The Silver Surfer appeared in Nova 14 this week. Richard Rider (Nova) fights the Surfer in a vain attempt to have Galactus postpone his lunch plans for the planet Orbucen. Orbucen's population needs a little more time to get on their spaceships before their homeworld gets nuked in ol' purple pants portable microwave. Nova is pretty outclassed against the Silver Surfer, but he manages to talk Norrin Radd into delaying the schedule for a little while.
The Silver Surfer is hanging tight with Galactus (which occurred in the Annihilation Silver Surfer mini-series), an plot twist that only makes sense to me if Marvel plans on resetting the Surfer like they did with Spider-Man. For over ten years after the Silver Surfer appeared in the pages of the Fantastic Four, Norrin Radd was bound to Earth, kept there by an invisible barrier Galactus placed around the globe. He had some terrific stories set on Earth and teaming up with the other Marvel heroes, but you had to wonder what the Silver dude would do if he were set free.
We found out when Silver Surfer volume 2, number 1 appeared. The Surfer zipped across the universe and hung out with a bunch of odd aliens. He had sexy-time with Nova and Mantis. Other than Englehart's run and Jim Starlin's brief run (which set up the Infinity Gauntlet stories), nothing too exciting happened. And the reason why is that the Surfer works better as a supporting character against the other Marvel heroes. I think one day Galactus will come back to Earth and the Surfer will be trapped on the planet once again.
Back to Nova 14. I love this splash page of the Surfer chasing Nova against the giant backdrop of Galactus' head. Far-out and spacey! Nuff said.
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