Silver Surfer #84: Review

Sep 1993

Ron Marz, Tom Grindberg

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Story Name:

The station

Review & Comments

Rating:

Silver Surfer #84 Review by Rob Johnson (January 21, 2023)

This is a tie-in to Infinity Crusade fitting within #4.

Silver Surfer's story will continue in IC#5 and next issue.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Silver Surfer #84 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

As seen in Infinity Crusade #4 Thanos has sent Silver Surfer to create a diversion to cover the attack of the unbeliever heroes against Paradise Omega planet on the far side of the Sun where Goddess and her believer heroes are living.

Now we see the Titan aboard his extremely large spaceship Dreadnought-666 conversing with the robot pilot of the ship. He relates how he got SS to absorb a massive amount of energy from the Sun to turn himself into a living bomb aimed at Paradise Omega's moon. But that power has made him a berserker who may not survive the task. We see the Surfer Bomb shatter the moon ...

... and then he awakes in what appears to be a monorail station on Norrin Radd's home planet Zenn-La. He muses that low-polluting monorails are the only form of mass transport on that world, even as he notices that the place is deserted and there are no signs indicating where it is or where the tracks come from or go to. There's only 1 door, marked No Exit.

He tries it anyway but a voice tells him not to. He turns and sees a man now in the ticket booth who says he's an unscheduled passenger and demands to see his ticket. Norrin explains that he hasn't got 1 and the guy tells him he can't use the mono without 1. NR says he doesn't even know where the mono goes. The exasperated guy explains that everybody knows it goes to the end of the line. And then he realises that Surfer is a 'halfway case' and tells him to come back when he's ready.

Luckily at this point Norrin's mother (Elmar) and father (Jartran) turn up to help him. He's confused because they're both dead (as revealed in #57 and #50 respectively). And then of course he realises that means he's dead too. Elmar explains that this is the station between life and afterlife. But he is a halfway with a choice of going on or going back. Jartran scoffs at this idea and says that his son must accept that he's dead.

Norrin ask what he should do. Elmar says it's his choice. But she does say that she now regrets having committed suicide and missing her life and watching him grow. Jartran advises him not to go back because life is empty and futile. But Norrin knows this attitude is because his father failed in his life and he too committed suicide. And (in #50) Norrin accepted that this was partly his fault for turning away from his father in his hour of need. The 2 men forgive each other.

A mono-train arrives and Norrin's parents board it. But he himself elects to stay. And he smashes through the not-exit door ...

... and returns to reality unconscious on his cosmic surfboard falling towards Paradise Omega. He survives the impact and Thanos is disappointed.

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