Retro Review: Silver Surfer Vol. 3 #111-124 By Pérez, Grindberg, Eaton & Others For Marvel Comics

Silver Surfer Vol. 3 #111-124 (December 1995 – January 1997)

Written by George Pérez (#111-123), JM DeMatteis (#123), Glenn Greenberg (#124)

Penciled by Tom Grindberg (#111-116), Scot Eaton (#117-122), Ron Garney (#123), Ed Benes (#124), Adriana Melo (#124)

Inked by Bill Anderson (#111-116), Don Hudson (#117-122), Bob Wiacek (#123), Ed Benes (#124), Edde Wagner (#124)

Coloured by Tom Vincent (#111-115), Tom Smith (#116-124)

Spoilers (from twenty-four to twenty-six years ago)

I’ve continued to work my way through the Silver Surfer despite not owning any of the issues between roughly issue eighty and the appearance of Jon J Muth as artist in the 130s or 140s.  I am sometimes fascinated by the comics of the mid-90s, a time when I’d restricted my reading to only the most essential (and often ground-breaking) titles, and largely wrote off Marvel as a company.  Quite often, these books lack internal logic, structure, and coherence, and are full of confusing visuals.  Occasionally though, you come across something good.

I was surprised to learn that George Pérez wrote a run of The Silver Surfer.  I had no idea he’d ever written a monthly book for Marvel, and I’m curious to see what it was like.  This year has turned into a celebration of Pérez’s life and work as he battled terminal cancer (Pérez passed away while I was reading this run), with most of the nostalgia being directed towards his legendary runs on New Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, and the Avengers.  I kind of like the idea of looking at one of his most obscure books.

When we last left the Surfer, he’d learned that the love of his life, Shalla Bal, was in a relationship with the half-brother he’d never knew existed.  He’d more or less made peace with the fact that he’d killed Mephisto (which he didn’t actually do), and he’d seen Galactus, Morg, and Tyrant all killed in an Ultimate Nullifier mishap.  Most importantly, he was at peace with himself, and prepared to head back to his life of aimlessly surfing around space.

I wonder what Pérez cooked up for him to deal with…

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

Villains

• Dark Counsel (#112, 114, 117-121)
• Uni-Lord (#112-114, 117-121)
• Blackbody (#112-114, 117-118, 121)
• Grand Overseer (#113-116)
• Black Surfer (#117-118)
• Ganger (#123)
• Sorentino (#123)
• Bounty (#123-124

Guest Stars

• Heimdall (Asgard; #111)
• Beta Ray Bill (#111, 121-122)
• Odin (Asgard; #111)
• Quasar (Wendell Vaughan; #111, 121-122)
• Uatu the Watcher (#111-112, 114)
• Captain Marvel (Genis-Vell; #122)
• Binary (Carol Danvers; #123)
• Rogue (X-Men; #123)
• Beast (Hank McCoy, X-Men; #123)
• Cyclops (Scott Summers, X-Men; #123)
• Jean Grey (X-Men; #123)
• Bishop (X-Men; #123)
• Alicia Masters (#123)
• Kymaera (fka Namorita; #124)

Supporting Characters

• Oclin Uwir Prin (Outrider 111; #111, 115, 118-120)
• Khirn (#112-115)
• Jyx (#112-115)
• Harquis Tey (Grand Practitioner; #112-114)
• Skooka (#115-121)
• Madam Ojani (#115-116, 121)
• Izzifizz (#115-120)
• Pradda Fol (#115-120)
• Ur-Lini (#116-121)
• Vorzen (#116-121)
• Borrob (#116-121)
• 101101 (#116-121)
• Hyzaktl (#116-121)
• Stracu (aka Sire Ru?; #117-121)
• Qirmet (#117-121)
• Shalla Bal (Empress of Zenn-La; #122)

