It's Palm Sunday and the Easter season is underway. To celebrate (in a weird comic book secular kind of way) I want to spend this holy week in a mild but nonetheless wanton act of sacrilege and look at one of the greatest comic book sagas in the history of the medium - the famous Galactus Trilogy and then the further adventures of the Silver Surfer in the Silver Age Marvel Universe.
Hey, it makes at least as much sense as the dang Easter Bunny! Let's get started.
The saga begins in Fantastic Four #48 and the Earth will by the end of the issue feel well and properly doomed. But first a few loose threads need to be tied up.
The FF had been investigating the mystery of the Inhumans and the villainous Maximus the Mad had just activated his Atmo-Gun as this issue begins in an effort to destroy all human life that the Inhumans might inherit the Earth. But his scheme fails and when confronted by Black Bolt and the others of the Royal Family, he activates the Negative Zone which forms a steel-like dome around the entirety of Attilan, the city of the Inhumans. The FF barely escape, dragging the lovesick Human Torch with them as he is torn from the arms of his new love Crystal.
The scene shifts to the Andromeda Galaxy where the Skrulls desperately try to hide themselves from the gaze of the mysterious Silver Surfer by blacking out all of Homeworld.
Again the scene changes as the enigmatic Silver Surfer again appears, this time on the outskirts of Earth's Solar System itself.
Some time has passed and the FF wonder why Reed has kept himself in his lab with only impatient words for Sue and others who seek to talk to him. She demands answers and when she enters finds Reed being visited by the Watcher, the powerful cosmic figure who stands back and records the happenings in this sector or space and time. He has broken his vow of non-inteference because of the threat of the Galactus for whom the Silver Surfer is a harbinger. Meanwhile Ben and Johnny see a mysterious ocean of massive rocks swimming in the sky.
To that end he first attempted to hid the Earth with a wall of flame and when that proved to problematic shifted to a cascading ocean of stones. But the Surfer finds his way to Earth regardless and has he enters the atmosphere he is confronted by the Human Torch who finds the Surfer is able elude him easily. Landing atop the Baxter Building the Surfer signals his master Galactus as the Thing knocks the utterly silent figure off the building. But the team do not find him and the Watcher reveals that the threat has shifted and they should no longer concern themselves with the Herald.
The mighty spherical ship of Galactus enters the Earth's atmosphere and mighty machinery begins to operate as the terrible and terrifying entity reveals himself to Earthmen for the first time.
Galactus walks the Earth and he immediately ordains that the whole of the Earth itself will be destroyed so that he might find the energy he needs to survive.
The awesome Galactus speaks. The Fantastic Four look on helplessly.
Bam! That's a great comic book story -- full of action, drama, pace and exotic powerful events and brand new fascinating characters. The Inhumans, the Skrulls, the Watcher, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the Fab 4 to boot, all in a single regular-sized comic and not a single moment of feeling cramped or overwrought. Beautiful!
The whole world under threat from a celestial being who appears by all reports to be at once implacable and without pity for creatures deemed beneath him in every way. It's a grand spectacle, and the arrival of the Silver Surfer in this debut is full of mystery as he says nary a word while proceeds with is deadly mission for his awesome master.
Rip Off
It's funny to see L&K using the term "Negative Zone" for one thing, about a year before they'd use it again for a totally different phenomenon. But I'm sure that, even when they started getting college student letters, neither ever dreamed anyone would keep track of this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteThat always throws me a bit when I read these stories as well since I first joined the MU after the switch was made between Sub-Space and the Negative Zone. It's one of any number of signs that these masterpieces were produced with alacrity.
DeleteWhat a frickin' awesome story - is this storyline available all in one publication like a TPB or similar?
ReplyDeleteI read it this time in the Epic Silver Surfer tome, but it's been collected time and time again in the Essential FF, Epic FF, and FF Masterworks tomes. That latter one might the cheapest way to get all three of them, the paperback versions are not the much relatively speaking.
DeleteThank you, I did find it at a very reasonable price in a decent sized format https://www.amazon.ca/FANTASTIC-FOUR-EPIC-COLLECTION-GALACTUS/dp/130295041X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
DeleteThat's an awesome collection. Congrats!
DeleteSince you mentioned the Trilogy in line with Easter, I thought it fascinating that the Surfer's confinement borrows tropes from both Milton's version of the Fall of Lucifer-- cast down to Earth for rebelling against God-- and from the broad sacrificial course of Christ's life, living among mortals to redeem them.
ReplyDeleteYou nailed it. Galactus is "God" according to Kirby and the Surfer is his herald. Stan will develop this notion when he takes on the Surfer's own series, but that's upcoming.
DeleteI will need to look this story out again as it's been years since I read this in the UK's Mighty World of Marvel comic in the mid 1970s . I have the Surfer epic collection so will check that out.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good collection and I've been waiting in vain for the Epic collection of the Silver Surfer series. I dug out my Essential volume for the reviews later this week .
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