Retro-review: Silver Surfer Annual #1 (1988)

Before doing this review I would have sworn this comic came out in the 90's. I guess after having read so many books over the years many series and periods seem to mesh together for me.

But it was the late 80's(1988). I was loving this Silver Surfer relaunch.
Englehart, the late great Marshall Rogers and Rubenstein had really done an amazing job revitalizing and weaving a great tale in the first 12 issues. Essentially using the Elders to great effect in a ploy to use the Infinity Gem to restart the universe as the only survivors each become a Galactus. It doesn't work obviously, but it is executed perfectly by the creative team, who go on to continue the tale and expand into a war between the Kree and the Skrulls.

That being said the annual came out and was part of Marvel's Evolutionary War event that ran through all the Marvel annuals.

The gist of the story is the High Evolutionary wants to perfect humanity and requires some essential DNA information from Surfer to do so. So he pops up in Olympia and appeals to the Eternals to collect it for him. Since they benefitted from similar genetic tampering millenia ago at the hands of the Celestials they think it's a good idea to force Surfer to volunteer his DNA for humanities greater good. Science spawned gods they are...ethics can be ignored.

In the mean time, Sufer is returning to Earth and witnesses the reconstruction of the Super-skrull who had been scattered into the atmosphere as radiation. They fight, and Surfer wonders if he should tell Super-skrull that is race is again at war with the Kree..and have lost their natural shape-shifting abilities.. The fight is interrupted and the unlikely allies are captured by Ikaris and the other Eternals. Brought to Olympia for testing, the Surfer finally has enough and he and Super-skrull escape and battle anew with the Eternals.

Eventually Super-Skrull ties to escape, and as the Eternals go to chase, Surfer prevents them and tells Super-skrull to go and that he will hold off the Eternals, his people need him, as his genetic code may hold the key to revitalizing the Skrull race. The Skrull thanks him and the Eternals finally have a change of heart as forcing a living being to do something like succumb to unwanted testing isn't right. Nice tidy ending no fuss no muss.

It may sound silly, but even upon re-reading all these years later Steve Englehart's plot and scripting makes for great classic comics. the best of intentions lead to confrontation and realization that I was the wrong thing to do.

The execution is great. Englehart's script is to the point, and enjoyable. The characters are handled well and play their parts in the big scheme of things. Its also nice how Englehart seeds plots for the future that will last 25 issues or so and end up making Super-skrull one of my favorite characters while still making the story relevant to the larger event Marvel's Evolutionary War.

The art chores are handled well by Joe Staton. Its very cartoony as always, manages to work well for superheroes. He does a great job on the story-telling and action. There is nice action and great expression. Rubenstein inks and like always really adds nice finishing touches to the pencils. I don't think Staton's work is as dynamic as Marshall's or Lim's(who tales over Surfer soon after), but it is certainly strong enough to carry this story.

The great thing about the annuals of this time was additional content, and in this particular annual its all good. A great story drawn by Lim, and I think this was the first time I saw his art, that provided a prelude of sort to the next chapter of the story with the Eternals, and widened to eventually include a great war between the In-betweener and Galactus. And another story with the rebirth of Mantis, who also becomes an important secondary character in the book.

Finally you have some awesome pin-ups by Ron Lim and Joe Rubenstein.

All in all a great read, I really recommend every one who love cosmic comic book super heroes to pick this issue up, and to also check of the series. Englehart, Rogers, Staton, Lim, Rubenstein..they really did an amazing re-envisioning of Surfer and really told some fun, epic stories.

Grade: 9 out of 10

Retro Review: PITT #1 (Image comics 1993)

Pitt wow. I forgot how much I loved this comic. I loved Dale Keown, who is probably the best Hulk artist of the late 80's and 90's. I fell in love with his art the first Hulk he was on, and it blew me away month after month. He just expressed Hulk's strength in and power in every panel.

And when Pitt was announced I was genuinely excited. And when I got it, I loved it. in 1993 it had that image magic, combined with Dale's Heavy Metal art style and dynamism. It was raw and powerful stuff.

