Retro Review: Silver Surfer Vol. 3 #51-82 By Marz, Lim, & Others For Marvel Comics

Silver Surfer Vol. 3 #51-82, Annual #5 (July 1991 – July 1993)

Written by Ron Marz (#51-82, Annual #5)

Penciled by Ron Lim (#51-57, 60-65, 73-82, Annual #5), Gavin Curtis (#56), James Brock (#57), Todd Smith (#58), Tom Raney (#59), Steve Carr (#66), Deryl Skelton (#66), Kevin West (#67-69), M.C. Wyman (#70-72), Tom Morgan (Annual #5), Karl Alstaetter (Annual #5)

Inked by Tom Christopher (#51-59, 61-82, Annual #5), Mike Witherby (#59), Jim Sanders III (#60), Tom Morgan (Annual #5), James Sanders III (Annual #5)

Coloured by Tom Vincent (#51-60, 62-80, Annual #5), Marie Javins (#61), Gina Going (#81-82)

Spoilers (from twenty-nine to thirty-one years ago)

When Jim Starlin’s big Infinity Gauntlet event began, the writing of The Silver Surfer, the book that led up to that event, was passed over to Ron Marz, who then began a very long run.  The first of his issues were tie-ins to Infinity Gauntlet, of course, and the sequels to that event, Infinity War, and Infinity Crusade, ended up dictating the course of much of the Marvel Universe for a while, especially in the cosmic books like this one.

Ron Lim, the artist who debuted during Steve Englehart’s run on this book, and who stayed through Starlin’s run, ended up becoming very closely associated with this character, and stayed on it while also contributing to the Infinity sequels.  For many, the Marz/Lim run is a classic and much-respected run (there is currently a new miniseries being published by them, set during this era), but I’ll be honest, I don’t remember it all that well.  I know that Marz revisited a number of the characters that were prominent in the Englehart run, bringing Galactus, Nova, Shalla Bal, and even Reptyl into regular rotation.  At some point, I decided to drop this book (during a time where I had to ruthlessly cull my pull file list, but also at a time where my enthusiasm for Marvel books was at its lowest).  

I’m curious to know if I made a mistake in that, and if these books have aged better than I remember.  I guess it’s time to find out.

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

Villains

• Clumsy Foulup (#53)
• General Ael-Dan (Kree; #53)
• General Dar-Benn (Kree; #53)
• The Rhino (#54)
• Thanos (#55-57, 59)
• Mephisto (#55)
• Reptyl (#56, 63-65)
• Guilt (#58)
• Denial (#58)
• Doubt (#58)
• Doctor Doom (Victor Von Doom; #59)
• Midnight Sun (#60)
• The Collector (Taneleer Tivan, Elders of the Universe; #60-61, 64)
• Jude (The Collection Agency; #61-62, 64)
• Shaara (The Collection Agency; #61-64)
• Janus (The Collection Agency; #61-64)
• Garnok Rebbahn (#63-64)
• Avatar (Princess Alaisa Ruantha Pethnan; #65-66)
• Nebula (#67, 69-74, 76-78, Annual #5)
• Geatar (#67, 69-74, 76-78)
• Magus (#67, 69)
• Khoon (#68-69)
• Morg (#70-73, 75-82)
• Doctor Mandibus (#70-72)
• Terrax (#73-75, 79-82)
• Dr. Minerva (#79)
• Captain Atlas (#79)
• Tyrant (#81-82)
• Shanzar (Annual #5)
• Lucien Aster (Annual #5)
• The Wild One (Annual #5)

Guest Stars

• Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange; #52, 54, 59-60, 67-69, Annual #5)
• Mentor (#52, 67)
• Starfox (Eros; #52, 67, Annual #5)
• Captain America (Steve Rogers, Avengers; #52)
• Adam Warlock (#52, 54-56, 58-60)
• Pip the Troll (#52, Annual #5)
• Thor (Eric Masterson; #54, 59-60)
• Hulk (Bruce Banner; #54, 59, Annual #5)
• Virtual Reality (#57-58)
• Black Bolt (Inhumans; #60)
• Gorgon (Inhumans; #60)
• Karnak (Inhumans; #60)
• Lockjaw (Inhumans; #60)
• Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell; #63)
• Mistress Love (#66)
• Master Hate (#66)
• Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart; #76-78, 82)
• Gladiator (Imperial Guard; #79, 81-82)
• Oracle (Imperial Guard; #79)
• Tempest (Imperial Guard; #79)
• Beta Ray Bill (#79, 81-82)
• Ganymede (#80-82)
• The Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie; Annual #5)
• Delphi (The Pantheon; Annual #5)

Supporting Characters

• Galactus (#51, 67-73, 75-78, 81-82)
• Nova (Frankie Raye; #51, 67-70, 72-75)
• Drax, the Destroyer (#52, 59)
• Firelord (Pyreus Kril; #52, 59, 67, 71-78, 81, Annual #5)
• Wong (#60)
• Air-Walker (Gabriel Lan; #73-78, 81)
• Chancellor Stipe (#76-78)
• Torval (#76-77)

Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:

• The first of Marz’s run, an Infinity Gauntlet crossover, only features the Surfer in flashback.  Galactus informs Nova that he’s hungry, and that because Thanos stole his last meal, he can’t afford to wait much longer, especially with what’s coming.  Nova heads out, but as she flies, she starts thinking about how strange it is to see Galactus worried about anything.  Then she starts thinking about the Surfer, and how their budding relationship fell apart (she knows he was on the rebound, and that her making out with Firelord hurt him).  As she approaches a suitable planet, she thinks about the last time she talked with the Surfer.  We see a flashback to a moment shortly after the Surfer escaped Dynamo City, when he found Nova about to select an inhabited planet for Galactus.  He had her look at the primitive beings that lived there, and they debated the morality of what she was about to do.  He convinced her to come with him, but said they’d need to pool their speed to get there. They flew together, and arrived at another planet inhabited by primitives.  Nova didn’t see anything special about the planet, and said she would have no problem sacrificing it to Galactus if it came to that.  The Surfer took her into a cave where she saw cave paintings that made her realize that she was in prehistoric France, which she saw when she was a teenager.  She understood that she was willing to destroy her own home, thousands of years in the past, and that shook her (Frankie Raye really was such an American character, only able to feel empathy when it directly affects her).  They returned to their correct time, and I’m left wondering why, if the Surfer can traverse time and space like this, he doesn’t do something about Thanos in that moment.  They separated.  In the present, Nova realizes that the only suitable planet for Galactus is inhabited, and she has to justify that for herself.  She returns to Galactus, and angers him by asking if they can spare the planet’s inhabitants.  He dismisses her, and descends to the planet, where his machines start their work, and he consumes the planet’s energy.  He returns to his ship to prepare to deal with Thanos, and Nova is left wondering what she’ll do if she ends up in the same situation again.
• Issue fifty-two opens with the Silver Surfer crashing through Doctor Strange’s skylight (a scene we’ve seen in #50 and in Infinity Gauntlet #1).  As he collapses, he tries to warn Strange about Thanos.  Next, the action moves to Titan, where Firelord, who is now narrating, joins Starfox, Mentor, and Drax to plot against Thanos.  They don’t get far before Mentor disappears, a part of Thanos’s ‘finger-snap’ that has depopulated the universe by half.  Starfox helps the others learn that this is happening everywhere before he too disappears, leaving Drax and Firelord to try to figure out how to work Titan’s computers.  Drax is suspicious of Firelord, and they begin to argue, but are interrupted by a small child, Tycho, whose parents have disappeared.  He leads the two men to a control centre, which Drax has to break into.  It’s empty, but the kid helps them watch a recording of the Surfer’s fight on the Moon with Thanos that they recorded through a telescope.  Firelord believes the video shows that Thanos is dead, but Drax disagrees, and when Firelord argues with him, he gets very angry and starts a fight that lasts a few pages and only stops when Drax puts Tycho in harm’s way.  Realizing what he’s done, he collapses, remembering his death at Moondragon’s hands.  Firelord suggests they head to Earth, and Tycho wants to come with them, but Firelord finds a couple of Titanians to agree to look after him.  The two men leave, and as they fly, a portal opens before them that they can’t avoid.  Doctor Strange has brought them to Earth.  He’s with the Surfer, Captain America, and a bunch of other heroes, including Adam Warlock and Pip the Troll.