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

• Pérez’s run is off to a bit of a confusing start with this unconventional issue that takes a while to fully understand.  An alien race that might be from another dimension is trying to reach the 616 to get help, and it does this through the use of Outriders, which are perhaps probe vessels that can’t always be seen, or are really small? The first one we encounter, 1010 (they all have binary names, but the one we get to know is also recognized as the seventh one) is not able to insert into “our” reality.  Outrider 101 approaches Asgard, angering Heimdall, who can’t see or hear it.  It makes Beta Ray Bill feel odd (his appearance is a chance to plug Star Masters, a miniseries featuring the Surfer, Bill, and Quasar that I might read one day, if I ever do a series of columns on Quasar).  101 fails.  Outrider 100’s artificial intelligence loses control, and is unable to connect with Quasar, who is putting together deep space relay things.  Probe 111 approaches the Silver Surfer, and appears to fail as well.  Its pilot, Uwir Prin (actually the consciousness of Uwir Prin, downloaded into a synthezoid body) is confused to find himself inside what he thinks is a new reach of space, but we soon learn he is inside the Surfer’s head (literally or figuratively is never quite clear).  Likewise, the Surfer is confused by what’s just happened.  Uwir believes that probe 111 is inside a spaceship, and is surprised to be able to hear the Surfer’s thoughts.  From the Surfer’s perspective, he believes he is inside some sort of imprisonment, and learns he’s inside Uwir’s brain.  Uwir explains that 111 is downloading information into the Surfer, and then our hero finds himself in an area of space he’s never seen before.  He sees a gigantic vessel approaching a planet he identifies as his home (it’s called Inasi), and flies to the surface to help the people there.  On the surface he finds the Infinity Watch, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, Nova, Shalla Bal, and his brother Fennan, all telling him that “Blackbody is coming.”  Looking up, he sees a massive dark figure, Blackbody, and prepares to fight him.  Galactus turns up to do battle, and we see that Blackbody is consuming Galactus’s energy.  The Surfer watches as all his friends and colleagues are consumed by Blackbody, as is he.  Next, he finds himself surrounded by people who look like Uwir.  They refer to him as the Grand Practitioner Harquis Tey, and we learn that he’s living out one of Tey’s memories.  Tey is the person who gathered the men who would pilot the Outriders (there are ten of them shown), and we learn that this mission was done in secret.  The pilots had their consciousness transferred to replicants, which effectively killed them, and launched into a vortex to pierce the dimensional veil and get help.  Now the Surfer understands that he needs to go help Inasi, and that with the Outrider out of energy, he’ll have to go on his own.  The Surfer feels Uwir die in his head, and he finds himself back where the story began.  He gives a speech about his sense of duty to help the people of Inasi, and to escape the guilt he feels (again, apparently).  As he flies off, we see that The Watcher is watching him.  
• The Surfer waits at the point where the doorway to the other universe is located, and meditates on it for a while.  He’s interrupted by the coming of the Watcher, and they discuss the fact that one Watcher once tried to cross over, and was killed.  The Surfer explains why he feels compelled to help the people in this other dimension, and then a cosmic swell appears, giving Grindberg the opportunity to depict the Surfer actually surfing for once (the swell looks like a wave).  The Watcher watches him leave.  The Surfer finds growing resistance to his crossing, and he has to lower himself on his board to stay on.  He starts to experience pain, and looks like he’s going to melt.  Eventually, the board makes a landing on a rock.  After a day, the Surfer starts to drip out of the board, and reform his body.  He appears to be unconscious, and is found by someone named Khirn, a local who decides that he’s been left there for him to fix.  Khirn picks up the “gleambody” and carries him home.  At the same time, on a distant planet, a floating castle thing called the Congregational appears over a city, sending bolts of energy everywhere, causing much destruction.  It seems that someone called the Uni-Lord is angry, although the locals don’t understand why.  They pray, and in the Congregational, something called the Congregation of Finality hears them.  A being called Dark Counsel talks to the Uni-Lord, whom we don’t see.  The Uni-Lord wants answers from the Dark Counsel about what has come through the swell, and in payment, the Blackbody creature enters the Congregation, absorbing them all into his chest.  Perhaps the whole world is left for dead?  I’m finding this a little hard to follow…  The Dark Counsel shows the Uni-Lord the Surfer’s board, which leaves him more confused.  Some other men find the Surfer’s board, and their scanners pick up the faint signs of the Surfer’s lifeforce in the valley below.  They head down.  Khirn keeps trying to hammer his way through the Surfer’s skin, and a woman named Jyx tries to get him to stop, as neither of them know what the Surfer is.  She wants him to take the Surfer back where he found him, but before they can decide, the men from before burst into their home.  They realize that these men are rebels, with forbidden weapons.  The leader recognizes the Surfer as Outrider 111 (but calls him Oclin).  It turns out he’s Grand Practitioner Harquis Tey, and he hopes that the Surfer can help save them all.
• The Statement of Ownership for 1995 reports average press runs of 126 000, with average newsstand returns of 47 000.

• Some territorial troopers find and kill the men that Harquis Tey left behind to guard the Surfer’s board.  One of his men, Rei, is watching from a distance, and he radios Tey to tell him what’s happened.  Tey tells Rey to join them so they can open an aperture and escape.  Jyx is upset that her life has been upended by this conflict, and Khirn doesn’t want to give up the “gleambody”, meaning the Surfer, who is still unconscious.  Rei tells them that an assimilator – a large flying vessel, has arrived.  Rei fires on the board from his hiding place, and that makes the Surfer move a bit.  Tey learns from Khirn that the Surfer came out of the board.  He opens an aperture, which alerts the troopers up on the hill.  They leave the board (which, remember, everyone thinks is a living being) to the coming Blackbody.  Tey offers to take Khirn and Jyx with him, at gunpoint, but makes it clear that he’s taking the Surfer with him no matter what.  The Blackbody (or is it just Blackbody – are there more than one?) approaches the board, while the rest of Tey’s men fight off the troopers that approach.  Tey orders the locals through the portal just as Blackbody’s chest cavity opens to absorb the board.  This wakes the Surfer up.  The whole valley is destroyed by the energy the Surfer releases (I think), summoning Blackbody to him.  They stare at each other, and the Surfer orders it to return the energy it stole.  The board flies to him, and the Surfer attacks, trying to figure out what Blackbody is (man or machine).  The Surfer can tell that he’s been damaged, and keeps trying to order Blackbody around, even though it can’t understand him.  Neither can the beings piloting the ship it came from.  Uni-Lord contacts them to tell them that they should have faith in him.  The Surfer realizes that Blackbody is trying to draw him in, at which point it’s too late to keep Blackbody from assimilating him.  The Surfer tries to keep his board away from the creature, and he talks to himself a lot while it moves closer and closer to his foe.  Finally, the Surfer decides to enter the being to retrieve what was stolen from him.  Inside Blackbody, the Surfer finds himself in a cold void where he hears voices calling to him.  He feels like he’s surfing on black water, and talks to himself a lot more as he gets used to things.  He’s surprised to see that he’s not alone.  The energy taken from him is his soul – Norrin Radd – who references something that happened in a fight a long time ago with Quasimodo.  He sees Norrin consumed by the blackness, but doesn’t really feel anything.  The Assimilator hovers over a nearby city, and its commander tells the local Grand Overseer that because of the number of rebels in the city, she must arrest them all within five moons.  Tey and his people hear about this, and watch from a distance.  The Overseer makes a promise, but the beings on the Assimilator decide to show her a symbol of her power.  They deposit the Surfer’s head, forearms, and legs – he looks like bits of a dismembered statue.
• In case things weren’t confusing enough, issue one fourteen starts by revisiting the scene from a couple issues back where the Surfer enters the cosmic swirl, finds himself feeling pain and melting into his board as he crosses through the swell.  Once again, he’s ejected and the board crashes into rock, standing upright.  This time when the Surfer melts out of it, the Watcher is waiting for him.  The Surfer is still in the regular universe, and realizes that it was foolish to try to take on this endeavour.  He flies off.  We see that this is some kind of mental exercise – the Surfer’s blank-eyed head, along with his other body parts, are collected in a glass coffin in the building where the Territorial Overseers work.  The Grand Overseer intends to dispose of the Surfer’s body parts.  Someone suggests melting the parts down – we learn that Grand Practitioner Harquis Tey is part of the ruling elite.  The Grand Overseer broadcasts the Surfer’s images across the world while her territorial forces root out rebels by killing a large number of people.  Later, Tey talks to one of his associates, and we learn that his position only gives him influence over matters of religion and science, and that he can’t work openly against the Overseer.  He decides that he needs to retrieve the Surfer’s body parts, and plots a mission.  Their conversation is interrupted by Jyx and Khirn.  Jyx is upset that so many people are being killed, and wants to go home.  Khirn, for his part, just wants the gleambody back.  Tey tries to reason with Jyx.  On the planet where the Congregational resides, an assimilator arrives.  It releases a Blackbody, which delivers a new soul to the Congregation of Finality – it’s Norrin Radd’s soul that is added to the congregation, which apparently is something that Dark Counsel said would happen.  At the same time, the Overseer prepares to melt the Surfer’s body.  Tey interrupts, claiming concern that the flames are not hot enough, and that more precautions are needed, as they don’t understand what his body is made of.  It’s at this point that the rebels make their move.  They hold Tey hostage, but the Overseer sees through their plans and shoots the man herself.  She’s had more guards hidden in the chamber, and they slaughter the rebels.  After the fighting is done, the Overseer talks a lot, and we learn that it was Khirn who tipped her off to Tey’s plan.  The Overseer promises that after the Surfer’s parts are auctioned off, Khirn will be rich.

