for planets to feed his master’s hunger.
It’s the biggest crap job ever conceived, but it’s also what makes him so compelling. Stripped of his home and his humanity, he’s left to glide through the stars, watching civilizations rise and fall.
He sees humanity at our best and our worst, and he doesn’t get it. Why do we war? Why do we destroy each other? His confusion, his outsider’s perspective, is a cornerstone of comic books as art.
THe Marvel Age Continues
Oh Yeah ... The ART!
If you’ve ever flipped through a Marvel comic from the Silver Age or the cosmic runs of the ’80s and ’90s, you know their artists are visual chefs, masters of the feast.
This new collection builds on the legacy of writers like John Byrne, Steve Englehart and (of course) Stan Lee, as well as artists like John Buscema and Moebius, craftsmen who just know how to make the cosmos sing.
Flip to a page (any page) and you’ll see what I mean.
...The Final Panel
Some folks like to drop cash on the latest sneakers or some other kind of status symbol. Call me weird, but I throw my cash at these giant glossy mammoths of comic book awesomeness. And this one will not disappoint.
It is a testament to why the Surfer endures: a character who’s both alien and deeply human, who forces us to question what it means to exist in an ever-expanding universe, both comic and cosmic.
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