Synopsis
Last issue Adam Warlock enabled Silver Surfer and Drax the Destroyer to escape from the Soul World inside the Soul Gem where Thanos had imprisoned them.
Now the pair race through space to warn the Universe (or more exactly the heroes of Earth) about how omnipotent the 6 Infinity Gems have made the Mad Titan. Suddenly Surfer applies the brakes to his surfboard and tells Drax to go to Titan, moon of Saturn and home of Thanos' father Mentor, while he goes to Earth to warn the heroes before meeting him there. But when he leaves he doesn't head towards Earth.
Norrin Radd has something else to take care of 1st. On the way he meets Nova (Frankie Raye), current Herald of Galactus. He tells her he's going to speak to her master and he doesn't want her (an ex-lover) involved. He finds Galactus preparing to consume an uninhabited planet Nova located for him.
Norrin tells his former master he wants to ask him about when he himself was turned into Silver Surfer and made the Herald. Big G reminds SS that he was about to eat Norrin's world Zenn-La when Norrin offered instead to be the Herald and find other suitable worlds. We learn now that Galactus turned him into Silver Surfer based on an adolescent fantasy of Norrin's.
But Surfer now tells him of Garnok Rebbahn who killed the population of a whole planet and then died at his hands (in a backup tale in Annual #3). But afterwards Norrin had a hallucination about hundreds of worlds' populations that were dead because of *him* when he was the Herald, but he has never felt more than the slightest guilt about them. And recently (#46) Adam Warlock told him that his soul had been tampered with, and he suspects Galactus ...
... and Big G admits it. He claims that Norrin Radd was too honourable to do what was necessary. G allowed Surfer to find deserted planets, but when the need was too great he had to provide populated ones. So the master altered the servant's personality.
Silver Surfer demands the changes be reversed. Galactus says it's easily done but warns Norrin he won't like it. SS says go ahead and G does it with a thought ...
... and Norrin Radd sees his silver hands dripping blood as they had in his hallucination. But the accompanying guilt is so much worse than then. And slowly he is drowned in blood and remorse.
Then Galactus lifts his body out of the blood (as on the cover) and wakes him from his 'dream'. The guilt is still there and Big G offers to reverse the reversal. But the Silver Surfer says he has to live with the guilt and take responsibility for his actions.
Then he says he must leave to warn Earth about Thanos. Galactus says he's heard of him but doesn't believe any such mortal being can cause him any trouble. Surfer thinks he's wrong but has to go.
Afterwards Galactus senses Thanos' invisible presence and tells him to show himself. The villain tells him that it would be foolish for even such as Galactus to meddle in his plans. As a sample of his control over reality he causes the planet Galactus is standing on to cease to exist. And suggests that Big G could vanish just as easily.
Thanos teleports away. G retracts his planet-siphoning equipment and swears that this isn't the end of the affair. Thanos and Mephisto are watching his defiance from afar.
And inside the Soul Gem on Thanos' Gauntlet the inhabitants of Soul World are meeting (including Autolycus, Gamora, Kray-Tor and Pip the Troll from recent issues). Adam Warlock summarises for them that Thanos has the 6 Infinity Gems which make him all-powerful. They include the Soul Gem within which they live. Their choice is to keep quiet and hope Thanos doesn't think to destroy them, or to take up arms against him. Adam's experience is that ignoring evil never works. Moreover Thanos thinks him dead, so he may prove an unexpected spanner in the works of his plans. So Warlock chooses to fight.