I like this series, but yes, the Surfer's constant whining does wear a bit thin. Actually, I think it's more that every human being on the face of the earth is made out to be greedy, violent, and selfish, that is most annoying. Still, if one wants some philosophizing and some angst, no better plate to go than to the Surfer!

The Surfer's "humans are so unelightened" attitude looked particularly bad when we learned that the Surfer basically caused his father's suicide by refusing to forgive him for stealing another man's idea. Yeah, you guys were so enlightened on Zenn-La, Surfer.

"A world he never made," is from Alfred Edward Houseman's poem "The Laws of God": "And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.", but Stan may have picked it up from Edwin Benson' short story of the same name in 1951's Amazing Stories 25. Later, of course, it would become intractably associated with Howard the Duck.

"O, Bitter Victory" is tougher. There was a Richard Burton movie called Bitter Victory, but I can only assume it's from a poem somewhere since Stan already used it in Spider-Man 60, and Gerry Conway would use it in Thor 234, each time spelled exactly the same way.

lmao You guys are killin' me!

Dan Adkins inks are definitely looking shakier in recent issues. I've seen him do much better than this. Maybe he was sick or something, or maybe he just got disenchanted and quit trying so hard for awhile.

Maybe Stan got "O, Bitter Victory" from the poem Daphnis and Chloe, which was adapted into a 1963 award winning movie titled Young Aphrodites.

"O bitter victory! O strange disease, the name of which I cannot even tell! Can Chloe have tasted poison before she kissed me? why then did she not die?"

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Daphnis_and_Chloe_(The_1896_Athenian_Society_Translation)

Thanks, James. It just occurred to me we all grew up with these titles being quoted at us, and I at least have no idea where half of them came from. "Lo, there shall be an ending!" for example. Where does that come from? I assume it's a quote, but I have no idea from where.

I'm not sure either, Andrew. I couldn't find an exact match on that phrase, but I did find the sub-phrase "there shall be an ending" in an unformatted Google optical scan of a 1909 poetry digest titled The Forum, linked at: http://archive.org/stream/atshrineotherpo00clar/atshrineotherpo00clar_djvu.txt

It's pretty hard for me to read unformatted scans, but the name of the poem seems to be "Quo Abeo?"

Unlike you and me, now, Lee in the 1960s didn't have a search engine at his disposal, but he might very likely have had a copy of this digest, on his bookshelf at home, or in his office. The Forum purportedly was widely distributed, and might well have been the source of much of his-- dare I quote it-- "literary pretentiousness?" I don't know. He did also seem to have a habit of prefixing his titles with the word "lo." The title "Lo, the Eggs Shall Hatch" comes to mind, from Strange Tales #145 (1965), which I found in this amusing webpage: http://pretentioustan.blogspot.com/ lol

Oops, wrong link, sorry: https://archive.org/stream/forum02unkngoog/forum02unkngoog_djvu.txt

"Quo Abeo?" actually shows up in both scans. At the Shrine and Other Poems is copyright 1914; both digests are now in the public domain.

Now that is interesting, and sounds very plausible. Stan always wanted to appear high falutin'. Roy Thomas, whatever his faults, I think genuinely had an interest in poetry, with either the masterful use of "Ozymandias" in Avengers 58 or the somewhat awkward use of "Flower in the crannied wall" in Avengers 76.

Is the Silver Surfer finally back with Marvel? All
This fantastic visual computer graphic tech and no Surfer can put a damper on your day!

Reading these issues, and the next one, in the Essential Silver Surfer Volume 1, I loudly cried foul. The Surfer has to send Shalla-Bal back to Zenn-La to save her life after she's been shot, but later on his Power Cosmic is nevertheless effective enough to save the life of a jerk-@$$ wannabe demon worshiper who literally got pulverized by the Abomination?

Stan Lee really was jumping through hoops to A) keep the Silver Surfer trapped on Earth and B) separated from Shalla-Bal. I mean, the time travel trick that the Surfer used *should* have enabled him to escape Earth, but it didn't because, um, reasons.

When I was a newer comic book fan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a lot of older readers would constantly rave about how incredible this series was. Of course, back issues for this series were really expensive, so I never had an opportunity to find out for myself. When the Essential collection was finally publish, oy vey, was I disappointed!

Lee was obviously earnest about writing a socially relevant series, but his execution leaves something to be desired. I think the reason why these issues were well regarded for so long was due to the pencil work by John Buscema, which was very good. It's probably also due to Buscema that Shalla-Bal became an iconic figure, because Big John draws her as stunningly beautiful. Lee, however, really does a poor job of scripting her as anything other than a one-dimensional damsel in distress who endlessly pines for the Surfer.