• It’s time for another Infinity Gauntlet crossover that doesn’t even actually feature the Surfer.  Clumsy Foulup, the fool that was installed as the ruler of the Kree Empire during Steve Englehart’s run, has been raising taxes and running the Empire into the ground since we last saw him.  After half the Empire disappeared, he raised taxes on everyone else to make up for the lost revenue.  A group of Kree military officers, led by Generals Ael-Dan (a Blue Kree) and Dar-Benn (a Pink Kree) have decided that it’s time to kill Clumsy, and for the two Generals to rule together to head off any racial animosity.  They explain that they have secured help in this, and the Silver Surfer walks into the room.  One of the officers refuses to work with the Surfer since he sided with the Skrulls, and Ael-Dan kills him.  The others agree to the plot, which involves having the Surfer kill Clumsy on a live broadcast.  After the others leave, we see that the Generals plan on betraying the Surfer after he does his part.  Clumsy prepares for a broadcast, and the guards outside the studio are no match when the Surfer flies in.  As Clumsy announces a 30% luxury tax, the Surfer busts into the studio and declares that he’s there to kill him on behalf of the Skrull Empire.  He kills General Dwi-Zann, the man who has been propping up Clumsy’s rule, and then kills Clumsy.  The two generals arrive on scene and start shooting at The Surfer with large 90s guns.  They blow him away, leaving just his feet.  The Generals address the cameras, and announce that they will take over the Empire’s leadership together, declaring Martial Law and announcing that they will go to war with the Skrulls.  They have everyone leave the room, and pick up the Surfer’s remains (which is a little more than just his feet).  They take what’s left of him to a robotics lab at a very low level of the city, and we see that the Surfer was a robot all along.  They kill the man that made it for them, and then blow up his lab. Ael-Den wants to figure out what happened to half the Kree as their first act of leadership.
• It’s odd that Marvel decided to increase the frequency of this series to twice a month during Infinity Gauntlet, and then make each issue basically into a filler.  The heroes are gathering, and Doctor Strange, Thor, and Warlock discuss the fact that the Hulk won’t join them.  The Surfer is unsettled, so he decides to leave the Avengers’ base and head to Central Park to enjoy some nature.  The Park is trashed after the shockwave that Thanos sent through the galaxy, so the Surfer decides to start fixing things up a little.  He finds a penguin, and when a person runs past him, he realizes that the animals have escaped from the zoo, including a tiger.  He investigates the zoo, and finds The Rhino opening cages.  The Surfer asks him why, and he explains that he thinks the world is ending and that nothing should be stuck in the cages.  When the Surfer disagrees, citing public safety, the Rhino hits him.  They end up fighting, until the Surfer gets tired of it and shows that he can withstand the Rhino’s charge by holding onto the horn on his costume.  He is about to take him out when they hear a gunshot and go to investigate.  A cop has shot the tiger the Rhino just freed, and the villain realizes the consequences of his actions.  The Surfer brings the tiger back to life, and he and the Rhino go around catching and re-caging the animals.  When they’re done, the Surfer asks the Rhino to come help them in the fight against Thanos, but he decides to hang out in the zoo instead.  The Surfer arrives back at the Avengers’ base (this is a time when they aren’t operating out of the Mansion), and the Hulk is waiting for him, and tells him the heroes are ready to go after Thanos.

• Issue fifty-five opens with Warlock and the Surfer watching the heroes of Earth fight Thanos on his floating temple to Death (as scene that plays out in Infinity Gauntlet #4).  Warlock counsels the Surfer to wait to act, as he has a plan, and we see him touch the Surfer’s forehead, while telling him to meditate “on what must be done.”  Since the rest of this issue doesn’t line up with what we’re shown in Infinity Gauntlet, I’m going to assume that it, and the following issues, are happening in the Surfer’s mind, as Ron Marz works to keep this book coming out on its biweekly schedule while also spinning its wheels so it doesn’t contradict the main event.  Finally, Warlock tells the Surfer it’s time to act, and the two of them fly towards the temple, where they find that Thanos has killed all of the heroes, including Galactus.  He’s choking out the Hulk when they approach, and then he proves to Warlock how powerful he is by growing relative to his oldest foe.  He turns Warlock to stone and crushes him.  When the Surfer tries to attack, he turns his board into a chain, trapping him.  Thanos talks about how powerful he is, as a lithe blue-skinned woman who I think might be Death holds his leg.  Thanos says he’s going to keep the Surfer alive to write the book about what he’s about to do.  When Mephisto protests, Thanos kills the demon.  He frees the Surfer, but the Surfer can’t access his power cosmic to fight Thanos.  Thanos creates a planet, Necronos, around his temple and populates it with a billion people.  He explains to the Surfer that his worshiping of Death has led him to realize that he needs to provide a constant stream of lives to her.  He teleports the Surfer to show him how he has a temple where hundreds of people march to their sacrifice at all hours.  The Surfer argues that Thanos is sick, and collapses in despair when he learns that there are thousands of these temples on this planet.
• Thanos now has the Surfer chained to his throne like he’s Princess Leia on Tatooine, and of course the Surfer is not happy at being forced to chronicle Thanos’s evil deeds.  He starts to write about how Thanos has destroyed or taken control of the Kree, Skrull, and Shi’ar empires, destroyed Zenn-La, and kept parts of Earth from freezing so he can slaughter people there.  The Surfer refuses to write further and argues with Thanos, who shows how much he can control him.  After some tedious pages, the Surfer tries to kill himself by jumping off Thanos’s mountainous temple platform.  Thanos, who is angry, restores him to life and then gives him back his power cosmic.  They fight, and suddenly the Surfer wakes up, still standing on his board with Adam Warlock.  Warlock gives the Surfer the signal, and sends him into the battle which happens in Infinity Gauntlet #4.

• Somewhere in space, the body of Captain Reptyl becomes encased in a rock-like cocoon that grows around him.  We get a replay of the scene in Infinity Gauntlet #4 where the Surfer attempts to grab the Gauntlet off of Thanos’s hand, but misses.  Thanos fires a blast at him, hitting him in the back.  He’s surprised to appear to be unharmed, but then reality falls apart around him and he blacks out.  He finds himself on a platform in front of massive black doors that urge him to open them up.  Inside, he finds a bald man in a suit (I get a bit of a Grant Morrison vibe off him).  He eventually explains that they are in the Hall of Absolutes, and that his name is Virtual Reality.  He talks a lot, and it’s a little hard to follow, but then he takes the Surfer on a trip through his own memories (the general suggestion is that this the moment when his life flashes before his eyes).  We start at the suicide of his mother, and the way young Norrin Radd rejected Shalla Bal, who was assigned to him as a playmate and to help him through his grief.  Later, as they grew up, Norrin continually set her aside over the things he saw as more important. The Surfer acknowledges that she was helpful after his father’s suicide, but we see that he turned from her again, becoming the Silver Surfer and refusing to take her with him.  Virtual Reality reminds him of how many worlds he saw destroyed, and the Surfer still hides behind the excuse that Galactus altered his mind.  We see that the Surfer also rejected the friendship of the Defenders, and that he has raised Mantis and Nova above the level of memories in his mind.  He does not want to talk about them, but all that’s left to see are the various defeats the Surfer has experienced recently at Thanos’s hands.  VR tells him that there’s nothing left for them to see, and he turns out the light, leaving the Surfer in darkness.  The cocoon we saw before bursts open, and a dragon-like creature stretches its wings and roars.
• Virtual Reality lights a cigarette, and tells the Surfer that he can’t free him and that he has to find his own way to freedom.  The Surfer uses his powers to smash some stuff, and tries to find a way out, but finds himself in a room with three passageways leading out.  His old teammates, The Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Namor emerge and attack him.  The Surfer knows it’s not really them, and when he blasts them, they look more like zombies.  One identifies himself as Guilt, and the other two as Denial and Doubt, attributes that the Surfer will forever be shackled to.  He finds himself chained to a plinth, and Virtual Reality tells him that he thinks he deserves another chance at freedom, but that he has to search inside for answers.  The Surfer strains against his chains, but it is no good.  His mother appears to him and makes it clear that her suicide had nothing to do with him, an she unlocks the manacle around his ankle.  His father comes next, and makes it clear that his death was also not the Surfer’s fault.  He unlocks the other ankle.  Shalla Bal appears next and gives him forgiveness, while unlocking one wrist.  Nova and Mantis appear next and make it clear that his emotional immaturity in their relationships was not his fault.  They unlock his other wrist.  Now, he has to reach inside himself to find the final key, which means he forgives himself while unlocking his neck.  Free, he is transported back to Virtual Reality, who is now dressed in gray.  He tells the Surfer that he has gained the ability to not just see things in black and white, and then sends him back to reality.  He finds Adam Warlock floating in space and prepares to join him in the fight against Thanos.  Somewhere, we see a spaceship that has crashed onto a planet.  Inside it, we see a raggedy silhouette of a character with long tendrils coming from its head move towards a smashed window, and say that something is ‘madness’.

