Silver Surfer Epic Collection: The Infinity Gauntlet Paperback – 23 May 2017

The third Silver Surfer Epic (volumes 1 and 3 are already available) is volume 7, covering the material from 1991 and 1992. Now, despite this being the time of the Infinity Gauntlet event, and this volume being titled the same, don't expect to find the actual issues from that limited series here. As has been seen a few times during the Epic line, they have dealt with a large crossover by merely collecting the spotlighted character's issues and offering text recaps of the rest of the event.As such, the first half of the book is heavily made up of Infinity Gauntlet tie-in issues as the Surfer and his allies try to stop the mad titan Thanos from taking over the universe with the aid of the titular artefact. It still reads reasonably well, with the Surfer's personal struggle against the villain seeming like a separate plotline in its own right. Curious readers would still be advised to pick up a copy of the (widely available) Infinity Gauntlet trade if they want the full story, though.Writer Ron Marz and artist Ron Lim seem to have taken 'inner conflict' as the theme for this period of the title, as several of the issues involve Norrin Radd exploring his own mind and guilt, and in one case even combating his own dark half. Otherwise, there are also tangles with the Collector, Reptyl and the original Guardians of the Galaxy (part of another crossover). I found the stories collected here fine but slightly uninspiring - considering the cosmic scope of many of the conflicts here, there's not the same sense of grandeur that was found in volume 3.Extras are fairly limited, with contemporary trading card art and a Wizard cover featuring the character, but several stories from Marvel Comics Presents featuring the Surfer and the then-current herald of Galactus, Nova, are included. They wrap up a volume that is fine but inessential unless you want every one of Norrin Radd's adventures.

Wow this is a missed opportunity.Ok, first things first. To be clear this is not the actual original Infinity Gauntlet story. This is a collection of Silver Surfer issues released around that time and therefore mostly consisting of tie-in issues which by their very nature have to have significantly small impact on the main Infinity Gauntlet story so that people reading the main narrative (again, to be clear, not included with this book) won't notice that the tie in stories are missing.Actually, that pretty much covers it. Roughly half of this collection is the tie one to Infinity Gauntlet and they are so unnecessary and lack any impact that there is little to redeem them. Once those are out the way, there's a real struggle for the overarching narrative to pick up any momentum or intrigue with little in the way of goals for the protagonist to work towards or any clear purpose. I really fondly remember reading Steve Englehart's late 80s run on Silver Surfer, full of space politics and (weirdly) sexual tension, and I was hoping this run would recapture some of that. Instead the Surfer just seems to flit around for various forgettable two issue arcs and the creative team don't seem to know what to do with the near unbeatable protagonist other than repeatedly have him confront himself and his fears in repetitive metaphorical battles of the mind.Infinity Gauntlet was one of Marvel's biggest crossovers and with the Surfer as one of the most central characters this should have been his time to spring board into one of his greatest eras but while not completely terrible this era turned out to be directionless and unexciting.

A bit of a mixed bag here. It's described as an Infinity Gauntlet collection and while the Surfer must have been a major part of that, the stories in here are definitely on the periphery with very sketchy fill-in text describing very little of what actually went on in the main story. That's not to say that these are bad, but the collection name misrepresents them a lot! The art from Lim is fantastic as always and the extras from Marvel Comics Presents are welcome. Dare I say it, for completists only?