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Silver Surfer: Requiem #1
Posted 27 Jun 2007
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Artist: Esad Ribic
Publisher: Marvel
2.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
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For years Stan Lee stopped anyone else from writing Silver Surfer
solo stories, and now, decades after he lifted the ban, the only
Surfer-starring stories that have mattered, in a galaxy’s worth of
competition from some very fine creators, are a handful by Stan
himself (most notably the Parable two-parter with Moebius) and
the phenomenal 14-issue run of Stacy Weiss and Dan Chariton’s
philosophical-thriller treatment in the early 2000s. I thought that if
anyone could grasp the elusive wisdom and beauty of this concept it
would be J. Michael Straczynski, but so far it seems my cosmic
consciousness needs some tuning in.
“Sue
literally weeps through the entire
issue in a weaker-sex spectacle that seems to place this story decades
before, not sometime after, Civil War.”
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The melancholy tale begins with Norrin Rad observing a lovely
deep-space phenomenon, and unfortunately a big bang of Ed Wood-isms
quickly fills the cosmos. The celestial hurricane, we are told,
“extend[s] for a thousand light-years in any direction”;
one caption later, we get further description of “the
thirty-light-year-wide superwind.” Norrin remarks that
he’s “seen more than other eyes could hope to behold in a
hundred lifetimes,” though some pages later we learn that
he’s “seen things… that would fill a thousand human
lives.” How such carelessness gets past a first draft — or
the watchful eye of as ingenious an editor as Axel Alonso — is a
mystery to stump top quantum scientists.
The Surfer himself has come to one of his universe’s best
— Reed Richards — but to solve a different problem. The
familiar set-pieces and sniping repartee among the FF are surprisingly
tired as handled here, though they’re better than the persistent
sprinkling of sub-Bendis bons mots like “Yeah, well, it…
yeah,” and “I know, but — I know.” Sue, as
usual, gets the worst of it, literally weeping through the entire
issue in a weaker-sex spectacle that seems to place this story decades
before, not sometime after, Civil War.
Esad Ribic’s painted art produces some stunning single images, but
his sense of motion and command of facial expressions is lacking.
There’s a washy tentativeness to his technique and a confusion of
surfaces (including a full-page panel where the Surfer’s board is not
reflective but translucent) that ill suits the sensational superhero
form and lacks the visceral yet sophisticated solidity of Ribic’s
undeniable model, Alex Ross. As with the writing, it’s a study in
insufficient substance.
Months ago Marvel’s promos spoiled the plot point that the Surfer
seems to be terminal (though I’ll leave the smartly-reasoned mechanism
of this for those who pick up the book); still, the story-structure
acts as if we didn’t know, and then triple-underlines it at the end:
“I am dying. I am dying. I am dying.” Straczynski may think he’s going
for an incantatory biblical gravitas here, but all I felt like saying
was, “Yeah I get it. Yeah I get it. Yeah I get it.” The question is,
next month will I get it again? You bet, despite this bumpy beginning.
Both the Surfer and Straczynski have built up a trust that deserves
better.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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