"We're really going to do this?" Silver Surfer: Rebirth - Legacy review

Perhaps because Jim Starlin had another falling-out with Marvel, Marvel has recently published a few mini-series written by Ron Marz (with artist Ron Lim), who of all Marvel writers has seemed to be the one most sympatico to Starlin's wishes vis-a-vis the manner in which his creations are depicted. In 2022 I blogged about Marz and Lim's Silver Surfer: Rebirth mini-series; last year they teamed up again for the Warlock: Rebirth mini-series, then followed that with Silver Surfer: Rebirth - Legacy. Ron Lim is inked by Don Ho and coloured by Romulo Fajardo Jr.

All three of these series are deliberate efforts at courting nostlagic readers - and I guess it worked, since I bought them! I don't consider myself a great Ron Marz fan, although I did enjoy his 1990s work on Silver Surfer. The real draw for me is to see new interior art by Ron Lim, who has been otherwise turning out variant covers in recent years. Lim was a personal favourite artist of mine in the 1990s and I enjoy seeing him show off his flair for splashy yet carefully composed storytelling.

Like the other two series, Silver Surfer: Rebirth - Legacy is set during the 1990s continuity; it includes the character Legacy (son of Captain Marvel) whom Marz and Lim debuted in the 1990s. Adam Warlock, Gamora and Pip make quick cameo appearances. Thanos shows up; there's also a character called Eve Warlock whom Marz and Lim created for Warlock: Rebirth and plays a pivotal role in this series. The mini-series is concerned yet again with the Infinity Gems, as Mephisto dupes Legacy into giving him the Time Gem. Honestly, to read Marz's stories, you'd think the Infinity Watch were constantly losing track of the gems back in the 90s.

There's also a brief trip to the distant future of "the Last Galactus Story," mainly to acknowledge that in that future Nova was still alive, yet Marz and Lim killed her during their 1990s Silver Surfer stories. It doesn't amount to much other than a brief opportunity to see Nova again (Marz has been pretty unrepentant about killing her way back when).

Silver Surfer: Rebirth - Legacy has a bit of flash and flair to its tale, but mostly it's for those of us with fond memories of reading Marz and Lim's work in the 1990s and enjoy seeing a bit of a remix of those stories.

"I preserve life... I never wish to take it." Silver Surfer: Rebirth review

Silver Surfer: Rebirth was a 5-issue mini-series published this year by Marvel Comics. It's written by Ron Marz and penciled by Ron Lim (with inks by Don Ho). Marz was the regular writer of Silver Surfer for many years, inheriting the book from Jim Starlin and writing from issues #42 to #102. Lim had already been the Silver Surfer artist when Marz came aboard, having started with issue #15 under scribe Steve Englehart. He stuck with the series for most of Marz's run, leaving with issue #92.

Silver Surfer: Rebirth is, then, a nostalgia book. These two haven't worked together on the Silver Surfer character since 1994. Heck, these days it's somewhat rare to see Ron Marz writing comics at all. Ron Lim has never fully disappeared from comics but for much of the last decade he's been drawing variant covers for Marvel with precious few interiors.

Like other nostalgia-fueled endeavours, Silver Surfer: Rebirth revisits popular elements from the creators' previous collaborations. The key figures of the story are the Silver Surfer and Thanos, with the villain being Tyrant, a foe Marz and Lim created together. There are also appearances by familiar characters from the Marz-Lim era - namely Jack of Hearts, Legacy and Nebula (in her cybernetic form).

Beyond this, the story revolves around the Reality Gem. A big part of the comics circa 1991-94 was that Adam Warlock broke up the Infinity Gauntlet, giving the Reality Gem to Thanos for safekeeping (a development which didn't come to light until the 1993 crossover Infinity Crusade). The story concerns Tyrant stealing the Reality Gem and using it to make changes to reality. This creates an excuse to bring in characters from throughout the Surfer's history (like Legacy's father Captain Mar-Vell) but not be too worried about messing with established continuity (as when Thanos murders Nebula) since all will be set back to normal by the story's conclusion.

If the story doesn't "matter" (as comics fans like to moan), then why bother with it at all? I would suggest one reason is to enjoy the rare sight of a full-length mini-series illustrated by Ron Lim. Speaking as someone who has been a Limaniac for more than 32 years (and has met and collaborated with him) I was excited by a sequence during the series in which the Surfer faces his alternate selves, created by the Reality Gem. Lim's Silver Surfer was always very distinctive with a glistening appearance that other Surfer artists hadn't tried. But now I've learned that Lim is fully capable of rendering a Kirby-esque Surfer, Buscema-esque Surfer, Allred-esque Surfer and Moebius-esque Surfer. That's pretty cool! The finale also includes a sequence where reality alters so that the Surfer and Thanos become abstract, allowing Lim to play with visuals in a way I've never seem him indulge himself before.