• Issue fifty-nine takes place between the scenes in Infinity Gauntlet #5, and as such, drags things out yet again.  Tom Raney (whose name is misspelled as ‘Rainey’) drew this issue, and it reminds me just how much I liked his work at that time.  Warlock has brought Thanos, who lost the Infinity Gauntlet to his granddaughter, Nebula, to Doctor Strange’s sanctum, and the Surfer immediately attacks the Mad Titan.  Strange summons Thor, Drax, Firelord, Doctor Doom, and the Hulk from wherever Thanos sent them, and they work to separate the two combatants.  The Surfer wants to continue to fight, but Warlock believes they need Thanos’s help to stop Nebula and wants the fight stopped.  Strange separates them and everyone takes stock of their situation.  The Surfer does not believe they can trust Thanos, and wants him gone, while Thanos’s pride gets in the way of him working with his enemies.  Doom suggests the two men duel, although he thinks it should happen in another realm where they won’t actually kill one another.  Strange glances at his bookshelf and gets an idea.  Soon enough, the Surfer and Thanos are sitting across from each other in high-backed chairs, preparing for Strange to send their minds elsewhere, where they will fight without the benefits of their powers.  There’s an Arthurian theme to where they find themselves, and they both are dressed sort of like knights.  Soon, they are jousting on horses and arguing.  Thanos has the Surfer pinned on the ground, but he rallies, and soon they are swinging swords and axes at one another as Thanos tries to chip away at the Surfer’s sense of guilt.  The heroes at Strange’s worry that the contest has been going on too long.  The Surfer points out that Thanos has done way worse things than he ever has, and soon has him lying on the ground.  Thanos asks him to kill him so he can be with Death forever.  He goes so far as to beg, but the Surfer realizes that if he dies, so will the universe.  The heroes can tell that the Surfer has been victorious, but at that point, Thanos attacks him from behind, and is about to kill him when Strange brings them back to their bodies.  Thanos tells them all that he triumphed, and the Surfer admits that, wanting now to focus on defeating Nebula.  Firelord tells the Surfer that they know he won, and the Surfer explains that he knows they need Thanos.  The last page has the same figure we saw last issue, looking at a screen covered with faces of different aliens, saying they are missing and deadly.
• This issue doesn’t have the Infinity Gauntlet tie-in corner, but is an epilogue to that event.  We see the Surfer, Doctor Strange, and Thor attempt to communicate with Adam Warlock upon his gaining the Infinity Gauntlet, and get teleported back to Strange’s home in Greenwich Village.  Strange figures they can’t go after Warlock if he doesn’t want them to, so after calming down Wong, he concludes that their work is done.  With that, Thor departs, and the two remaining comment on how he seems different than they remember (this was the Eric Masterson era).  Strange offers to let the Surfer stay with him for a while and rest, but the Surfer wants to go destroy the temple Thanos built in space.  As he flies past the moon, Midnight Sun (the former Shang-Chi villain who was modified by the Kree) decides to block his flight in hopes he can tell him more about himself.  The Surfer attempts diplomacy, but since Midnight Sun can’t talk, things turn into a fight.  Midnight Sun decides that the Surfer’s board gives him too much mobility, so he forces him onto the moon.  The Surfer blasts him, and he collapses, playing possum near the remains of some lunar landing stuff.  When the Surfer gets close, Midnight Sun attacks again, and the Surfer, angry, tosses the landing module right on him.  This time Midnight Sun is actually hurt, and the Surfer goes to help him.  He tries to take off his mask and sees only circuitry, which surprises him.  Midnight Sun attacks again, and their fight gets more brutal, until a voice tells them to stop and the moon quakes.  Black Bolt, Gorgon, Karnak, and Lockjaw of the Inhumans have come to stop the fight and to tell them to leave the Moon.  The Surfer explains what’s happened, and says he’ll leave Midnight Sun to them.  Black Bolt confers (silently) with his relatives, and Karnak suggests that they take Midnight Sun to Attilan to heal him.  The Surfer heads out, and is immediately stopped again, by a vision of the Collector, who claims he needs his help in restoring his collection.  The Surfer refuses, until the Collector mentions that millions will die if the Surfer doesn’t help.  He immediately flies off to aid him.

• Marie Javins coloured issue sixty-one, and gave the Surfer a bluish tint that, while looking cool, kind of threw me, especially on the pages where he interacted with other blue sentients.  The Surfer has responded to the Collector’s call, only to be attacked by a sentry droid that he takes a few pages to destroy.  The Collector’s ship has crashed on a planet, and is a state of great disarray.  When the Surfer finds him, he’s sitting on a throne petting an alien creature.  The Collector asks about The Brethren, a race that worked for a Celestial as its executioners, committing genocide around the galaxy.  The Collector explains he had them in his collection, but when his ship crashed, the Brethren were freed and went to Earth.  Apparently the Collector worked with the Avengers to stop them, but ended up letting them think he was dead.  He returned to his ship, but the Brethren came to trash it even further, and in the process, let most of his collection free.  One thing he’s particularly concerned with is a Mondani child who carries a virus that makes sentient beings go mad.  He believes that if the virus spreads, it will destroy the galaxy, and wants the Surfer to go contain the parent virus, perhaps by providing it with him as a host, expecting that the Surfer can withstand it.  The Surfer feels he has no choice but to try, and heads out on the trail of the child (the Collector believes she flew an escape pod to a spaceport in the Byrulian system).  Elsewhere, three very 90s-looking characters (Jude, the leader, Shaara, the woman, and Janus, the big guy who maybe has metal arms), the Collection Agency, answer a call from an unnamed client.  They go to see this guy, who we never see clearly, but he has a ship, gloves, and mouth very much like The Collector, only with Kirby crackle in his mouth.  The client claims he’s just learned of this virus and wants the Collection Agency to go get it.  He suggests that someone else is after the virus and they’ll have to deal with him.  The client would prefer to see the opposition killed.  The Surfer approaches the spaceport, and has no idea how to go about searching for the girl.  He asks a big guy with a cast on his arm (who looks like a massive Blue Devil).  The guy gets mad and tries to punch the Surfer, who is easily able to stop him.  The big guy points him in the direction where he saw a girl like the one the Surfer has shown him a picture of.  The Surfer enters a bar, and finds that the Collection Agency are there, and have slaughtered everyone inside.
• The Surfer takes in what happened in the bar, just as the Collection Agency starts shooting at him.  He doesn’t know who they are, but wants them stopped, so he fires back.  The Collection Agency has some wrist bands that leech power, and they turn them on the Surfer.  He starts to feel drained.  Jude moves to pick up the child, and sees that she’s starting to transform.  The Surfer tries to get them to stop, but Jude isn’t interested and is about to shoot the Surfer in the head when he rallies and hits his pistol.  The shot hits Shaara in the shoulder.  The Surfer sends his energy right into Janus’s device, causing a feedback surge that leads to an explosion.  The Surfer believes he’s killed them all and starts to apologize.  Janus and Shaara are still alive, but Jude is dead.  I guess the fight is over, because Shaara starts to explain their whole backstory, talking about how they were in the military on their planet, which was at war with another, reptilian, race called the Scallelin.  The three of them were the only survivors of a massacre, so they set out on their own, stealing a ship and gaining their siphons.  By the time they got back to their own world, they found that everyone was dead, so they turned to a life of crime, doing espionage, kidnapping, and assassinations for pay (which doesn’t explain why they’d call themselves the Collection Agency).  Shaara talks about her love for Jude, whom we see was a cyborg.  Shaar wants to kill the Surfer, but Janus talks her down.  He reminds them that the girl is still transforming, which means that the virus is mutating.  We see that it’s now a big green monster with two mouths.  It reaches its multiple tongues towards the Surfer, thereby infecting him, before it dies.  The Surfer starts to find his perceptions altered, but believes that he has time to return to the Collector.  He leaves the two on friendly terms.  As he flies into space, he sees a vision of an alien’s head (it’s that Predator knock-off guy from Annual #3, maybe).  He ends up flying into the guy’s open mouth, and getting swallowed in blackness.

