Customer Reviews

The Silver Surfer, Vol. 1 (Marvel Masterworks)

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The Collection is a reprint of the 6 first legendary issues from the 70's.Always loved it so I am a little biased.
Everyone knows about the story and the art so nothing to add here..
So what about the collection?The cover by Dean White is really great (despite that the figure is a little bit too squarish for me) and give a sense of respect for this oldie.The minus is really the color reconstruction(art?) it's like some rookie or someone with no knowledge of the material did it..really poor and a pity for this new set of MasterWorks.I hope the second volume is better "reconstructed".
But after all I recommended it warmly..it's a classic

As others mentioned, the coloring is truly bad: bright yellow, bright red & bright green seem to be the main colors. Though I own issue #3 & #5, to actually buy Silver Surfer #1, 2, the rare #4 & #6 would set me back $100 - $200. So I'm happy to have bought a used copy of this book for $6. People used to complain about the poor coloring, printing & paper in '60's comics, but they are so much richer & more complex, & just plain superior to these books.
Anyway the stories are great, even with the hammy philosophizing, & this was John Buscema at his peak before he got watered down to imtate Romita on Spider-Man & later Kirby on FF & Thor. Though my favorite Marvel cover artists would have to be Jack Kirby & Steranko, the cover of SS #4 may be Buscema's best cover and a stone-cold Marvel classic, with the quintessential image of an angry Thor facing an angry Surfer. It should be a 3 ft poster!

The beginnings of the SILVER SURFER solo comic, lovingly reproduced in this high-quality, reasonably-priced trade paperback editions, were, as you may know, Marvel writer and editor-in-chief Stan Lee's attempt at getting the superhero genre to grow up a bit. That the attempt was only intermittently successful is hardly the worst of failings - too often, critics label as "pretentious" anything that labors to rise above the hackwork and pablum we are usually offered, leading us to conclude that... they prefer the hackwork and pablum? God only knows. Anyway, although is hardly a Watchmen-level breakthrough, it's pretty heady stuff for its time; Lee's dialogue is at its most endearingly exclamatory, florid, and pseudo-philosophical; John Buscema's compositons and layouts have never been more adventurous or striking, and one can see with greater clarity than ever every stroke of Joe Sinnott's and Sal Buscema's pen and/or brush. And the Surfer? Well, he's just the coolest darn Christ figure to ever hop on a surfboard and sky-ride through the spaceways. But you already knew that, didn't you?

John Buscema was the artist, not Jack Kirby. Kirby only drew issue 18- not that that has anything to do with this, but didn't want some geekier person to attempt calling me out... anyway, I HOPE AMAZON fixes their guffaw and gives credit to the art of John Buscema, Jack Kirby has plenty and im sure would not want to take anybody elses art for his own.