• The Surfer finds himself on Zenn-La, more or less, but recognizes that he’s using words from the new universe.  He approaches a large round table with the universe in the middle of it.  Various beings from different races sit around this table, and beckon for him to join; he feels like he’s at home at last.  Elsewhere, there’s an auction taking place for the 12 different parts of the Surfer’s body.  Over a few pages, we meet some of the rich and powerful of the Uni-Lord’s universe, and get a sense of their rivalries and jealousies.  We also learn that many more beings are bidding remotely, including a young girl and her father.  The Surfer finds he can’t make his way to the table because his board blocks him, and then he recognizes a voice trying to warn him to stay away.  It’s Oclin Uwir Prin, and he seems very angry with the Surfer.  The others around the table are upset to see him there, and tell the Surfer to expel him.  Just before the bidding begins, the Grand Overseer introduces Khirn as the man who will receive the riches bid today.  The remaining rebels realize that it was Khirn who betrayed them, and take their anger out on Jyx.  The Surfer approaches the table, shedding his silver skin in the process, and sits down as Norrin Radd.  Bidding begins, and Khirn learns about how the process works (it’s complicated and very visual).  The rebels are somewhere under the city, and open one of Tey’s portals.  As more bidding happens, the rebels slip into the Overseer’s council hall.  One of the bidders learns that his rival bid the female population of his Inasis (this word means world, we’ve finally been able to confirm).  He attacks her, and gets snapped in two.  Now it’s time to bid on the Surfer’s head, which results in the largest number of bids of the night.  Khirn is surprised to find the rebels surrounding him, and they let him know they’ve killed Jyx.  Some of the Overseer’s troops enter and slaughter the rebels and Khirn.  The Overseer announces that this took place at the auction, and rewards Pradda Fol, her top trooper (I’m not sure if this is significant or filling space).  Norrin Radd realizes that something is wrong as he becomes a part of the Congregation, and he resists the assimilation that is taking place.  We now see him in the Congregation as it was shown before – like he’s in Hell.  Later, we see the girl that was watching the bidding playing with the Surfer’s head while her father looks on.  The father, being mildly telepathic, hears a voice calling out, “I don’t belong here.”
• Issue one sixteen focuses on everyone who purchased part of the Surfer’s “gleambody”.  Skooka, the centipede princess who owns the head, has a dream where she touches the surfboard.  Her father rushes into her room and finds that she’s turned silver.  Madam Ojani, the woman who runs a pleasure station, welcomes some traders, and shows them the Surfer’s butt, which she’s mounted on top of a pole dancer’s pole.  The dancer, Ur-Lini, is sent to pleasure the traders.  On an insect world, we see that the ruling family has moved into the Surfer’s torso while their subjects drown in a storm, since their ruler bartered away their flight ability (how does that even work?).  The Overseer gets an angry phonecall from Hunkir, Skooka’s father, and then calls Pradda Fol, her chief trooper.  His wife explains that he’s sleeping, but the Overseer insists.  Pradda Fol won’t open the door, so the Overseer decides she needs to go get him herself.  On another planet, where much of the universe’s mining is done, the blobby mining clan gathers to eat (they eat metals that they’ve mined).  They have the Surfer’s leg prepared as a delicacy.  On another world of sentient but static rocks, one named Borrob turns silver after touching the Surfer’s thigh (it was trying to mate with it).  The Overseer and guards arrive at Pradda Fols, and blast open his bedroom door.  Pradda Fol has changed, but we don’t see him in full yet.  The traders have brought a gift to Madam Ojani – it’s more of the broccoli-like aliens, who are there for revenge after she killed their leader and stole their women.  They start firing on the crowd at the bar, but Ur-Lini, now silver, blasts them and saves Ojani.  Vorzen, one of the miners, feels sick after taking a bite of Silver Surfer.  On another planet run by robots, one of them, 101101, becomes silvery despite having not touched their Surfer fragment.  The Overseer is informed of other places where beings are turning silver and exhibiting powers.  She wants to reclaim all the Surfer parts and throw them into the sun, but Pradda Kol, also completely silver, tells her that it’s too late.  He says he has a quest to embark on, and leaves, surfing away.  Izzifizz, the leader of the insects, leaves his people to drown as he flies off, just as Vorzen also flies off.  Ur-Lini manifests a surfboard too, and as she leaves, she insults Ojani.  We see various new Surfer-beings gathering in space.  Skooka wakes up, and as the Surfer’s head turns into her board, she tells her father that she has to go on her new quest, as she is the “head” of the group that is forming.  In the Congregational of Finality, we see that where all the other souls are screaming or yelling, Norrin Radd is silent and smiling.

