It’s really rare that comic book stories get a real, proper ending. But can any ending live up to the excellence of the issues that came before? Your Major Spoilers review of Silver Surfer #14 awaits!
SILVER SURFER #14
Storytellers: Dan Slott & Michael Allred
Colorist: Laura Allred
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabinio
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Silver Surfer: “Together, The Silver Surfer and Dawn Greenwood conquered cosmic villainy and Dawn chose to accompany the Surfer on his space adventures. After finding themselves trapped in the universe that existed before ours, Dawn and Norrin embarked on their most important adventure: Living a full and happy life together. While they waited for Galen of Taa, the man who would become Galactus, to build the Incuba-Call that could take them back to their universe, they grew old together exploring the stars. After a lifetime of adventure, Dawn passed away with no secrets and the Silver Surfer waited alone for the universe to be reborn. The moment has finally come to leave Taa, but the Surfer couldn’t abandon Dawn – so he converted her body into cosmic energy and took off after the Incuba-Cell!”
THE GRAND FINALE
This issue opens with The Surfer explaining to unseen entities how he hitched a ride on Galen’s Incuba-Cell (love those Kirby naming conventions) and made his way back to the world at the dawn of time. Disguising himself as Nor-Vill, he watched unseen as events transpired, even bearing witness to his own transformation to save his planet, Zenn-La. In so doing, “Nor-Vill” was trapped on Earth alongside his past self, occasionally visiting Dawn and her family (and also explaining Nor-Vill’s appearances throughout this series, including my questions about why they’d name a character something so close to the main character.) It is revealed that he even witnessed himself and Dawn leaving for the quest that would strand them in the universe before this one, and nearly acted to stop them, but eventually realized that he must let events play out…
A BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE, IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE
…but not without a few semi-selfish actions. We find that he is speaking to the holographic people of Inkandessa, including the duplicate Dawn, and that his time-travels allowed him to holophize (that’s a word now) a few friends for her: Her twin sister and family, her late father, thanks to time travel and… Norrin Radd, his own de-silvered self. It’s Holo-Norrin who reveals the last, perfect twist: As the universe was forming, he chose to give The Power Cosmic it’s red-with-black-dots power signature in honor of Dawn, meaning that every action The Surfer takes for eternity is a tribute to his lost love. I teared up at this issue several time, but that one got me for real, and Slott/Allred’s story is note-perfect, putting everything to rest in a satisfying manner throughout. Mike’s pencils and Laura’s colors are once again gorgeous on every page, especially the last page with The Silver Surfer setting off for his next adventure, with Dawn’s face in the background but always in his heart.
THE BOTTOM LINE: A PERFECT FINALE
I’ve been raving about this book for what seems like forever, but this issue shows that this team not only has a perfect eye for dialogue, setup, exciting stories and drama, they know how to pull off an excellent ending as well. So few comics get any kind of ending, and Marvel especially has a tendency to end with a “Toys back in the box! Undo everything so the next guy can work with a clean slate!” attitude, but Silver Surfer #14 shows how to do that with flair, emotion and craft, leaving us with a perfect 5 out of 5 stars overall. Now, I await a massive omnibus collection of this book, because it really is as good (or better) than I’ve been telling you…
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