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If you’re reading this, it means that the Silver Surfer has successfully defended the Earth and helped prevent its destruction by Marduk. He could not have succeeded, however, without the help of Ellie, an autistic little girl with powers that dwarf those of Franklin Richards in his heyday. (See http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/r/richardsfranklin.htm.)

Writers Dan Chariton and Stacy Weiss tell an Earth shattering (yes, really) tale of Biblical proportions (complete with Biblical references) involving high-minded value judgments of mankind that are a touch preachy. I suppose, though, that that’s to be expected in a tale such as this.

Nutshell plot: Marduk has come to destroy Earth and all those pesky humans with all their detrimental human qualities. The Surfer had been assigned to gather special children from the Earth to populate an interstellar ark. Ellie turns out to be more than special – she is Earth’s linchpin.

As we expect from the Silver Surfer, this storyline is pretty cosmic. And this cosmic book engages the deus ex machina, but not in a bad sense. The writers introduced the virtually omnipotent being earlier in the series, and this “Deus” is, in a way, the core of the story.

A lot of exposition appears relative to your average comic, but it is carried off well. The text is poetic, but energetic, as the revelation advances apace. Everything wraps up here, and we get an explanation of not just the mysteries of the story, but the entire cosmology of Earth. The story is made more enjoyable if you are familiar with the Old Testament and/or ancient Sumerian history, but, of course, such knowledge is not a prerequisite. And the action helps veil the pedanticism of the themes that (a) God lies within you, but so does the potential for destruction; and (b) all is not as it appears.

I miss Jack Kirby as illustrator for this kind of story. Jim Steranko could do it justice as well. But Lan Medina portrays the cosmic scope of “Revelations” fairly well and you’ll catch visual references that add to the action’s depth of meaning.