• The twelve new Surfers race through space, not knowing that Dark Counsel is watching them.  The Uni-Lord is angry with him for not predicting this, but Dark Counsel cites semantics as his reason for not informing him what would happen.  When the Uni-Lord leaves, Dark Counsel keeps talking to himself, revealing that he knows that Norrin Radd’s inclusion in the Congregation of Finality is the problem, controlling the twelve.  Dark Counsel summons his personal Blackbody.  The twelve talk to each other, with Ur-Lini really enjoying her new powers.  Skooka tells them that they are there to save the universe, and points out that the universe is breaking apart.  Pradda Fol recognizes that Skooka has more knowledge than the rest of them, and she uses her telepathy to link them all.  Dark Counsel has the Blackbody pull forth the soul of the Surfer’s board, and it changes it, turning it into a black, monstrous version of the Surfer that Dark Counsel calls Black Surfer.  He sends it to fight the others.  The others see him approaching them, and soon they are in a fight.  Black Surfer blasts off Vorzen’s arm, and Pradda Fol saves Ur-Lini.  The Surfers keep blasting at Black Surfer.  Pradda Fol wants them to coordinate and make a plan, and Skooka is a bit annoyed at him for trying to become the leader.  Dark Counsel realizes that Pradda Fol might be a problem.  He notices an assimilator ship approaching the Grand Overseer’s world – the Uni-Lord has decided that the planet should be assimilated.  The Overseer pleads for the Ritual of Judgment, hoping to buy her people some time.  As they all pray to Uni-Lord, Dark Counsel reflects on the pain this causes the Congregation (I’m not sure what any of this means, really).  Pradda Fol coordinates the Surfers so they all attack the Black Surfer at once.  Skooka is not with them though – she’s flown off to rescue Qirmet, who was sent flying.  Qirmet appears to be dying, but Norrin radd speaks to Skooka, giving her faith that her power can heal him.  She does, while the others keep blasting away at the Black Surfer.  The Uni-Lord orders the Ritual of Judgment ended, and has his commander send a large group of Blackbodies down to absorb all life on the planet.  The Overseer begs to be added to the Congregation but her request is denied.  After all life is assimilated, the planet is destroyed.  At the same time, Pradda Fol yells out in pain and falls out of formation.  Skooka goes to heal him the same way she did Qirmet, but the former trooper turns back to his human form and dies, while the silver that covered him turns back into the Surfer’s leg and foot.  The remaining Surfers see that the Black Surfer is recovering and coming at them.
• Pradda Fol finds himself outside the same temple that the Surfer journeyed to, and upon entering it, finds the members of the Congregation of Finality under attack from some strange cables coming from the middle of their table.  He notices that Norrin Radd appears to not be in as much distress as the others, as if he’s commanding what’s happening.  Pradda Fol is shocked to see that Norrin’s eyes look just like his, suggesting they are of the same race.  In space, the Black Surfer’s chest starts to open, a sure sign that he’s going to assimilate the remaining eleven Surfers.  His energy hits Skooka, but then Ur-Lini rams him in the head with her board, and commands the others to keep firing on their enemy.  Ur-Lini moves to Skooka, hoping to heal her, but the princess asks her to go retrieve the Surfer’s leg, and one of the others stays to help.  Dark Counsel worries that he’s miscalculated this situation, and that his Black Surfer is going to fail him.  He’s upset that he opened his chest, and DC worries that he’ll lose all of his accumulated souls.  The Uni-Lord yells for him.  The battle in space continues, and the Black Surfer closes his chest.  The Surfers rally, and Vorzen notices his severed arm growing back.  Skooka explains that she felt the Surfer’s board within the Black Surfer, and explains that she wants the group to go and rescue it.  They take off, following the Black Surfer, and working in unison.  We see the Uni-Lord for the first time – he’s a squat man with gigantic, ropey arms, who has manifested himself on the physical plane.  Dark Counsel reminds him that the universe’s problems are not of his making, and talks about how the Uni-Lord sent Pradda Fol’s soul to the Congregational of Finality.  There, he hopes to swap Pradda Fol’s soul for Norrin Radd’s.  The Black Surfer enters a portal, and the others aren’t able to follow.  Ur-Lini hears a voice coming from the Surfer’s leg, and it gives them directions to follow the Black Surfer through a different path.  The Congregation, still screaming, is not happy to see the Blackbody return to them, recognizing it as Dark Counsel’s, but not recognizing its face.  Pradda Fol speaks to Norrin Radd, but addresses Oclin Uwir Prin, telling him that he’s ready to take his place.  This frees Norrin Radd from the Congregation.  The Uni-Lord is not happy that getting rid of Norrin Radd has not changed his condition, and he still feels a fever.  That’s when Dark Counsel alerts him to the coming of the eleven surfers.  They approach the floating temple city thing, and blast their way through its shield.  They are shocked by what they find inside, especially when they see a large image of Pradda Fol, which tells them that his planet has been destroyed (since only singular survivors enter the Congregation).  They follow the Blackbody (which no longer looks like a Black Surfer), and find themselves surfing through a strange vortex.  They end up in Dark Counsel’s cave, where they all see the Uni-Lord differently.  He rants, and makes it clear he’s about to kill them all.  The Blackbody opens its chest and assimilates them, but only seems to draw away their silvery essence, leaving them alive and returned to their normal state.  This is a surprise to them.  This makes the Uni-Lord feel better, and Dark Counsel, having been paid, explains that the Uni-Lord is still vulnerable to an intruder from another universe, as some kind of prophecy has declared.  Uni-Lord decides to destroy the homeworlds of all the surfers and to make them part of the Congregation.  Just then, the Blackbody starts to look as if he’s in pain.  Its chest starts to open, and it begins to glow.  Suddenly, the real Silver Surfer stands before them, ready to deal with things.  He notices that Skooka is missing, and recognizing that Dark Counsel can speak his language, grabs him by the neck demanding to know where she is.  That’s when he learns that she’s joined the Congregation of Finality.

