Monthly Archives: March 2005

Kirby was brought in to give a new direction to the reportedly under-performing SILVER SURFER book with this issue, inked by Herb Trimpe, who was apparently supposed to take over the art with the next issue. Said next issue doesn’t exist, of course, and the issue ends on a cliffhanger that I believe isn’t even acknowledged in the next Surfer story.

The Surfer’s wanderings take him to the region of the Inhumans’ Great Refuge. He’s first attacked by some of the renegade Inhumans who are under the command of Maximus. He’s able to drive them off, but that’s enough to make the Surfer paranoid when he comes across the Great Refuge and winds up in battle against the Inhuman royal family (the Inhumans don’t help the situation by attacking him first).

Said battle continues through an attack by Maximus, including an amusing episode where Lockjaw is able to use his mighty jaws to keep the Surfer’s board from him. The Surfer finally leaves, and renounce reason, love and peace and revel in the madness he’s always found himself greeted with on Earth. Verily, the sixties were over at that point.

This is a really mixed issue. In some ways I’m not sure Kirby was fully engaged in what he was asked to do, understandably since he was just about to leave the company, and couldn’t have been that happy about being asked to “fix” the Surfer two years after the character was launched in a solo book without him. So I’m not sure that the new direction was even viable. However, some of the artwork is really nice, in particular the splash page of the Surfer entering the Great Refuge. Trimpe’s inking is really fine in spots.

The Bullpen page for this issue announces that Kirby is leaving Marvel.

There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on the cover, as some sources credit Kirby and others don’t. I’d say the backgound Inhumans definitely don’t seem to be Kirby, but the Surfer and Black Bolt figures are clearly at least someone talented trying to do Kirby, maybe based on previous drawings (they’re pretty generic poses for the characters). Opinions?

Published 1970

This issue opens with the arrival of Celestial Arishem of the Fourth Host among the Incan ruins, sent to judge Earth in fifty years. Doctor Damian chooses to stay with Ajax and learn what he can, while Ikaris takes Margo out to the plane before the area is sealed off. Meanwhile, Kro is being punished for his failure to prevent the Celestial’s arrival by the Deviant leader Tode. He plans to use his devilish appearence to get the humans to do their work for them. He also attempts to attack Ikaris and Margo’s plane, until Ikaris uses his powers to quickly take them to New York, where he drops in on a fellow Eternal.

The beautiful Sersy (later changed to Sersi), who we find out is the inspiration for the Circe of Greek myth. He asks her to protect Margo while he deals with the impending Deviant attack. The issue closes with Kro, in full Devil mode, attacking, spreading fear, but we see some humans are also defiant as Ikaris flies in.

There’s some great stuff in this issue. In particular I like the page introducing Sersi and the two page spread of Arishem’s arrival. I also liked the bit at the end with the defiant human responding to Kro’s threats, as it reminds me of the classic Terrible Turpin sequence in NEW GODS, humanity defiant in the face of a war among gods brought into the city streets. ETERNALS definitely kicked into high-gear with this issue after a lot of set-up in the previous issues, still introducing lots of new concepts but starting to play with them.

John Verpoorten inks the cover and 17-page story, and I just want to say, though Verpoorten’s name doesn’t often come up among discussions of best Kirby inkers, he definitely deserves some consideration for stories like this. Very slick, very powerful, seems very faithful to the pencils.

Published 1976