Despite being a foundational part of the Marvel Universe created by Stan and Jack—and despite a dozen plus attempts at spotlighting the character by a variety of luminary creators over the years (including this week’s Ghost Light)—the Silver Surfer has rarely managed to cement himself as a major force in Marvel’s sales. His longest series, which ran from 1987 to 1998, made repeated attempts to legitimize the character’s solo adventures, with each successive creative team achieving diminishing returns. Few could find a way to utilize the character the way Jim Starlin, Ron Marz, and Ron Lim managed at the peak of the character in the early ’90s.
This is because those creators understood that the Surfer couldn’t quite sustain a narrative without a wider cast to give him narrative direction.
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The Silver Surfer, by his very nature, is a lonesome character. Aloof, emotionally distant, alien, he isn’t an easy character to relate to, and his nigh-invulnerability and endless power makes presenting earnest stakes increasingly difficult. Creators could explore the wildest corners of the Marvel universe, but without a core humanity to react to them, the Surfer often felt like a passive observer.
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These were the problems facing writer Steve Englehart as he launched that series in 1987; the first thirty-odd issues fail to land a balance. Englehart attempts to establish a human drive in the character, foisting confused romances with Herald of Galactus, Nova, with ex-Avenger and Celestial Madonna Mantis, and with the Surfer’s first beloved, Shalla Bal. None of these dalliances quite manage to establish a narrative thrust for the book. The Surfer has no allies, and his villains barely register; while the Kree/Skrull War provides a sort of static in the background, the Surfer retains a sort of meaningless drift, untouched by others.
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That is, until the arrival of Thanos in issue #34. Embodying purpose itself, the Mad Titan provides the perfect foil for the Surfer, giving him, finally, a challenge. Over the course of the next 40 issues, the Surfer is propelled by a growing cast of much more driven beings as cosmic events barrel toward Thanos’s grandest achievement in The Infinity Gauntlet.
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Silver Surfer Epic Collection: The Return of Thanos collects the beginning of this era, the passing of the torch from Englehart to Starlin and Marz. Readers can see how the narrative intent of the book pivots substantially: in one issue, the Surfer has a goofy run-in with the Impossible Man. In the next, he is drawn into more meaningful machinations by Death herself.
Marvel Comics
With each successive issue, the Surfer’s cast takes on more ballast, drawing in more then-neglected characters like Adam Warlock and Drax the Destroyer and tying the Surfer back into contact with Earth’s heroes. In doing so, the Surfer is brought back into a Marvel Universe in which readers were invested.
This volume of the Epic Collection, then, begins the most definitive period of the character’s long and checkered career. It establishes that the character is at his best when he isn’t left alone.
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