That was then.

Upon re-reading. Not so much. The story is pretty simple. An alien creature arrives on Earth to save us, naked, and is attacked by bikers. he kills them something awful by the way. But as savage as he is, he has a bigger role to play as our saviour. So that is the set up as the secondary characters are introduced. Cops sent to investigate Pitts appearance and bloody attack on the subway. And the boy who is having visions, who will eventually join Pitt on his savage journey to protect the world from the Creed. Who's agents show up and kill some people at the end of the issue.

The dialogue and plot are very simplistic, and really are only there to serve as an excuse to have Pitt kill and fight. Its even silly at times. But to be honest, no one picked this up for the writing. No way. What people did want they got in spades. Raw, dynamic, visceral action by Dale Keown. It powerful stuff. Pitt is scary. if not a little bit of a cliche, but scary and powerful.

I think this isn't Dale's best work. he embraced the Image style of lines and cross hatching that was super popular at the time. it was messy compared to his work on Hulk, which if I remember correctly was inked by Rubenstein(?). Messy, but full of energy. The figure work and expressions pushed to the cartoony stylistic limit. Pitt himself is awesome to behold, pretty much a simple unremarkable design..but drawn, rendered beautifully. Dale Keown is really heavy Metal in comic form. The action is intense and brutal. The layouts are simple, mostly frontal shots, and the background are more suggestions and often nonexistent. Again, this was a sign of the times. Brutal violent snarling and jumping. Ultra-huge characters with guns and pointless cybernetics or claws..basically roaring through panels for really no other reason then it looked damn cool.

all in all the re-read for the review was satisfying but very dated. Fun yet...well...unfullfilling.

I definately recommend every one who reads comics pick up his Hulk run with Peter David. It was excellent.

6 out of 10.

Retro-review Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man #52 (March 1981)

"the Day of the Hero Killers!'. that was a quite a title. Written by Roger Stern, it's a dense emotional story and the end of the original White Tiger.



Basically a para-military organization run by Gideon Mace (who has a mace for a hand!, really) has declared war on superheroes, and the first casualty left for dead on the steps of the Daily Bugle is amulet enhanced karate powerhouse White Tiger.



Fortunately for White Tiger he is disposed of at the feet of his pal Peter Parker. And after a brief moment on the street and an appearance by J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie, is heralded to the hospital where Peter begins to agonize over the potential loss of his friend, as he reflects on the continuous losses in his life, Gwen, Uncle Ben, etc...



After a brief conversation with gruff insightful Harlem PI Nathanial Alexander Blackbyrd, Pete decides to go hunt down Mace. And he takes down the Mace handed culprit and his military thugs lickity-splitz. It's no contest, except in a fury of gunfire the thugs gun down their own leader.



Spidey can't take it any more and smacks them silly. He gets back to his friend for some more emotional insights about some of the choices and problems with being a hero, and in Tiger's case, the almost drug like addiction to the amulets, which he gives to Blackbyrd to return to the Sons of the Tiger to safe keep. Hector Ayala moves on boards a bus, to a new normal life.



It's a fun story overall and less about the action, seriously, this Gideon Mace can't even be imagined to be a threat to Spidey, who easily disposes of him. But you get some good old school emotional exploration in a very dense script.



The art was handled by Rick Leonardi, and although I read the issue long ago, hadn't realized he was drawing comics way back to the early 80's. But here he is. It's not the trademark Leonardi, who's distinctive style is easily recognizable to long time comic fans. It's a little raw and awkward, some of the poses and choices of PoV are a little odd. And the inks are pretty much a sign of the times, heavy lines and thick dark brush strokes that was common in the 70's and early Eighties. Still you get the story in classic comic book form, but all together really unremarkable.



The cover is a nice graphic by Frank Miller and Wiacek...even here, you can see Miller was drawing in traditional comic style of the time.



All in all it's a good read, and glad I got see the only White Tiger worth mentioning in comics again, I miss him. 7 out of 10.