• The Surfer lifts Dark Counsel by his neck demanding answers, but that guy won’t tell him anything without receiving payment.  By way of counter offer, the Surfer explains that through his ongoing merging with the Blackbody, he has possession of the DC’s collected souls.  Dark Counsel feels himself starting to die without access to them, and that’s when the Surfer realizes something.  Elsewhere, the Uni-Lord’s assimilators approach the various worlds that their master has targeted for destruction.  The ships’ commanders talk about how an operation this large will tangle up the way prayers reach the Congregation.  The Surfer’s friends plead with the Surfer to go rescue their worlds, except for Ur-Lini, who has realized that her unknown world will be safe because the Uni-Lord will instead target the Pleasure Hive she escaped.  This makes the octopus-like being angry, and their fighting distracts the Surfer.  With Dark Counsel weakening, the Surfer touches his head, planning on using his power to heal him, and realizes that this being was originally a Watcher.  This is the one that Uatu said explored the breach in space and never returned.  He confirms this, and explains that as he travelled through the cosmic swell, when he bumped up against it he saw visions of the future, including one that showed the Surfer in battle with the Uni-Lord.  The former Surfers watch through the starpool  and see how the cosmos is breaking apart.  Dark Counsel then explains how these cosmic problems are causing the Uni-Lord pain.  With his focus on all the assimilations, the Uni-Lord is vulnerable, especially because Oclin Uwir Prin’s spirit is in the Congregation of Finality with Pradda Fol’s, weakening it entirely.  This was Harquis Tey’s convoluted plan all along.  While they are all talking, Izzifizz disappears, and is then seen in the Congregation.  The others assume that means his planet has been destroyed, but Dark Counsel explains that Izzifizz orchestrated the death of his entire race when he bought the Surfer’s torso (this is getting complicated again).  The Surfer finally decides to act, and turns on Dark Counsel, who tells him where he can find the Uni-Lord.  He also predicts that the Surfer will win, and he’ll get all his souls back.  The Surfer flies off towards this fight.  The commanders on the assimilators are not sure if they should proceed, since their ship-to-ship communications are down, with interference coming from the congregation.  The others all watch the Surfer fly, and Ur-Lini reflects on a kiss they shared off-panel.  The Surfer arrives at the star where Dark Counsel sent him, and finds it mostly dead.  He’s able to hear the chanting of the Congregation, and perceive the prayer energy flowing through it from the various Inasis to this star.  Following its flow, he finds his way to the star’s surface (which is rock?), and is grabbed by a giant hand.  We finally see the Uni-Lord’s true form, and he’s a gigantic rock monster thing with many eyes.  The Uni-Lord vows to teach the Surfer to recognize his godhood before killing him.
• The Uni-Lord does some kind of cosmic broadcast thing so the residents of all those planets can watch him, in his true form, fight the Surfer.  As he squeezes him, he talks a lot about his power.  The former Surfers watch with Dark Counsel, who explains he can’t do anything to help.  The others get annoyed at Ur-Lini’s attempts at humor (about how people don’t like to just watch), but the rock being defends her.  As the Surfer gets squeezed, his board burrows into the rocky surface of the star, which might also be the Uni-Lord’s skin?  This, apparently, is what the Uni-Lord wanted to have happen, and he launches the board out of his chest right into the Surfer.  Pieces of the Uni-Lord form into representatives of the various races in the Congregation, and they attack the Surfer.  He fights back as they pile on him, but he doesn’t appear to be using the power cosmic in the fight.  The others wonder why he’s being so gentle, and 101101 figures it’s a stratagem.  Ur-Lini, who’s into the Surfer, recognizes that he’s watching for something as he fights, and when he sees an Iridian (Pradda Fol’s race), he fires a beam into his eyes.  This is the flaw in the Uni-Lord’s plan, and when the Iridian’s head explodes, it causes the Uni-Lord great pain.  The other constructs’ heads explode too, and the assimilator captains all lose their link with their master.  Across this universe, the skies catch fire, as does Dark Counsel’s starpool.  The members of the Congregation of Finality are also in great pain, but Pradda Fol comes to Skooka and shows her Oclin Uwir Prin’s face; he apologizes for being the cause of her pain.  We see a large explosion, and then the Surfer finds himself inside the cave in the star.  He watches as the pieces of the star crumble and form together, creating yet another aspect of the Uni-Lord – one that Dark Counsel’s visions of the future never recognized.  He tells the Surfer it’s time for the final judgment, and then he blasts and crushes him, breaking him into twelve parts again, which are then smashed into dozens of little spheres that all have the Surfer’s face on them.  The Uni-Lord is furious that the Surfer doesn’t seem to die, and then sees him summon his board.  The underside of the board opens like a Blackbody’s chest, and all the souls that were inside Dark Counsel’s Blackbody stream forth, or the souls in the Uni-Lord flow into the board (it’s one of those things, but the Uni-Lord weakens).  The Surfer claims to be equal to the Uni-Lord, and he blasts him.  The Uni-Lord asks for mercy, but the Surfer assimilates him, and then we see another, even more massive, explosion.

