Silver Surfer: Judgment Day

This is the most gorgeously illustrated thing I have ever seen. John Buscema, with Max Scheele on colors, cranks out 64 full page panels, each one a cosmically hallucinatory piece of perfection (Well to be fair, page 28 is broken down into 3 panels). I've never seen anything like it. And I just read "The Coming of Galactus." Even Kirby can't match this.












I found "Judgment Day" during a FCBG splooge-fest at the comic shop - it's an 8 1/4" x 11" hardcover from 1988 with a righteous Joe Jusko cover painting, so it kinda stands out. Looks like there's a more recent TPB version, but this is the original edition. Pfff!

It sports an obnoxious introduction by Stan Lee, who handles the script as plotted by Buscema and Tom DeFalco. I could do without Lee's writing on this one - he actually shows a remarkable amount of restraint, but he just can't let the artist do the talking, and Buscema is the real attraction.

I mean the script is still cool. We get Silver Surfer's existential musings, Mephisto's brimstone histrionics, Galactus' "unfeeling force elemental." And Nova's general hotness. That voluptuous space harlot sets up a battle for the Surfer's soul, and the showdown between Mephisto and Galactus culminates in fucking wild spread on pages 58 and 59.

"Judgment Day" is another reminder of the emotional complexity of Galactus and his former herald. They have a really interesting relationship, and Stan does a nice job here. I mean everyone knows that Norrin Radd is the intergalactic exile, the once sterile instrument of Galactus awakened by the emotions of Earthlings. I guess I tend to see Galactus more as an insatiable force than a sentient character, but Stan gives him more depth.

He is emotionless, apparently, and driven only by an undefinable mission to feed on planetary energy. But for an emotionless guy, he's fucking moody and protective of his property.

He admits not knowing whether or not he actually has a soul. He responds to the Surfer's plea to end interstellar destruction and offers his former herald a momentary sense of gratitude. Galactus balks at the mention of friendship, but there's a sense that his purpose and solitude are self-imposed, or at least a source of some doubt or regret: "I could not do what I do, I could not be what I am, if, like humans, I were subject to emotions unbridled. No! I am Galactus! I cannot be more! I dare not be less!" The devourer of worlds is kinda vulnerable.


Still, the art is supreme. 64 utterly dazzling & unparalleled spacescapes. John Buscema died in 2002. Dude wielded the Power Cosmic.