• The Surfer finds himself in a desert landscape, attacked by three animated skeletons.  He finds that his powers are gone (how many times is this going to happen before it becomes completely boring?  Oh, wait).  He talks about how he no longer feels guilt because he was absolved by the ghosts of his past while he dismantles them with rocks and their own weapons.  Then he finds himself standing before the shade of Garnok Rebbahn, who tells him he has to accept this new reality as his penance.  Rebbahn disappears, and the Surfer sees a large group of skeletons coming across the plains towards him.  He runs from them, and finds a cave to hide in.  The dead pass him by, and when he sees a light deep in the cave, he goes to investigate.  He finds Mar-Vell, the original Captain Marvel sitting by a fire.  Elsewhere, Shaara and Janus leave the planet they were on last issue, and Shaara blows the whole thing up to make sure the virus is contained.  Somewhere else, a Kree ship is attacked by the being that we saw come out of the cocoon that appeared around Reptyl’s body during Infinity Gauntlet.  It eats the last surviving person onboard.  The Surfer and Mar-Vell talk about how they are both dead, but enjoy eating, and have no power.  Mar-Vell tells him that there’s a huge army of skeletons that’s led by a single person.  They decide to check it out and see thousands of skeletons outside of a tent.  Mar-Vell gives the Surfer a sword and then works his way around the crowd and enters into battle with them to create a diversion.  The Surfer approaches the tent and spends three pages fighting its sole guard before entering and finding what appears to be a dark version of himself inside.
• The Statement of Ownership for 1991 reports an average press run of 274 000 with average newsstand returns of 68 000.
• This Dark Surfer explains that he is the darker side of the Surfer’s soul, and that he wants to finally defeat him and be free of him.  The Surfer rejects this idea, claiming he fears nothing, as they start to fight.  Dark Surfer claims that his lack of fear of his true nature makes him more powerful, but the Surfer claims that’s more because he doesn’t have his own powers.  Dark Surfer returns them, and they blastaway at one another while they keep arguing.  The Surfer explains he feels an obligation to the universe and won’t allow himself to be unfeeling or callous again.  Finally, the Surfer realizes he can’t defeat his darker side, and instead embraces him, making himself whole.  Now he finds himself in a plane of gray, and he’s visited again by the shade of Rebbahn.  His once minor foe explains that the Dark Surfer and the vision of Mar-Vell represented the Surfer’s two sides, and now with them both removed, that he’s an empty void.  The Surfer instead relies on the fact that he is a whole being, and finds himself back in regular space.  He feels good, and rushes off to meet with the Collector.  The Collector’s vessel is back in space, and he looks very different from what we’re used to, confirming it was him that hired the Collection Agency. They stand with him, including Jude, who looks barely put back together. The Collector is upset that there is no trace of the virus in the Surfer (his ordeal killed it).  The Collector admits that the Surfer was a pawn in his plans (which don’t really make a lot of sense), and Janus gets angry with the way they were treated, so the Collection Agency leaves.  The Collector vows revenge on the Surfer, but he flies off too.  The Surfer moves to complete his original goal, to destroy the weird space temple Thanos built, but when he arrives there, he finds the thing that came out of Reptyl’s cocoon is there.  What’s odd is that the Surfer recognizes him.

• It’s odd that the Surfer immediately recognizes this figure as Reptyl, since he’s twice the size he was before, has a completely different appearance, including wings and giant claws, and is a different colour.  Before launching into a fight, the Surfer narrates a bit about how he recognizes his villainy, and then is surprised when Reptyl fires energy at him. They start fighting and the Surfer brags about his inner peace.  They also recap their shared history, and we learn that the Super-Skrull killed Reptyl in a Fantastic Four Annual, but that he’s the chosen one of his race who underwent some kind of evolution after his death.  While they fight and yell, they draw the attention of a passing yacht.  On it is Princess Alaisa, a pretty young woman who has the power to make sentients fall in love with her.  Her robotic handmaiden doesn’t want to pilot the yacht towards the disturbance, but Alaisa insists, and points out the control she has over her two bodyguards whom she believes will protect her.  When they arrive, she thinks the Surfer is attractive, and distracts him so Reptyl gets the upper hand in their fight.  The Surfer blasts him back, speechifies some, and then gets distracted again by Alaisa, who is on top of her ship.  Reptyl sneaks up behind her and threatens to kill her if the Surfer doesn’t give himself up.  The guards try to sneak up on him, but he kills them.  The Surfer goads Reptyl into letting go of the girl so his board can fly in and provide her with an escape.  The Surfer blasts Reptyl again, but he manages to grab the board.  He and the Surfer continue with the fight dialogue, until the Surfer forces him onto Thanos’s weird platform.  He then blasts one of the statues Thanos erected, so it falls on Reptyl.  Alaisa tries to put the moves on the Surfer, and is annoyed that he is looking for Reptyl’s body.  He finds that Reptyl dug through the bottom of the platform and is gone.  Alaisa tries to flirt with the Surfer but he explains that his heart is elsewhere.  She doesn’t accept that and insists that he belong to her.
• The Surfer finally arrives at the platform Thanos built, and blasts it to bits.  He finally feels free of his recent past, and heads off into space to enjoy his freedom.  On the main world of the Kharta’een Empire, Princess Alaisa talks to her robotic handmaiden about being jilted by the Surfer while she’s in the shower.  She’s upset that her powers to make people fall in love with her didn’t work on him, so she asks the robot about ways to gain the kind of power that would make her noticeable to the Surfer.  The robot mentions a race that gained powers through worshipping their ‘love deity’.  She performs a ritual, and summons Mistress Love (whom we saw in the fight against Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet).  She claims that she already gave Alaisa gifts when she was born, but agrees to give her greater power if she will serve her.  She gives Alaisa wings and a bow, and calls her her Avatar.  Alaisa is happy with her new abilities, and before Love departs, she gives her a vague warning about the darker side of love (not the Force), and within minutes, Master Hate appears and offers her more power in return for some future assistance.  Alaisa agrees, and becomes more powerful.  Alaisa insists on being called Avatar, and immediately wants to go looking for the Surfer.  As the Surfer soars through space, he notices Avatar approaching him.  He again rebukes her advances, and when she gets mad, her wings change metallic and her clothes become leather (think of a low-rent Angel/Archangel kind of thing).  She grabs the Surfer and kisses him, and he again says he’s not interested.  She blasts him with her staff, and he blasts back at her.  She floats for a bit in space, and then swears she’ll track down the Surfer, who has already left.  Yawn.

• Annual #5 looks like it fits in here.  It contains Part 3 of The Return of the Defenders, a cross-annual story featuring Doctor Strange, the Hulk, and Namor, who has ended up in the body of Rick Jones while a sorcerer named Shanzar inhabits his body.  Shanzar is working with a magician named Lucien Aster to bring about the emergence of a demon called The Wild One.  It’s a very tedious story with bad artwork by Tom Morgan.  I skimmed it, as it didn’t really have much to do with the Surfer’s story, and didn’t fit with his continuity at the time.
• In a backup story, Pip the Troll showcases the Surfer’s greatest foes, but it’s only a list of people that have shown up in the last two year’s worth of books.  
• In the final backup story, Firelord goes to confront Nebula, who killed everyone on his world, while Starfox tries to talk him out of it.  When Firelord goes into her cell on his own, it seems like Nebula comes on to him, and doesn’t understand why he’s so angry with her.  When they touch, Firelord gets glimpses of her life, and it is suggested that her father beat and abused her in other ways.  Nebula collapses, and Firelord questions what happened.  Starfox enters with two guards, and explained he used his powers in a way he usually doesn’t to create a link between the two of them (did he ever use these retconned powers again?).  Now Firelord has pity for her, and Eros says they will get her treatment.  He wants to take Firelord on vacation, and for some reason, while they walk away from Nebula’s cell, a green hand reaches out to them and pulls away.  It’s sad that this story is the best part of this comic, next to the pin-ups by John Buscema and Rick Leonardi.
• It’s wild to me that the Infinity War crossover event came so close on the heels of the Infinity Gauntlet.  With issue 67, the Surfer’s book went bi-weekly again, and he found himself drawn into the conflict.  Since I’m not rereading the Warlock and the Infinity Watch series that led into Infinity War, I’m not going to revisit it now.  The Surfer is on Titan with Starfox and Firelord, checking in on Nebula, who is practically catatonic (no mention is made of the fact that this is basically Eros’s fault).  They talk about how it’s likely that Thanos is still alive, and then the Surfer is shocked by the appearance of Geatar, whom he mistakes for Thanos.  Nebula’s former shipmate has been restored to life (he was killed by the Surfer after being made to look like Thanos) and now works to serve Nebula.  Eros suggests that the Surfer pay a visit to Mentor, who is in the catacombs beneath Titan, paying tribute to his wife on the anniversary of her death.  When the Surfer goes to see him, they talk about how and why Thanos eviscerated his mother as a child, and how Mentor mourns Thanos more than he does Sui-San.  Their conversation is interrupted by a man who comes to tell Mentor that Galactus is on Earth (I’m not sure why that’s an emergency on Titan).  The Surfer, thinking Galactus is breaking his word, rushes to Earth where he finds Galactus standing outside Doctor Strange’s home, with the Doctor held unconscious in an energy field.  The Surfer confronts Galactus, who gets kind of haughty and slaps him away.  Galactus and Strange are tractor beamed into his ship, where he tells Nova to get ready to leave.  The Surfer flies into the ship, and Galactus orders Nova to get rid of him.  Nova hesitates, and the Surfer tells her to stand aside.  They end up fighting briefly until Strange comes to, having processed a big information download from Galactus.  He tells them all to stop fighting, and uses his magic to separate them.  Strange berates Galactus for not explaining what’s going on, and tells the Surfer that they need him to go with them to face off against a new threat to the universe.  As Galactus’s ship departs, we see an image of Magus (who I always think of as Dark Warlock) smiling.