• As things calm down after the explosion, Dark Counsel stands over his now-dark Starpool, which shows him nothing.  The former Surfers are no longer able to understand one another.  The Surfer is in an all-white environment, screaming from the pain he’s receiving from the billions of souls inside of him.  As he tries to gain control, he hears the voice of the Uni-Lord thanking him.  On the Pleasure Hive, the various races visiting it erupt in anger when they realize they can no longer communicate.  The commander of the assimilator in orbit around it doesn’t know what to do.  We see that the Congregation of Finality is all dead.  The Uni-Lord, who appears in various forms, talks to the Surfer as he experiences the pain of containing all of the souls that were once inside the Uni-Lord.  Dark Counsel attacks Vorzen, as he makes his play to become the new Uni-Lord.  The Surfer’s board emerges from the starpool, and Dark Counsel begins to resemble his former appearance as well (it’s at this point that I realize that Qirmet, now missing his silver skin, looks like Kermit the Frog).  Dark Counsel believes the board can give him the power to rule this universe.  The Assimilator commanders learn that all of their Blackbodies are deploying without their commands.  The Uni-Lord explains to the Surfer how Dark Counsel came to interrupt his universe by entering it.  That former Watcher told the Uni-Lord how to regain the religious fervor of all the beings he’d created in his universe through the threat of assimilation.  The first Blackbody was modeled on Galactus, and the assimilation of the first world gave the Uni-Lord both pleasure and pain, creating an addiction in him for souls.  This led to the creation of the Congregation of Finality, as one soul was kept alive on each world as a channel of prayer energy.  The Uni-Lord also explained how Dark Counsel siphoned his own souls in exchange for information, thus creating his own conduit of power.  At this point, the Uni-Lord accepts that Dark Counsel will take over, and hopes he’s a better ruler.  The Surfer rejects this thinking, and emerges from his board to challenge Dark Counsel.  The Surfer explains he’s changed the energy of the souls so now only he controls it, and this creates a universal spasm, just like the one that brought the Surfer into the universe. He starts to surf it, and this time he resists the pain and resists merging with his board again.  He breaks through in an explosion of light, and we see him screaming in pain.  At the Pleasure Hive, the commanders continue to try to figure out what’s going on, because now all the Blackbodies have started falling apart and rotting.  Dark Counsel tells the former Surfers, who can understand him but can’t speak to each other anymore, that his darkness entered the vortex with the Surfer, and it appears that he dies.  The Surfer finds himself on a pleasant green field, and when he wakes up, he sees Skooka, who has undergone a transformation that makes her look like a vaguely psychedelic Hindi caterpillar goddess on a large mushroom.  She explains that her Inasis was assimilated because of the barter her father first made for the Surfer’s head, which killed all of her people, and that’s why she moved into the Congregation.  She then explains that the souls of Pradda Fol and Oclin Uwir Prin helped her, and she transformed into a new race.  There’s some stuff about her seeding a new universe with life, and it’s maybe suggested that she became the mother of all life in the Surfer’s universe, having gone back in time?  I don’t know, it’s getting trippy.  Somewhere in space we see a tear open in reality, and something comes through, crashing into an asteroid.  Beta Ray Bill and Quasar arrive at the same time, having tracked it, and they find the Silver Surfer lying in an impact crater, purple energy playing across his body.
• The Surfer wakes up to find Quasar and Beta Ray Bill standing over him.  They tell him that they thought he was dead, after seeing him getting hit by a massive bolt of space lightning.  They remember that some five weeks before, they each heard a separate voice, one repeating the binary code for ‘five’, and the other the code for ‘four’.  This is relevant because they heard the Surfer saying the code for ‘seven’.  It sounds like they were with the Surfer when he was hit (which doesn’t really reconcile with what we saw last issue).  The Surfer doesn’t seem to remember where he’s been for the last five weeks, which is when his friends heard those voices. Quasar also lets him know that they’d received an emergency signal from Genis-Vell, who is now going by Captain Marvel.  He’s on Zenn-La, where there is some kind of emergency.  The Surfer insists that his friends not come to help his planet, and he takes off immediately, using a wormhole to close the distance.  When he arrives, he sees the planet undergoing some kind of cosmic event – it is sliced into pieces.  As he approaches the main city, he finds that it’s falling apart, and the people are dying all around him.  He doesn’t seem to be able to help though – his blasts pass through debris, and when he tries to save a falling girl, she disappears in front of him.  He finds Genis, who feels he needs the Surfer’s help to make any difference.  Genis thinks that a single temple is the source of these problems, but the Surfer doesn’t agree.  He tells Genis that nothing can be done to save his home, and that they should leave.  Genis attacks him in anger, and the Surfer replies with vague statements about not being able to undo history.  Genis gets more and more angry, until the Surfer also gets angry because of course he also wants to save everyone.  The Surfer gives Genis one good punch and then traps him inside his board.  He hears Shalla Bal call to him, and goes to embrace her.  As Shalla Bal begins to wink out of existence, the Surfer says he can feel his soul leaving him.  He explains that when he was hit by that lightning, it broke “Galactus’s curse”, and destroyed that illusion that Zenn-La has been for millennia.  Shalla Bal disappears, as does the rest of the city.  The Surfer rides the board that still holds Genis up to space where they watch the entire planet disappear, leaving no trace.  Genis, now free, finds it impossible to believe.  Genis asks him to explain clearly, but the Surfer just says that Norrin Radd died with his world and flies off. 

