 Silver
Surfer #23, Vol. 3
Published by Marvel Comics
May, 1989"ALIEN!"
Writer: Steve Englehart
Penciler: Ron Lim
Inks: Tom Christopher
Colorist: Tom Vincent
Letters: Joe Albeld
Editor: Craig Anderson
Chief: Tom DeFalco
Original Price: $0.75
Current Value: $4.00
Warning: Let me start out by declaring that this review is going to
be slightly biased. Issue #23 is my favorite Silver Surfer story of all time. Surprised? I
mean: It's just a "filler" issue! It isn't part of some huge plot. It doesn't
have any guest stars.
It is, however, the kind of action/tragedy that completely suits the
Surfer. Englehart remains, in my opinion, one of the best writers of the third volume.
The first few pages are nothing out of the ordinary. We get a few
shots of the people of an alien world spying the Surfer flying past. Presumably this all
happened long ago. We cut to a few panels of the Surfer flying through space with some
appropriately philosophical text.
Then we hit page 3.
A lot of people believe that Ron Lim draws the definitive Silver Surfer. I'm not one.
However, this full-page shot of Norrin is one of the best you'll see in any issue. Number
23 is worth having just for this page.
Anyway . . .
Plot: When their star threatened to nova, a race of peaceful,
reptilian "dragons" loaded their entire population onto a huge space fleet, and
set off looking for an uncolonized planet to live on. Soon, however, they ran short of
fuel, and so stopped on a planet inhabited by humanoids in search of the cazalyte crystal
that powered their ships.
The humanoids, however, considered the dragons a threat, and so tricked them into fuelling
their ships with a volatile crystal, thus destroying the entire fleet. All but one of the
dragons were killed.
Since then, this lone dragon has made it his life's work to kill off the "evil"
humanoids one by one. In a desperate attempt to attract help, the humanoids set their
planet alight.
Their call alerts the Surfer, who hears a rather one-sided version of events from the
humanoids, and goes off in search of this "evil" dragon.
After a brief fight, the Surfer learns the truth. Norrin no longer considers the dragon to
be a threat to him, so he discusses the possibility of transporting the dragon to another
world. The dragon refuses to stop his killing, however, and turns his back on the Surfer,
walking towards the humanoids' towns with murderous intent.
The Surfer hopes to use his power cosmic to restructure the dragon's body - rendering him
harmless to the planet's inhabitants. His experiment, however, goes hopelessly wrong, and
he reduces the dragon to a charred corpse.
When he returns to the humanoids, they greet him as a hero. He is angry, however, at their
ignorance and prejudice, and tells them so before leaving.
Comments: Need I say more? This issue has everything! Killer art, a
fight scene, and an ironic plot that has both a happy and sad ending.
Written by Matthew Hamilton |