• It would seem that the Surfer is travelling with Doctor Strange, Nova, and Galactus aboard Galactus’s ship, through a dimensional vortex that is taking all of Strange’s concentration to navigate.  When Nova asks if she can help, Galactus puts her down, and she flies off.  The Surfer comes to her room to check on her, and while she’s surprised he’s being nice to her since their relationship didn’t work out, she does open up to him.  We get a recap of her origin, and how it made her feel special to have powers.  She talks about how happy she was to explore the galaxy with Galactus, but that he has never shown her kindness (I guess Marz is not going to pick up on the storyline Steve Englehart started that suggested Galactus had romantic feelings for her).  She talks about her growing guilt at having perpetrated cosmic genocide for Galactus, and then as the Surfer begins to talk about how he made peace with his own past, she sees something rush past the outside of the ship.  The ship shakes, and they return to the bridge.  Galactus discovers that there are robotic dog-like things eating his ship.  The damage is becoming great, and there is a danger that they will get lost in the vortex.  Galactus wants the Surfer and Nova to go outside and stop the dog things, so they do that, wearing tethers so they don’t fall into another dimension. The robots attack them in great numbers, so that they have to fight back-to-back for a few pages.  Finally, the Surfer destroys them all in a massive blast.  He wants to see where they’ve come from, and notices two lines of them stretching into the vortex (I thought Galactus’s ship was still moving, but whatever).  A large humanoid starts to approach, walking through the vortex, and complaining about how many of his servants have been destroyed.  We see the guy, who looks like a big alien Iron Man knockoff, and he claims he wants the ship.  We know from the cover that this guy is named Khoon, which is a terrible name.
• Khoon insists that the Surfer and Nova surrender their ship to him, and when they refuse, he blasts them with his 90s gun and siccs his army of robot dogs on them again.  The two heroes get separated, and Khoon grabs the Surfer.  When they fight, it’s clear that he has more power than the Surfer thought.  Nova’s tether gets severed, and she starts to drift into the dimensional void.  On Titan, Geatar helps the catatonic Nebula escape, killing a guard in the process (aren’t they all Eternals though?).  Khoon grabs the end of Nova’s broken tether, bringing her back to the ship, but tells the Surfer he’ll let her go if they don’t bring him inside.  They take him to the bridge, where Dr. Strange offers some resistance before being blasted by Khoon.  Galactus realizes that Khoon has never heard of him, and agrees to his terms, but asks who he is.  Khoon narrates his story, telling them how he was the greatest of his world’s explorers, and how he created a vessel to traverse this dimensional corridor.  His ship couldn’t withstand the energies around it, and it broke apart, marooning him in his space suit.  He used the remains of his ship to make his robot dogs, and wandered for eons, never able to enter any of the doors to other dimensions, since his suit was not enough to protect him.  He takes off his helmet and brags about how much data he’s stored in his suit.  That’s when Galactus blasts him, and his computers reach out with some tendrils to absorb Khoon and his suit.  Doctor Strange comes to and is surprised by what happened.  Galactus now knows how to continue their trip, and they fly on towards Magus and the Infinity War.  On some distant planet, a bunch of prisoners hang from shackles.  Someone big takes one of them and kills him with a big axe.  I have no idea who this guy is, but he has a lot of studded bracelets.  

• With issue seventy, the six-part Herald Ordeal begins, featuring art by MC Wyman, one of the more chameleonic artists of the 90s (I remember really liking his stuff in Adventure’s Planet of the Apes b&w series – I should revisit things like that!).  The Surfer flies over a big house on Earth,and its inhabitant, whom we barely see, thinks about stopping the Surfer for reasons we don’t know.  Nova is in space, feeling badly that there is only one suitable planet in the area for Galactus to feed on, and it’s inhabited.  Upon returning to Galactus (who is back in his sprawling, large vessel, and not the round one he was flying around in last issue), Nova lies to him and says there are no suitable worlds nearby.  He knows she’s lying, and shows her that he was monitoring her, and knows that this one planet is suitable (which makes me wonder why he needs a herald at all).  He’s angry with her for defying him, so he traps her in a crystal and takes her with him as he approaches the planet.  On a distant moon, Geatar takes Nebula, who is still catatonic, to see Doctor Mandibus, who does not look like he’s very trustworthy.  Galactus sets up outside a castle, and we see the executioner from the end of last issue.  He comes onto the roof and challenges Galactus, identifying himself as Morg (Marz really sucks at naming villains, doesn’t he?).  Galactus is impressed by Morg’s lack of fear, and even more impressed that he doesn’t much care what Galactus does to his planet so long as he survives.  Galactus decides to spare him, and then consumes the rest of the planet.  He then tells Nova that she is free of him, and no longer his herald.  She is surprised, and is more surprised when she learns that Galactus is going to make Morg his new herald.  Galactus insists she leave, and then offers the job to Morg in exchange for loyalty.  The executioner insists that he’s always been loyal to his masters (who he just sold out, right?), so Galactus infuses him with the power cosmic.  The Surfer is thinking about Nova’s recent struggles with her conscience, so he goes to see her on Galactus’s ship.  Galactus tells him that she’s gone, and then orders his new herald to remove the Surfer from his ship.
• The Surfer and Morg get into it while Galactus watches.  He wants Morg to bring the Surfer to him (the fight has moved outside his ship), and the Surfer is surprised to see that Morg is able to overpower him.  Galactus explains that after Nova disagreed with him, he decided it was time to have a herald that matches his own morality.  Galactus tells the Surfer that he’s now cloaked his ship from him, and that he is to leave him alone.  Morg and the Surfer fight some more, but Morg is able to knock the Surfer down on his board.  After that, he hits him with his axe, and the Surfer blacks out.  Doctor Mandibus has Nebula ready for surgery, and explains to Geatar that he can give her any kind of personality he likes.  Geatar insists that she be restored to her usual self, and while her problems are psychological, Mandibus picks up a bone saw.  The Surfer comes to and figures he needs to stop Galactus’s latest poor decision.  He’s not sure how to find Galactus and Morg, so he instead seeks out Firelord to help him.  Firelord is in the middle of a fight with a large number of energy traders.  The Surfer shows up and helps him finish them off.  The Surfer then explains what’s happened with Nova and Galactus, and what a monster Morg is.  Firelord agrees to join him, and they fly off to find Nova.  Galactus prepares to eat a planet, and checks in with Morg, who informs him that he’s taken care of any possible resistance; we see that he’s killed a number of people on the planet’s surface.