Another good reason is Thanos. The general principle around Thanos is that if you're not Jim Starlin, you shouldn't be writing Thanos. So far as I can tell the only writers whose Thanos interpretations have been endorsed by Starlin are Keith Giffen's and Ron Marz's. The simple fact is that post-Infinity Gauntlet it is very hard to write Thanos in a traditional adversarial role. If Thanos shows up to rob a bank or launch another self-thwarted attack on the Avengers then, well, that writer doesn't know how to write Thanos and didn't read Infinity Gauntlet very closely.

Truly, post-Infinity Gauntlet Thanos works best as an anti-hero - someone who has realized it's futile to keep trying to conquer the universe and is more interested in exploration, discovery - and preventing some other nimrod from pulling off the sort of shenanigans he used to attempt. Marz started writing Thanos parallel to Starlin's Infinity Gauntlett; he gets the character.

That said, these days the most famous interpretation of Thanos is the cinematic version and Marz delivers a number of fun references to that Thanos. When Nebula declares that if she can't have Thanos' love then she'll kill him, Thanos retorts "this is an unhealthy relationship" as he snaps her neck. The comic book Thanos and Nebula have never had much of a dynamic, but the references to that of their film counterparts' won't be lost on readers. Nor will they miss the significance of Tyrant claiming his "triumph is inevitable" to which Thanos responds, "No... I am inevitable."

Silver Surfer: Rebirth is best enjoyed by existing fans of the Marz-Lim work (and perhaps fans of Jim Starlin's Thanos), but I think it's a little more ambitious than most nostalgia projects, mostly down to Lim's unusual divergence from his typical style. It's a solid, fun piece of super hero work.

Starlin's Thanos, part 4 of 10: The Gloves Are on

Need to catch up? Part 1: The Mad Titan and the Cosmic Cube; Part 2: Chaos Meets the True Neutral; Part 3: Laid to Rest

In 1987, writer Steve Englehart launched the Silver Surfer into a new ongoing series, one which finally placed the cosmic hero into cosmic surroundings, pitting him in the midst of a new Kree-Skrull War and repeated clashes with the Elders of the Universe. In the course of the series, the Elders obtained the six Soul Gems which had lain dormant since Thanos' death.

When Jim Starlin arrived as the new writer of Silver Surfer in 1990, Englehart's use of the Soul Gems was like a blessing to him. Joining with artist Ron Lim (inks by Joe Rubinstein & Tom Christopher), Starlin wasted no time in bringing his pet character back: in issue #34, Death herself raises Thanos from the dead to correct a cosmic balance - that is, there is too much life in the universe. Thanos' mission is to deplete the universe's population by 50%.

The Silver Surfer proved a capable foe for Thanos, he being a stolid, honorable man like Mar-vell and Adam Warlock had been in earlier Starlin epics. The comparisons between the Surfer and Adam Warlock grew all the more during issues #40-43, during which Thanos faked his death and lured the Surfer to the bureaucratic Dynamo City for the reading of his will. The frustrations the Surfer found in Dynamo City recalled the kangaroo court the Universal Church of Truth ran in Starlin's Warlock.

Thanos spent issue #35 calmly explaining his rationale behind universal genocide, it being his contention that there is simply too much life to properly sustain itself. This was the first time Starlin attemted to grant Thanos a point of view, rather than simply lusting after destruction for Death's favour. These stories also saw the introduction of Thanos' floating chair, which would become a staple, and his teleportation technology which was first used in Warlock became a standard part of his equipment.

At the same time they were creating Silver Surfer, Jim Starlin and Ron Lim (with inker John Beatty) created Thanos Quest, a two-part prestige format comic book which marked the first time Thanos took a starring role. In order to fulfill his mission from Death, Thanos sets after the Soul Gems to obtain omnipotent power. Thanos easily fights his way through the Elders of the Universe and adopts the gems, renaming them 'Infinity Gems.' Ergo, Thanos' gauntlet is now the 'Infinity Gauntlet.'

It should be said, the Infinity Gauntlet is just Thanos' glove. The glove existed decades before the famous Infinity Gauntlet story. And yet, in decades to come many revisits of the Infinity Gems have involved Thanos' glove, for no good reason other than it being the form the six were wielded in previously.

Starlin brought his reliable Drax the Destroyer back from the dead, once again sent by Kronos to hunt Thanos. However, Starlin took advantage of the means by which Drax died to alter him; because Moondragon had killed Drax psychically, his new body has suffered tremendous brain damage, leaving him fairly, well -- stupid. In the course of this lengthy arc which ran from Silver Surfer #34-50 (then continued in Infinity Gauntlet), the Surfer and Drax were briefly drawn into Adam's Soul Gem by Thanos. Within the gem, the Surfer and Drax met Adam, Gamora, Pip and the others Adam had absorbed.

I should also mention that Nebula - the granddaughter of Thanos whom Roger Stern created after Thanos' death - suffered somewhat under Starlin's hands. Starlin was (and is) very protective of Thanos and wasted little time in pitting Thanos against Nebula, with Thanos pointing out how incredulous it is to think that a man who devoted his life to death would ever create life. Starlin's slight against Nebula was the first of many course-corrections Starlin would make.

The storyline Starlin had been creating in Silver Surfer proved to hold so much potential it grew beyond the scop of just one book...

Next Tuesday: The Power Glove.