Issue(s): Silver Surfer #3
Cover Date: Dec 68
Title: "The power and the prize! / Duel in the depths"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
John Buscema - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
John Buscema's art rules.

I neglected to mention in my review of last issue that the Surfer had also rescued a girl from the Badoon, but everyone thought that the Surfer was attacking her. This issue he shows up at the hospital to try and help her, but everyone freaks out again. This makes the Surfer mad, and he temporarily disables all electronic devices on the Earth.

It's cool to see the Surfer's righteous fury, and i'd be happy to see him act so irrationally if i didn't know that he basically came from a planet a lot like earth, if a lot more advanced.

The Surfer's actions get him noticed by Mephisto, who decides to try and corrupt the Surfer's soul.

He brings Shalla Bal to Earth and then Hell and the Surfer follows.

Mephisto offers him wealth, power, women, etc, in an attempt to corrupt him which is stupid because even if the Surfer wasn't so pure, he could pretty much create any of those things himself, which the Surfer points out. Surfer manipulates Mephisto into sending Shalla Bal away again so that he can't hurt her, even though it means that the Surfer can't even hold her hand.

The story is a little weak, but the art is really, really nice.

In this issue and the last, the Surfer has been shown to be able to fly pretty far out in space without getting smacked down by Galactus' barrier.

I should note that any appearances by Shalla Bal (and other occupants of Zenn-La, who i'm not even going to bother to track) are not real due to a retcon that occurs in Silver Surfer vol.2 #130. Since the original Shalla Bal basically never appeared in comics except in flashback, i'm tracking this duplicate as "Shalla Bal".

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 9 - first Mephisto

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Fantasy Masterpieces #3

Tony Isabella has a letter here.

The retcon that wiped out Shalla-Bal was awful and needs to be undone.

There's a problem with the timeline of Shalla Bal anyway.
How long has Norton been the Silver Surfer? Because, we know Galactus has been around for billions of years. It was originally thought that Surfer was Galactus' first herald, although that was at least ret-conned, but you have to figure that Surfer had been with Galactus quite a while before he found Earth.
How long can person from Zenn-La live? Longer than humans, but probably not more than a few hundred years, you have to assume.
In all this time, did Surfer never contemplate that Shalla was elderly, if not dead.
Yet, when we see Shalla, she's about the same age as she was when Norrin made his sacrifice.
Unless we're to assume that Galactus went without any heralds for, at least, millions of years, before he decided that he pretty much always needed one...Or, that Surfer was Galactus' herald for just a few years, and then decided to betray him...The timeline is off.

Yes, the timeline of Shalla still being the same age as in Norrin's origin is a huge problem. But the "oh, forget it, let's just wipe out all of Zenn-La and claim Norrin's been imagining them during his visits" retcon was incredibly stupid, was done in service of a mediocre Norrin/Alicia Masters romance angle, and needs to be undone.

I have neither the power nor the brains to reconcile the two issues, but it bugs.

That panel of Mephisto on his throne is one of the best villain drawings I've ever seen.

"Mephisto does not lie!" Such a brilliant line. Is there any character in the MU who lies more than Mephisto?

Loki, maybe.

Making the timeline problem even worse is the fact of relativity. As the Surfer soars the spaceways at around light speed, time would pass much more slowly for him than for those on ordinary planets.

(Oh, well. Comics are about fantasy.)

And yes, the art in this one is fabulous as well. (But if you want to see how the series went downhill, compare the drawings of Mephisto here with those in issues 16 & 17. The degeneration of the storytelling was arguably even worse. As I noted recently, though, the Lee/Buscema magic was recaptured, at least IMHO, in the SS graphic novel "Judgment Day.")

Just how powerful is the Surfer?

Silver Surfer is the most powerful superhero, according to an article done by Wizard Magazine in the 1990s. He beat out Thor, Superman, Flash, Hulk, Professor X, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, Spawn, and Doctor Strange.

Wizard also followed that up with a list of the baddest villains, in ascending order: Bullseye, Sabertooth, Carnage, Joker, Ra's al-Ghul, Doomsday, Thanos, Magneto, Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom. Though the criteria was less about raw power than sheer ruthlessness (obviously Bullseye wouldn't have a chance against Juggernaut, but Juggy was left off the list because he's not a kill-crazy maniac).

The business about the Surfer/ Shalla Bal's ages was answered by Steve Engelhart in SS vol#2. Zenn-Lavians are an extremely long-lived race and the centuries the Surfer served Galactus was a fraction of their lifespan.

the panel with Mephisto and Shalla bal is very....suggestive.