“To Smash The Inhumans” (k019)

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Posted in K100.

“To Smash The Inhumans” is a 19-page Kirby story inked by Herb Trimpe and first published by Marvel in THE SILVER SURFER #18 [1970].

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.

https://www.comics.org/issue/23721/#164476
MARVEL MASTERWORKS #19 [SS-002] [1991]
ESSENTIAL SILVER SURFER #1 [1998]
SILVER SURFER OMNIBUS #1 [2007]
MARVEL MASTERWORKS – SILVER SURFER #2 [2010]

 

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