For those of you who missed what the hell I'm talking about, the Silver Surfer is a character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the principals who started Marvel Comics in the early 60's. Basically, Stan Lee (the writing half of the team) had come up with an idea for a catastrophically powerful villain for their premiere superhero comic, The Fantastic Four, who would come to Earth, not to conquer, but to devour every scrap of life from it. He was very excited by the idea of this space god, who would be known as Galactus. While Lee went off on a lecture tour, Kirby set to work drawing the story. When Lee returned, he found a strange, metallic-skinned guy on a surfboard in the midst of his storyboards; an angel the the godlike Galactus.

The Surfer was supposed to be Galactus' herald, who sought out worlds able to appease his master's hunger. He came to Earth and handily defeated the Fantastic Four. Yet an appeal from a blind woman struck him profoundly, and, deciding that humans were a noble race, he begged his master not to consume Earth. His plea was ignored, so the Surfer rebelled against his master. With his aid, the Fantastic Four were able to drive off Galactus and save the world (hooray and all that). However, Galactus punished the Surfer's treason by trapping him on Earth. There was no greater punishment he could have inflicted on him, though. The Surfer had become a being of the stars, and his confinement on Earth was beyond torture.

He had his own short-lived comic in the 60's, wherein he traveled around the world, seeing the underbelly of human nature, and grew bitter, regretting his decision to give up what he cared about most for humans. But, occasionally, he would encounter another instance of the spark of nobility and greatness that had inspired him to turn against his master. In recent years, in the comics, Galactus has freed the Surfer from Earth (to allow him to have a new series of his own again ;)

The stories in this collection are divided evenly between the time of his exile on Earth and the time subsequent to that. There are some excellently crafted stories in here, such as the totally unexpected ending of John Ordover's "On The Beach" and the poignant "To See Heaven In A Wildflower" by Ann Zeddies. Likewise, some stories are very thoughtful, such as David Honigsberg's meditation on Guilt "Sambatyon" or the commentary on celebrity "Do You Dream In Silver?" by James Dawson. It's also enjoyable to see the Surfer in some fairly mundane domestic situations, such as occurs in Keith DeCandido's cop drama-style tale, "Improper Procedure."

That said, I must also mention that there are also some tales that struck me as less than stellar. Len Wein's "Point of View" felt like something that he scribbled out in a couple of hours when he realized that the deadline was bearking down on him, while Dave Smeds' "Incident On A Skyscraper" felt like a heavy-handed attempt to pluck the heartstrings. Most disappointing to me was Craig Shaw Gardner's "The Love of Death Or The Death Of Love." The story featured the being whom I consider to be the most interesting Surfer villain, Thanos, a being of immense power who is literally in love with Death. The story wasn't especially bad, but I demand a lot from any story involving my fave nogoodniks.

All in all, this is a really fun Saturday afternoon read, if you already like the Surfer. If you don't, it's almost certain that you won't like it. If you're totally unfamiliar with him, this probably isn't the best primer, given the unevenness of the stories, so get your butt on over to your neighborhood comics shop and get the first few issues of the most recent incarnation of the Silver Surfer comic already!

In case I haven't conveyed enough enthusiasm for this character, here's a bit of Stan Lee's introduction to the anthology.