• At the house on Earth we saw a couple issues ago, the unidentified man, who is wrapped in bandages, blows open the front gates, thinking about he has to ‘get to’ someone.  The Surfer and Firelord arrive at a very seedy part of some planet, where various aliens appear to be engaged in sex work.  A female comes on to them, and Firelord flirts back a little and finds out that Nova is in a club called Flamers.  Their path to the club is interrupted by a very big guy who wants to draw on the Surfer in some outer space version of a duel.  The Surfer blows him off, which surprises him, and the two former heralds head into Flamers.  On the distant moon, Geatar waits until Doctor Mandibus comes and tells him that Nebula’s surgery is done.  They almost fight, but are interrupted when Nebula joins them.  She’s now bald, and has cybernetics covering a quarter of her skull, including her left eye, and has a robotic left arm (why, if her issues were mental, would she need a new arm?).  I’d totally forgotten that Nebula was changed in this book, and always assumed that her recent appearance had something to do with the MCU.  Anyway, both Firelord and the Surfer are surprised to see Nova pole-dancing in what is basically a strip club.  They recognize that she’s not in her right mind, and when the Surfer grabs her down from the stage, she doesn’t recognize him.  They prepare to drag her away, but meet resistance.  Galactus prepares to eat this latest planet, but Morg first wants to investigate a cave the locals are defending.  He finds a priest inside, and learns from him that a pool there is called ‘The Well of Life’.  It’s helped the people of that planet recover from illness and brought them peace.  Morg kills the priest and enters the pool.  The big quickdraw guy is blocking the Surfer, insisting that they duel.  A brawl starts to break out, so the Surfer decides the best thing to do is give in to the guy.  They stare each other down and begin to gather energy in their hands, and then the big guy shoots first, knocking the Surfer down.  Nova snaps out of her fugue and recognizes him.
• Nova worries that the Surfer is dead, but after the guy who blasted him leaves, we learn that the Surfer was actually faking it so the guy would go away.  Nova is back in her right mind, and can’t fully explain how she ended up dancing.  The former heralds prepare to leave, but aren’t sure how they’re going to find Galactus now that he has cloaked himself from them.  Firelord has an idea, and it involves a dead man.  Nebula puts on some clothes and thanks Geatar for helping her.  She wants to put her old crew back together.  Firelord has taken the others to the asteroid where he buried his friend Air-Walker, thinking that resurrecting him will help them find Galactus.  We learn that the original Gabriel Lan’s consciousness was placed in a robot body that was broken by Thor.  Firelord knows it has a homing beacon in it, and starts to repair some of its circuitry.  The heralds recharge its cosmic cells with their powers, but when Air-Walker revives and begins its self-repair cycle, it attacks them.  They try to fight back, and after Nova gets hurt, Firelord realizes he has to destroy his friend.  He blasts it, which burns away its clothes and skin.  Elsewhere, Morg emerges from the Lazarus Pit (sorry, I know that’s not what it is, but…) and immediately feels more powerful than before.  He flies up to Galactus, who is a little surprised to see that Morg felt he needed an upgrade.  Morg reasserts his loyalty to Galactus.  The ex-heralds keep fighting the Air-Walker droid, who grabs Firelord by the neck and starts to choke him to death.  Finally, Gabriel’s consciousness takes over, recognizing his friend.  Firelord promises to help him, but first says they need to find Galactus.  Gabriel points the way, and the Surfer suggests they pick up another former herald, Terrax the Tamer, who is sitting on some grassy field somewhere.
• Terrax, who inhabits a human body now, and thus can’t fly, was left on an uninhabited planet by the Surfer in an issue of New Warriors.  Now, when the Surfer comes to him with the other three former heralds, Terrax’s anger takes over before he can hear the Surfer’s reason for being there.  He attacks.  On Earth, the guy in bandages decides to leave to seek out a new life in the stars.  As he flies into the heavens, he appears to turn into a being of light.  Firelord and Air-Walker try to restrain Terrax, but he’s too powerful.  He hits Nova, knocks her down, and is about to kill her when the Surfer’s board comes between them.  The Surfer hits him, while still trying to get him to listen.  Terrax gets pushed to the edge of a cliff, and threatens to jump to his death before allowing the Surfer to imprison him somewhere.  Nebula and Geatar approach the Anvil, a large prison on a prison planet, with plans to free her former crew.  The Surfer points out to Terrax that the fall off the cliff won’t kill him, and suggests that they instead talk.  Terrax agrees to hear them out, and so the Surfer tells him about Morg and the threat he poses to them all (which seems unlikely in Terrax’s case).  The Surfer says he’ll let him go if he helps them defeat Morg, and Terrax agrees to help them, provided they find his axe first.  The Surfer tossed it in a nearby asteroid field, so they head there to look around.  Air-Walker locates it, and Terrax feels ready to fight.  He almost hits the Surfer in the back with his axe, but stops himself, basically posturing.  Terrax and the others prepare to go fight Morg.

• Issue seventy-five, the end of The Herald Ordeal, has a nice shiny cover that is very similar to issue fifty’s, but the Surfer is better defined amidst the silver foil.  Galactus feeds on the planet Morg has prepared for him, and while it falls apart, the Surfer and the other heralds confront him.  Morg is always ready for a fight, and he blasts at them immediately.  The Surfer grabs Terrax to keep him from floating away, and Terrax points out that Morg is more powerful than any of them.  He wants the Surfer to go get Galactus to convince him to intervene, and the Surfer agrees.  Terrax and Nova join the fight while the Surfer enters Galactus’s ship.  Galactus is not happy to see him.  Morg gets into it with Air-Walker.  Galactus blasts at the Surfer and is not prepared to listen to him.  Morg rips off Gabriel’s arm.  Galactus gets more annoyed with the Surfer.  Morg does some serious damage to Gabriel, while Galactus swats the Surfer like he’s a fly.  Firelord starts to fight Morg.  The Surfer finally gets Galactus’s attention.  Morg is able to cut Firelord with his axe.  Galactus rants a bit, and it looks like he’s going to depower the Surfer.  Firelord passes out, but Terrax moves in to challenge Morg.  The Surfer makes the argument that if Galactus kills him and the other heralds, the rest of the galaxy will come after him, and he’ll never know peace, mostly because of how terrible Morg is.  Terrax and Morg fight, axe to axe.  Galactus agrees to intervene, and asks the Surfer to lead him to the fight.  Morg destroys Terrax’s axe, and is about to kill him.  The Surfer goes on ahead of Galactus, arriving as Nova stops Morg from hurting Terrax by blasting him with all her might.  Nova and the Surfer update each other on what’s happened while Morg recovers.  He blasts Nova right through her chest, and she dies in the Surfer’s arms.  The Surfer is furious, and starts to give a speech, but Galactus arrives and separates them.  He tells Morg that it wasn’t his place to kill Nova, and takes away his power cosmic, leaving him only the powers he acquired on that planet.  Galactus says he is done with this, and leaves the rest to sort things out.  The Surfer blasts Morg, and then Terrax returns to the fight, as do Air-Walker and Firelord.  They all manage to get Morg down, but the Surfer does not want Terrax to kill him.  He tries to stop Terrax, but he plunges Morg’s own axe into his chest, which causes an explosion and leaves him a skeleton.  The Surfer is glad that it’s over.  A little later, the former heralds gather in front of Galactus.  Firelord offers to become his herald again, seeing as he lacks purpose, so long as Gabriel can be his co-herald, and he can use Galactus’s technology to fix him up.  Galactus agrees.  As he flies off on his platform, we see a glimmer in Morg’s eye socket.  The others gather around Nova’s body, and the Surfer sends her on his surfboard into space.  He says a few words about her, and then says goodbye to Firelord and Gabriel.  He and Terrax agree to go separate ways (Terrax will use Morg’s axe so he can fly again – I didn’t know that’s what axes are for).  The Surfer says goodbye to Nova, but there is no recollection of his short relationship with her.
• The Homecoming graphic novel takes place here, but I’ve discussed it in another column.  Basically, all you need to know is that Shalla-Bal has died, sacrificing herself to save Zenn-La and many other worlds.
• The Surfer is sitting on a rock in space, thinking about the losses of Nova and Shalla-Bal, when a being comes up behind him and asks for his help.  The Surfer lashes out, blasting at the being for having expectations of him.  The being explains he’s the only one who can help him, and we see that he’s Jack of Hearts, in all his colourful glory.  We can see energy leaking out of Jack’s chest, and he explains his story to the Surfer, starting with his origin, through his early adventures.  He explains that he discovered he is half Contraxian, and was almost used by his other people before escaping them.  He had some conflict with Quasar, and had his armor wrecked by the Presence.  Moondragon helped him, but after he returned home and sat in the remains of his home in bandages for a while (we’ve been seeing this story seeded for a bit now), he realized that he’s going to fall apart and believes that the only person who can help him is the Silver Surfer (although it’s really not clear how or why).  The Surfer apologizes for being short with him, and has one idea of how he can help.  They fly off together.  At the Anvil penal colony, the Chancellor of the facility learns of a sensor anomaly, and then goes to intimidate and beat on a new inmate for a bit.  He learns he has some visitors and returns to his office.  He believes that the Surfer has brought him Jack as a prisoner, and gets angry with him, but then learns they are there to meet with someone named Torval, an armor smith who is imprisoned there.  The Chancellor says no one can see Torval, but then the Surfer gets angry and reminds him of the time that he saved his life years before, and hid the fact that the young cadet who grew to be the Chancellor was a coward who fled his ranks.  The Chancellor agrees to let them see Torval in his workshop, but is interrupted by the arrival of a new prisoner, unscheduled, and so sends the two heroes with a guard.  On Galactus’s ship (which is spherical again), Firelord and Air-Walker spar, testing the improvements that Firelord has made on his friend’s body.  Galactus interrupts to tell them not to disturb him.  He enters a lab, and we see that it looks like he’s regenerating Morg’s body.  The Surfer and Jack are taken to Torval’s workshop, and he seems mad about it.  The Chancellor and his guards open the door to the prison to see that Geatar has brought them Nebula as his prisoner.

