Book: The Silver Surfer issue #1 written by Stan Lee
Rating: 4 stars
My Review:
I found this to be very deep and a bit sad. Everywhere The Silver Surfer traveled around the Earth, he was met with anger, fear, and hostility.
The story opened up with The Silver Surfer hovering above the Earth until he spots an out of control space capsule speeding down towards the planet. The craft carrying Coronel Jameson (I wonder if that was J. Jonah's son) crashed landed into the sea. The Surfer didn't hesitate to save the pilot and delivered the man safely to a US military ship. However, instead of being seen as a hero, they send fighter planes after him.
As The Silver Surfer sped away from them, he reflected on his troubling experience with the people of Earth. No matter where he went, he was seen as a threat even when he was trying to help.
He also reflected on his life before he became The Surfer. His name was Norrin Radd and he once lived on a planet called ZENN-LA. He had been frustrated living in a highly advanced society and yearned for something more. His chance came when a threating space craft showed up. The people of his planet didn't know what to do, they had to consult a computer for help and it instructed them to fire a very powerful weapon (one of the only ones they have) at that approaching craft. The results were devastating, destroying almost everything that is except the space craft.
With everything nearly destroyed the people were all for giving up that is except Norrin. He convinced a scientist to build him a space ship so he could confront the inhabitants of the approaching ship. Once aboard the other craft, he found the greatest threat to the galaxy, Galactus who was there to destroy ZENN-LA. To save his planet, Norrin sacrificed his life to become The Surfer, who would travel the universe finding other planets for Galactus to feed upon.
Once The Surfer started his travels wherever he went he found planets that were full of life and just couldn't see them being destroyed. That is until he found Earth but after some time exploring he also couldn't see it being destroyed so assisting The Fantastic Four, he helped stop Galactus. But not before having his space traveling powers removed leaving his confined to Earth with no way to return to his home.
I used to think Spider-Man had it bad but hands down the Silver Surfer's life is much worse. At least Peter can go back to his life once he's no longer Spider-Man unlike Norrin Radd he will forever be The Silver Surfer.
It makes me wonder if given the chance would Norrin trade his new life to get his old boring one back? At least with the boring life, he wouldn't have to worry about being hated wherever he goes.
Book: The Amazing Spider-Man issue #2 by Stan Lee
Rating: 4 stars
My Review:
I think it's pretty cool that there were two stories in this issue. Too bad more comics aren't like that now.
The first story "Duel to the death with the Vulture" had Spider-Man going up against the birdman who had been stealing various high profile items. I was very surprised that J. Jonah Jameson didn't find a way to blame Spider-Man or accuse him of being apart of the thefts. I like this story because this is when Peter came up with the idea to start taking pictures after reading Jameson's Now magazine. It gave him the chance to earn some money to help him and his aunt May out with the bills.
The Vulture turned out to bit of tricky bird (yes, the puns are way too easy for this story) with the way he kept outsmarting the police and even Spider-Man (during their first meeting). In the end, Spider-Man came up with a plan to stop the Vulture and get some good pictures for even more money. I also found J. Jonah Jameson surprisingly interesting in this story, he wasn't a complete jerk and he was actually kind of funny. But I like that Peter got the last laugh selling him those pictures, because Jameson would have blown a gasket if he knew he was buying pictures from Spider-Man.
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Now, the second story "The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer" had Spider-Man trying to stop an alien plot to attack the world.
This started with Peter getting a weekend research job helping a scientist. If he had not been asked to pick up the scientist's radio from The Tinkerer Repair Shop, Peter might not have found out about the plot. While waiting for the radio, Peter's spider sense picks up strange electronic impulses but it wasn't enough to really get him interested. That is until he paid the extremely low price of 10 cent for the repairs. By the time Peter got back to the scientist's lab his curiosity was peaked and it stayed on his mind the entire time he was working on experiments not to mention the electronic impulses were still affecting his spidey senses.
Needing to get to the bottom of it, Peter as Spider-Man went back to the repair shop. He stumbled upon the aliens secret lair in the basement of the shop and found about their plans. They were placing spying devices in the radios of certain (important) earthlings so they could find out about the strengths and weakness of the planet before they plan to attack. Spider-Man unfortunately gets captured but manages to get free and stop them.
I would say the downfall of the aliens was that really low price they were charging, because Peter wasn't really that suspicious until he found out the Tinkerer was only charging 10 cent for repairs.
These were just some of those fun wacky comics they used to have back then. I like these simple yet fun comics, they're a good read.
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