Silver Surfer Epic Collection: Freedom

Silver Surfer Epic Collection: Freedom by John Byrne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After years of being trapped on earth, The Silver Surfer, sentinel of the spaceways, is free to soar the stars!

The Silver Surfer has always been an enigma to me. Apart from his appearances in other books, I read very little of his appearances until the exemplary run by Michael Allred and Dan Slott. That series awakened a hunger not unlike that of Galactus in me so I picked up this volume. This collection collects material from SILVER SURFER (1982) 1, SILVER SURFER (1987) 1-14, SUPER-VILLAIN CLASSICS 1; EPIC ILLUSTRATED 1, and MARVEL FANFARE (1982) 51.

The book starts with the Silver Surfer still trapped on earth, battling Mephisto for the soul of Shalla Bal. With help from the Fantastic Four, the Surfer is freed and embarks on a series of adventures. The longest story involves the Elders of the Universe and their plan to take down Galactus while a second Kree-Skrull war looms in the background.

Steve Englehart penned most of the book with Marshall Rogers and later, Joe Staton, on art duties. I always associate the Englehart and Rogers for their Batman run but I really enjoyed their Silver Surfer tales. Staton is nearly as good as Rogers, quite adept pencilling at the Surfer's cosmic wanderings. The coloring in this volume looks a little odd, probably because it was meant for newsprint, not high quality quality paper.

Quite a bit of the book is driven by the Silver Surfer's complicated relationship with Galactus and his new herald, Nova, as well as Mantis and Shalla Bal. Did Englehart shoehorn Mantis into every series he did? The Silver Surfer is a bit more complex than I gave him credit for.

The machinations behind the scenes in the brewing war between the Kree and Skrull occupy a fair portion of the book and are heading toward something pretty spectacular in future volumes. One thing I really enjoyed in this volume was how the issues were largely self-contained but clearly part of a bigger whole. I imagine the fourteen issues Englehart penned in this volume would take about fifty in today's Marvel, although the title would probably be rebooted several times before it was finished.

For a bunch of comics 30+ years old, Silver Surfer Epic Collection: Freedom holds up very well. It entertained me quite a bit and made me hungry for more cosmic adventures of the Sentinel of the Spaceways. Four out of five stars.

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