• The Statement of Ownership for 1996 reports an average press run of 107 000, with average newsstand returns of 13 000.
• With issue 123, Pérez is joined by legendary writer JM DeMatteis and new artist Ron Garney.  It no longer feels like Pérez’s book, and I probably should have ended this column with issue 122.  It’s rare to see a transition like this between creative teams, but that might explain why the last issue felt so abrupt and different.  The issue opens with a one-page tribute to Mark Gruenwald, who is still much missed in comics.  The military and other observers track something coming fast towards the Earth, aiming for New York City.  A call is made to Bastion, and I’m reminded that this is the post-Onslaught era.  Jets are deployed to intercept the item, which turns out to be the Silver Surfer.  They open fire on him, but aren’t able to hit him.  The pilots receive a transmission from Starcore Space Station, telling them to break off their attack, clearing the Surfer to keep going.  Weirdly, and without explanation, the X-Men are on Starcore Station (well, Cyclops, Beast, Rogue, Jean Grey, and Bishop are) with Binary, who is the one who called off the pilots.  There is a brief discussion about why people wouldn’t trust the Surfer, and they wonder why he’s on Earth.   As the pilots fly off, the Surfer appears to mock them.  He heads into the city, and flies to the Baxter Building, which has been badly damaged.  He enters it and learns that there is no one home.  He doesn’t really feel anything, but he figures out that the Fantastic Four are dead.  He activates the holographic records that Reed Richards kept, accessing the file of his first meeting with them.  We hear Reed’s voice as he describes the first coming of Galactus, the way the Surfer gained compassion, and how the Watcher defied his creed to provide the Four with the Ultimate Nullifier.  Reed talks about the price the Surfer paid, and how much of an effect it had on Reed himself.  The Surfer sees a picture of Alicia Masters, and flies off.  He doesn’t know that he’s being observed by a robot-type called Ganger, and a woman named Sorentino; they figure out where he’s going.  Alicia Masters is in her studio, sculpting and mourning the loss of the Fantastic Four and many other heroes (again, this is post-Onslaught, during the Heroes Reborn era).  She is surprised by the arrival of the Surfer, and by how cold he feels to her, like when they first met.  He explains that he wants to understand his past better, and Alicia feels like the Surfer she knew is dead.  The Surfer further explains that he wants to understand why Alicia was able to affect him when they first met, because now he doesn’t understand it.  She tells the story from her perspective, and to thank her, he temporarily fixes her sight, but without warning her.  She is surprised, but as her vision fades again, she sees the Surfer’s soul in his eyes, and feels hope for him.  The Surfer leaves again, and Sorentino has Ganger continue to monitor him, and says something about using Alicia Masters for something.  The Surfer flies to the Pacific Northwest, where he finds himself standing over the grave of Alvin Harper, a man he once had an adventure with, and whom he once felt needed to be memorialized with an eternal flame he left burning.  He thinks that’s immaterial now, and extinguishes the lame.  As he flies off, he’s observed by a robotic being called Bounty, who has apparently been hunting him for a while.
• Issue one twenty-four continues the story from last issue, but has a completely new creative team – Glenn Greenberg, Ed Benes, and Adriana Melo.  The Surfer has travelled to New Atlantis, the site of the rebuilt underwater city.  He’s there to see his old friend Namor, but instead is welcomed by Kymaera, the now blue skinned woman who used to be known as Namorita.  She explains in private that Namor went missing with the other heroes during the Onslaught incident, but that the people of Atlantis believe he’s simply away on a trip, and has left Kymaera in charge.  She says that the Atlanteans wouldn’t trust her because she is a clone, but she still feels obligated to them, and believes she’s the only person who can keep the fragile community united.  The Surfer leaves, and thinks about how his efforts to restore his sense of humanity are bound to fail with so many of his Earth friends missing.  The being known as Bounty tracks him, and attacks.  He tells the Surfer he’s there to kill him, despite the Surfer not knowing him at all.  As they fight, Bounty, who it’s now clear is more cyborg than robot, explains that he’s from the planet Karidian, and he’s been sent by the Intergalactic Coalition.  These are the aliens the Surfer left back in issue 103 (another fill-in issue written by Greenberg).  They turned their attention to the Karidians, and basically forced Bounty to undergo their experiments and head out to kill the Surfer, or they would kill all of his people.  Bounty is able to hurt the Surfer, and attaches a number of devices to him that start to leech his power cosmic.  He gets tossed into some woman’s office, and the woman flirts with him a little before the battle resumes.  The Surfer is able to muster his strength and start dismantling the electronics attached to Bounty.  Once he’s powerless, the Surfer disables the tracking chip in his spine, and asks him where his ship is.  On Karidian, the leaders of the Coalition figure out that Bounty is defective or defeated.  They are surprised to see their ship in orbit dissolve, and then they are confronted by the Surfer, who has brought Bounty to them.  One of the Coalition leaders orders their troops to fire on the Surfer, but the other leader knocks him down.  The Surfer takes his leave, and as he flies, he thinks about the lengths to which both Kymaera and Bounty would go to defend their homes.  He wishes he could restore the emotions that once made him feel the same way about Zenn-La, and he finds himself drawn back towards Earth, viewing it as his other home.  He also thinks about the things the flirting woman said to him.