• Torval appears in a huge suit of armor and threatens the Surfer and Jack of Hearts, but realizes he can’t win a battle, so comes out of it – he’s only as big as the armor’s head.  The Chancellor is suspicious of Geatar, knowing that he helped Nebula escape Titan, but when Geatar hurts Nebula and explains that it was part of a plan to restart his life, the Chancellor decides to trust him.  Torval doesn’t want to help Jack because they can’t pay him, and Jack loses his temper.  Some guards strip-search Nebula and it’s clear that they intend to sexually assault her.  Geatar speaks to the Chancellor about perhaps getting a job at the Anvil.  As the Chancellor looks out the window, Geatar picks up his staff and stabs it into his back.  The Surfer moves to stop Jack, and has to physically subdue him.  After he’s calm, the Surfer suggests to Torval that he could work something out for him with the Chancellor; Torval agrees.  The Surfer leaves them to go negotiate better conditions for the armorer.  On Galactus’s ship, Firelord and Air-Walker speculate about what Galactus is doing in his lab.  Inside, we see that he’s now successfully restored Morg to life.  Geatar takes the Chancellor to find Nebula, who has managed to kill all the guards with her.  They demand the Chancellor take them to their former crew.  As they walk down the hall, they come across the Surfer, who is surprised to see them.  Nebula holds a gun to the Chancellor’s head, and threatens to kill him if the Surfer doesn’t surrender.
• The Surfer quickly surrenders to Nebula, promising not to interfere with her plans in order to protect the Chancellor’s life.  She and Geatar take them to the prison’s communications room, where she has the Chancellor order all of his staff off the planet.  He next takes them to the basement, where Nebula’s crew just stand around in a big room.  She addresses them and rehires them; they enthusiastically sign up with her again.  She tells Geatar to take some of the men to the armory, and cuts off the Chancellor’s hand so he can use it to open the doors.  On Galactus’s ship, the cosmic being talks to the revived Morg, explaining that he wouldn’t throw away such a loyal herald.  He wants him to stay away from Firelord and Air-Walker, and Morg wants his axe back, so he heads out to look for Terrax.  Nebula leads her crew to the largest ship left in the Anvil, and is surprised when its door opens to reveal Jack of Hearts in his new armor.  Jack attacks, and manages to get the Chancellor to safety on the ship.  The pirates attack the Surfer and Jack, and there’s a big fight.  Geatar is hurt, and then catches a stray shot in the chest.  Nebula refuses to abandon him, and helps him to the ship.  She prepares to launch, and fires the main engines in the hangar, immediately frying everyone there as she flies off.  The Surfer shielded one pirate with his body, while Jack ended up protecting the Chancellor.  The Chancellor explains that the ship she took is cloaked, so there is no chance of finding her.  Jack explains that he heard the announcement for the staff, and figured out where to make his stand.  Now he wants to help the Chancellor get medical help, and retrieve the prison’s staff, before heading back into the stars now that his condition is cured.  The Surfer flies off.  On the last page, we see a big floating asteroid that looks like a gothic cathedral designed by HR Giger, with the words “It’s coming” beneath it.
• The Statement of Ownership for 1992 reports an average press run of 318 000, with average newsstand returns of 63 000.

• Issue seventy-nine opens with Gladiator, of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, reporting to Oracle and Tempest that he’s checking on anomalies detected in a remote sector.  Something hits him from behind and leaves him immobile.  We see the Goth Cathedral asteroid approaching in the distance.  The Silver Surfer is relaxing on a lush planet somewhere, thinking about the importance of self-care and admiring his reflection in a river when he is attacked from behind by Dr. Minerva, the Kree soldier who was supposedly killed during Operation Galactic Storm.  She seems to think he’s there to capture her, but the Surfer doesn’t know anything about any of it.  He is blasted by Captain Atlas.  Terrax is standing around on an asteroid when Morg appears and blasts him (there are a lot of sneak attacks in this issue – as many as there are two-page spreads).  Morg wants his axe back, and the two former heralds begin to fight.  The Surfer continues to insist he is not there for Minerva and Atlas as they fight, until the Surfer gets tired of them all and decides to break out the power cosmic.  After he punches Atlas in the jaw, the Captain begs the Surfer to kill him.  Apparently, he’s ashamed of what happened to the Kree in Galactic Storm, and now just wants to die.  Minerva doesn’t want that to happen, and pleads with the Surfer to spare him.  The Surfer is, of course, against murder, but he agrees to leave them alone so that Minerva can keep Atlas safe from his own deathwish.  The Surfer leaves, and we see that the two Kree were acting – Atlas is not suicidal, and the couple is hoping to give birth to a race of super-men on this planet, and then restore the power of the Kree.  Beta Ray Bill is standing on an asteroid talking to himself about how Thor has lost his mind.  He tells his hammer (which is not sentient) to take him to Thor, but as he flies through space, he spies some surprising being that blasts him with the same energy that we saw hit Gladiator.  The Cathedral asteroid is there, and it drags both Gladiator and Bill in some kind of tractor beam.
• A woman is woken from suspended animation by an AI.  From her conversation with the computer, we learn that she’s a warrior of some sort, and that her enemy has been detected.  The Surfer flies around, thinking about his sense of duty and stuff, following familiar (and overdone) patterns.  He decides he should check in on Terrax, to make sure he’s not up to no good.  The woman continues to talk to her computer, and we learn that her ‘sisters’ haven’t been detected.  We see her suit up, and start some training routine with her staff.  This goes on for pages, where we see her in one vertical panel while the rest of the story continues.  Morg and Terrax are fighting.  Morg explains how Galactus revived him and that he’s there to reclaim his axe.  Terrax offers to join up with Morg and rule galaxies, but Morg is not about that.  Morg gets the axe away from Terrax, and gets him down on the asteroid they’re fighting on.  He’s about to kill him when he’s hit with a blast of energy.  Terrax is also surprised to see that they are now surrounded by nine aliens in spacesuits aiming blasters at them.  The guys speak in the same font we saw when Gladiator and Beta Ray Bill were taken, and it looks like they all fire at the same time.  The entire asteroid, as well as the former heralds, are gone, and all that remains is the axe, floating in space.  The woman (we still only see her in silhouette) departs from the facility where she was sleeping (it looks like an asteroid) and heads off on her mission; her AI only predicts a 3.8% chance of success.  The Surfer finds Terrax’s axe floating in space, and wonders what could have happened to put so much wear on it.  The woman shows up, and we see her for the first time – she’s clearly modeled on Zealot from the WildCATS, with her face makeup and scanty outfit.  She comments on how her enemy looks different from before, but that she can clearly recognize the Surfer as her foe.  He tries to explain that she’s mistaken, but she attacks.  He pushes back against her, and says that she’s going to feel his wrath.  

