A New Life And A New Crisis In Annihilation Scourge: Silver Surfer #1
by Josh Davison
Mild Spoilers Ahead
The Silver Surfer has returned to the present after his battle with Knull at the beginning of time. He has spent the past eons reassembling himself, but he’s different now. The scars of the battle have left him changed, and he’s quarantined himself at the edge of the universe until he can determine what has changed in his physiology. Unfortunately, the Surfer has little time to discover his new abilities, as a half-destroyed warpship arrives through a Negative Zone portal. The passengers and crew have all perished in the journey save for one. The Silver Surfer narrowly saves this lone survivor as more decaying warpships arrive from the Negative Zone. The Surfer travels across the portals to learn what caused this vast Negative Zone exodus. He quickly discovers the returned Cancerverse blight and goes about putting an end to this new invasion.
Annihilation Scourge: Silver Surfer #1 joins Norrin Radd after his travails in Silver Surfer: Black. The Surfer is a new being now, and his abilities have warped to fit his new form. He is now a half-being, a cosmic ghost, unable to make physical contact with matter but still able to blast it apart with projections of the Power Cosmic.
A large part of the story is the Surfer pondering if this new form is innately destructive in some manner. He feels that it is connected in some way to the new Cancerverse incursion, and he’s not entirely wrong in this thought.
It’s always a treat to read a well-written Silver Surfer story. His curious yet ponderous and restrained personality makes for grabbing narration when being crafted by a talented writer such as Dan Abnett. Here, we get to see that mixed with the apocalyptic Cancerverse invasion and Surfer grappling with his inability to save the countless lives displaced and left adrift by this crisis.
Paul Davidson gives a brilliant treatment to the Surfer here. His new form is subtly different and looks great. The spreads depicting the destroyed Negative Zone ships are especially good. They show the vast death and destruction being caused by the Scourge while being outright beautiful. Matt Milla contributes wonderful color art, balancing the lights and darks of the book with cosmic shades.
Annihilation Scourge: Silver Surfer #1 finds Norrin Radd grappling with his new reality and being called to save the beings of the Negative Zone from a new crisis of immeasurable proportions. It’s a highly compelling read with brilliant visuals, and it earns a recommendation. Check it out.
Annihilation Scourge: Silver Surfer #1 comes to us from writer Dan Abnett, artist Paul Davidson, color artist Matt Milla, letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles, cover artist Josemaria Casanovas, annd variant cover artist Ozgur Yildirm.
Final Score: 9/10