Okay, there’s a lot to discuss here.  I had no idea that Pérez’s run would be anything like what it was.  Basically, he had a huge space opera story to tell, and just happened to use the Surfer as the (often absent) main character for it.  He quickly put together an entire universe under the thrall of the Uni-Lord, assisted by Dark Council.  He gave us a rebel movement, dozens of very unique worlds (was there ever a planet of unmoving sentient rocks before?) and characters, and connected it to the larger Marvel story.  The creativity in this story was off the charts, but I’m not entirely sure that it was successful.

I found the first handful of issues in this run pretty confusing.  It took a while to fully understand the language of this universe, and it wasn’t really until the end that I understood the connection between the Uni-Lord, the Blackbodies, and the Congregation of Finality.  Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention (or wasn’t smart enough), but I felt like it took a while to understand the way the Uni-Lord’s societies ran.  I also wondered just how the rebel group thought they’d be able to defeat a god, or what Beta Ray Bill would have done had they brought him through the cosmic swell thing instead of the Surfer.

I liked the way the cast of this book grew, and didn’t mind that the Surfer was barely in the book.  Once I finally figured out who everyone was, I got into the new team of surfers.  I also liked the way Dark Counsel turned out to be a Watcher – they are so rarely used in interesting ways.

One thing that bothered me about the end of the run is the way in which this whole story was immediately ignored.  The Surfer got hit by some kind of cosmic lightning, and it wasn’t clear if that was him returning to the universe, or what.  Once he was back, and with his friends, no mention was made of his ordeal, and it’s not clear if he remembered it or not.  

The transition towards JM DeMatteis’s run was very awkward.  DeMatteis and Pérez co-wrote one issue, and that had Zenn-La disappearing, but it wasn’t clear why.  Was it the Surfer’s time in the Uni-Lord’s universe that broke the spell Galactus held over him?  Was it the lightning?  And why?  It also wasn’t all the clear if the Surfer’s lack of emotion came from his ordeals or from the lightning.

This whole “Zenn-La was an illusion” thing bothers me for a few reasons. Up to this point, we’d seen Shalla Bal interact with large numbers of established characters throughout the Marvel Universe, including Mephisto, and the Skrull Empress. Were they somehow included in Galactus’s spell? What about the fact that at some point prior to the Bryne/Lee/Buscema one-shot, Galactus returned and ate most of the life on Zenn-La, prompting the Surfer to help restore it. Does that mean that Galactus was acting? And when did the original planet die? Back when Galactus took Norrin Radd on as an employee? Later? And why? On the other hand, this would explain why, if the Surfer acted as Galactus’s herald for hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of years, Shalla Bal never aged. It was always a little hard to swallow the “Zenn-Lavians are long-lived trope”. Still, the notion of the planet existing only as a self-perpetuating, independent illusion is kind of nonsense.

Anyway, despite the disappointing lack of follow-through in the 616, Pérez’s run was very unique.  By ignoring the Surfer for much of it, he echoed things we’ve seen other writers do less obviously, but he also gave us a very good old-fashioned science fiction story that was plot-driven out of necessity.  This was a rough period for Marvel, and while this story clearly never got a lot of attention, it was a curious outlier for its era.

I kind of felt for Tom Grindberg and Scot Eaton.  Imagine drawing for George Pérez.  No matter how nice the man was (and all stories say he was incredibly nice), the man was an artistic giant, and drawing his stories must have been intimidating.

I think he brought the best out in Grindberg.  His character designs were decidedly different (Pradda Fol’s wife, for example, looked like an obese clown drag queen who let a child with fine motor skill issues put on her makeup), and there was a looseness in his art that didn’t seem as prevalent in his earlier issues (this column has inadvertently turned into a survey of his genesis as an artist).  Scot Eaton did fine work, but it didn’t stand out as much as Grindberg’s did.

Ron Garney’s first issue (he will be the main artist for the first half of the next column) felt like a revelation.  His Surfer was highly influenced by the look Moebius gave the character (I assume), and it was pretty great to see.  I’m not always a big Garney fan because of how decompressed his storytelling usually is, but this seems like the right book for him, and now I’m looking even more forward to the DeMatteis run.

This was a strange short stack of comics, and I’m glad that I read them.  In the flood of tributes to George Pérez that came out while I was reading these comics, I never saw a single reference to this book.  I think it’s cool to look at such an obscure corner of Pérez’s storied career, and even more cool that it stands up as well as it does.

Next up, I’ll be writing about the DeMatteis run, which will likely close out the Surfer as a topic of these columns, as I’m not sure I picked up any subsequent books until the Dan Slott run.  It’s interesting to see how, from the Englehart run, where the Surfer and his personality were front and centre in the Marvel universe, the writers seemed to have less and less to say about the Surfer himself, and had to increasingly rely on stories that featured him, almost like a supporting character in his own book.  I think that DeMatteis tried to return to a more character-driven approach, but I don’t really remember.

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