Tuesday, July 29, 2014


I had read a number of these Marvel novels from the nineties, but missed this one when it came out: Fantastic Four: Redemption of the Silver Surfer, written by Michael Jan Friedman. When three-quarters of the FF are lured into the Negative Zone to help Blastaar against the mysterious world-destroyer Prodigion, the Invisible Woman gets the Silver Surfer to help them. As the title suggests, the Surfer sees this as an opportunity to redeem himself for his days as the herald of Galactus, and there's even a love interest for him! Yeah, I don't need to tell you that doesn't go well for him. It usually doesn't.

As in this book! Silver Surfer: Homecoming, written by Jim Starlin, art by Bill Reinhold and Linda Lessmann. The Surfer's homeworld Zenn-La disappears, but it's not a malevolent event for a change: an alien called the Great One offers Zenn-La sanctuary in the universe within his mind, safe from the Kree, Skrull, Galactus, whatever. With the help of the Infinity Watch's Moondragon, the Surfer joins his people and his beloved Shalla-Bal in an eternal paradise...for about eight pages before things go south, and then they go worse than usual. Basically, any time the Silver Surfer has a love interest, you can be pretty sure it's not going to end well: I really liked when he was seeing Alicia from Fantastic Four.

I still don't think I've seen all of Babylon 5, but I happened into a used copy of Babylon 5: the Movie Collection. I'm looking at Martin Sheen in a big latex forehead right now! I really should spring for the fifth season one of these days: over at Blog of Geekery, Siskoid's been covering Babylon 5, and it's a good way to revisit the series and remind yourself to check it out again.

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