• The woman attacks the Surfer, thinking he is a servant of her enemy, a man (creatively) named Tyrant.  The Surfer makes it clear he’d rather fight than talk, so the woman introduces herself as Ganymede, a member of something called the Spinsterhood (actually).  She explains how millennia ago, the Spinsterhood were a group of warrior nuns who eventually banished the evil Tyrant out of known space.  They then elected to sleep in suspended animation in facilities disguised as asteroids in case Tyrant ever returned.  Ganymede realizes she is the last of her kind.  The Surfer explains who he is, and they agree to work together to track down Terrax, assuming he’s been taken by Tyrant.  They arrive at the giant gothic cathedral asteroid, which is called (also creatively) Fortress.  Upon entering the gigantic structure, which is Tyrant’s home, they are attacked by some of his heavy troopers.  They make short work of them, and Ganymede is impressed with how powerful the Surfer really is.  Tyrant sneaks up behind them and takes them out with his energy blast.  When they wake up, they are attached to a machine alongside Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill, Terrax, and Morg (whose presence is a surprise to the Surfer).  Terrax explains that Galactus revived Morg, while Bill explains how he ended up in this predicament.  Tyrant (who is another terribly-designed 90s villain, with some kind of cords attaching his lower jaw to his shoulders) explains that he is going to use their power to fuel his invasion of the galaxy.  Galactus is on his ship, annoyed that Morg didn’t return to him as quickly as he’d liked, so he gets in his flying chair and heads out to look for him, leaving behind Firelord and Air-Walker, who are kind of puzzled.  
• Issue eighty-two is oversized.  Tyrant boasts in front of his captives, and strikes out at Ganymede when she argues with him.  As this is happening, we keep seeing in one vertical panel on the left side of each left page that something is approaching through space.  The Surfer draws Tyrant’s anger, but they are distracted when some of Tyrant’s troops bring another captive to the room – it’s Jack of Hearts.  Jack tries to fight back, but Tyrant blasts him and ends up tossing him into a wall.  Jack presses a button on his armor and appears to explode.  We now see that it’s Galactus and his flying chair that are approaching.  As the smoke clears from Jack’s explosion, we see that the Surfer and the others are free of Tyrant’s machine.  The Surfer leads them in an attack on Tyrant, whose mouth cables have got to be incredibly uncomfortable and might explain his anger.  His troopers engage the former captives, and the Surfer asks Terrax to check and see how Jack is.  He refuses, so Ganymede does it, and finds that he’s still alive.  Some of the troopers attack her, while the Surfer attacks Tyrant directly.  They argue, and Beta Ray Bill is shocked to see that his hammer, Stormbringer, has no effect on Tyrant.  Gladiator and Tyrant match eye beams while Galactus gets closer (we now see only some of his face, he’s so close to the camera) and Ganymede fights more troopers.  In the middle of the fight, Morg decides to continue his fight with Terrax instead.  The troopers grab both of them, and it looks like the others are getting overwhelmed by Tyrant’s forces.  The Surfer, Bill, and Gladiator continue to fight Tyrant, but the latter two take quite a beating.  Tyrant swats the Surfer aside, and blasts Ganymede when she tries to stab him in the head.  Morg gets Terrax down, but then realizes that he’s surrounded by a couple dozen of Tyrant’s men.  Soon the Surfer is the only one left standing, but then Tyrant blasts him, knocking him out.  Tyrant gloats, but that’s when Galactus arrives, ripping his way into the Fortress.  It’s clear that Galactus and Tyrant know one another, and fought eons ago.  It seems that Tyrant was equal to Galactus’s might, but now he claims to be even more powerful.  Galactus tells him he’s only there to get Morg, and Tyrant mentions that he should have recognized Galactus’s power on him (but not on the Surfer or Terrax?).  The two beings negotiate, with Galactus pointing out the futility of them having a conflict at this time.  Tyrant promises to leave if Galactus will let him go, but he wants one of his new power source captives.  He insists that it’s Morg he takes, which makes Galactus angry.  He decides to relent, but lets Tyrant know that now they are enemies.  He prepares Fortress to leave, and tells Galactus to take the others with him.  Galactus tells the Surfer that he’ll deal with Tyrant in his own time.  Later, the Surfer tells the others that Galactus left, making it clear he doesn’t want to keep seeing him.  He also tells them that Terrax woke up before the others and took off.  Jack explains that his new armor has a fail-safe in it that allowed him to release his energies, and that he feels lucky he didn’t hurt anyone.  Ganymede says she’ll go off with Jack to help him recover.  Gladiator plans to return to the Shi’ar, while Bill wants to go stop Thor, who is now insane.  The Surfer tells Bill he’d help him, once he has time (but like, what else does he have – the man has no home or job).  Everyone heads off, going their separate ways.

Ron Marz continued with the Silver Surfer after this point, but Ron Lim left the book (aside from a two-issue reappearance later) with issue eighty-two, and seeing as this column just keeps getting longer and longer, I figured this might be a good place to stop, just before the Infinity Crusade event tie-ins started taking over again.

This is a long stretch of comics, thirty-two comics and an Annual, during which nothing of huge note ever really happened (maybe the death of Nova counts as a big deal to someone).  Marz took the ball from Jim Starlin, who had made the book the frontrunner of a massive event.  After Starlin left, but continued to run the cosmic corners of the Marvel Universe out of Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and the Warlock and the Infinity Watch series, Marz got left having to follow editorial mandates and make this book subservient to tie-ins.  

In between, Marz had some freedom to do creative things with the Surfer, but he largely relegated him to being secondary to the plotlines.  Stuff happened, like the Collector wanting to acquire a virus, or Galactus picking a new herald, and those events ended up impacting the Surfer.  He was never the driving force in his own life – he’d just fly around until someone attacked him or came to him for help.  His personality didn’t really develop or change.  Englehart had him experience love and loss in his run.  Starlin had him confront his past in his run.  Marz?  Nothing new, really.  He faced death and reconciled with his dark side (which had already happened in a different form), lost someone he cared about when Nova died (again), and confronted Galactus a fair amount.

Marz kept bringing him some new, and poorly-named, villains to fight, but none of them were memorable.  Khoon?  Avatar?  Morg?  Tyrant?  The Collection Agency?  These characters sounded like rejected characters from the original Star Trek series.  And their designs?  I’ll come back to that…

There were a few interesting things that Marz did during this run.  I liked seeing the heralds of Galactus working together, and liked the way he rehabilitated Nebula into a serious threat again.  I was a lot less impressed with the mutated Reptyl, who should have been left for dead without Marshall Rogers drawing him.

I felt like Nova’s death was ultimately pointless, and regret that a character with so much potential met such a rapid and quickly forgotten demise.  I would have thought that the Surfer would have done more to mourn her, or to at least let the Fantastic Four know that she’d passed, but it seemed that she was just killed off to create space for Firelord and Air-Walker to be ignored as heralds in favor of Morg, who is a terrible character.  I liked how Englehart had Galactus developing feelings for Nova, and I wish that had been continued.

The art goes through some interesting changes during this run, although none of those changes are positive.  When Lim started on this title, he was an up-and-comer also working on Captain America, but by this time, he was a star, having finished Infinity Gauntlet and drawn Infinity War.  With increased fame, in the 1990s, came increased pressure to make his art look more like even ‘hotter’ artists, and so we started to see the creeping Rob Liefeld-ization of Lim’s work.  Sure, Lim remained a much better artist, but he started to draw larger panels with fewer details (like backgrounds), and his character design got more and more 90s.  The Collection Agency were pretty standard looking characters, and Khoon had a very dull design.  Morg was not particularly interesting either, aside from his cool axe.  Jack of Heart’s redesign could have been better, but when you look at his original costume, anything was an improvement.  By the time we got to Ganymede, who looks like a knock-off of Jim Lee’s Zealot, mixed with a bit of his Psylocke, and Tyrant, things were going right off the rails.  Tyrant is a big guy with Predator-style dreads, and cables connecting his back teeth to his shoulders.  Think about that.  It reminds me of a horse’s reins, only the person driving the horse is the horse’s shoulders.  Nothing about Tyrant’s appearance made sense.

I noticed that Lim started to show more and more two-page spreads as we got deeper into his run, and everything felt a lot more rushed, which is how I remember most 90s comics.

I’ll be honest – my teenage self dropped this book towards the end of the Jack of Hearts story, because it just didn’t hold my interest any more, and I was dropping titles left and right.  I’ve continued reading digital copies to this point, and want to continue, mostly as a case study in how badly things went off the rails at Marvel in the mid-90s.  

I don’t want to make it sound like I think Marz was a particularly bad writer, I just think that he didn’t make very good use of his story ideas, and that there was very little pressure or expectation to shape longer and more soul-searching narratives at the time.  It was more about big extreme villains and unexpected team-ups (I’m just glad that no one figured out ways to squeeze Wolverine, Ghost Rider, or Punisher into this book).  

I do think it’s odd that there’s a Marz/Lim nostalgia Silver Surfer mini on the stands right now set during this period, because I don’t imagine there’s a huge fan clamoring for that kind of thing.  

I’m going to at least stick with this through the end of Marz’s run, which features a gang or artists, and then I’ll have to see if I keep going as far as JM DeMatteis’s run, which I remember buying some of (I need to dig those issues out).

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