Issue(s): Silver Surfer annual #3
Cover Date: 1990
Title: "Termination / Shades of Guilt"
Credits:
Jim Starlin & Ron Marz / Ron Marz - Writer
Ron Lim - Penciler
Tom Christopher - Inker
Renee Witterstaetter - Assistant Editor
Craig Anderson - Editor

Review/plot:
It's not said how the writing chores are broken out between Jim Starlin and Ron Marz for the main story. Marz will also co-write some of the regular Surfer series with Starlin after this annual, and will later become the regular Surfer writer.

This is the conclusion to the Lifeform storyline, and at this point Lifeform, who started off fighting the Punisher, evolves into a threat big enough for the cosmic Surfer.

The Surfer winds up back on Earth because he wants to inform the Avengers that he's killed Thanos (or thinks he has).

Meanwhile, Lifeform is killing someone in what seems like a direct continuation from the Hulk annual, except this guy's name is Brad, not Lamar.

In any event, Lifeform has evolved quite a bit and continues to do so.

Nick Fury calls Mr. Fantastic to ask for help.

And Mr. Fantastic runs into the Silver Surfer and recruits him.

At this point, Lifeform has gone into the river and absorbed a ton of aquatic mass.

The Surfer battles it for a while...

...and then decides to allow it to absorb him. While he's inside it, he causes it to float into space.

The Surfer takes it to a now dead world that he once gave to Galactus to feed. It's only at this point that he learns that Lifeform is sentient.

Lifeform begs the Silver Surfer to kill it. But, feeling guilty about killing "Thanos", the Surfer refuses to take another life (although he wonders if he is a monster for not doing so in this case). So presumably Lifeform is still out there somewhere.

Ron Lim does very well with the Elder God-ish horror that Lifeform has evolved into. It's interesting that Starlin and Marz turn to the same concept of when assisted suicide might be acceptable that Peter David was looking at in the Hulk issue. I do wish a little time was devoted to showing why the Surfer couldn't cure Lifeform, especially since Starlin recently showed Surfer using his cosmic powers for healing in Silver Surfer #35.

There's nothing profound about the Lifeform event but it's nonetheless a more enjoyable read that any of the other annual events from this year, and a tighter more coherent story than previous years' line wide annual events, even if it isn't as "important". I still could have lived without it, though.

One back-up story in this annual is a narration by Galactus talking about the power of the Silver Surfer's surfboard. The second has the Surfer returning to a planet populated by a peaceful race called the Elowan and finding them slaughtered by an alien that was posing as a god.

The Surfer fights and seemingly kills the alien. But then he's approached by a cloaked entity that turns out to have the alien's shape.

It condemns him for the blood on his hands.

Surfer is seemingly attacked and overwhelmed by all of the beings whose deaths he caused while he was a herald of Galactus. Then he wakes up on an asteroid, realizing that he's been neglecting his past for too long and he has to confront his ghosts. A whispered voice tells him that it will be around to remind him.

I wondered if the shrouded figure might really be Death or D'Spayre or Mephisto or something like that, but at least according to the MCP it isn't.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues from Hulk annual #16. Takes place between Silver Surfer #38-39; the Surfer tells Captain America about the death of Thanos from #38, and in #39 the Surfer will reference this story.

References:

• Silver Surfer thinks he killed Thanos in Silver Surfer #38.
  
• The Silver Surfer says that he owes Mr. Fantastic a debt for freeing him from Earth, as shown in Silver Surfer #1.

Crossover: Lifeform

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Garnok Rebbahn appears again in issues 62-64, although like in this story, it's ambiguous if that was a hallucination.

Lifeform at the beginning has a strong resemblance to Anton Arcane from Swamp Thing.

Wouldn't the human thing have been for the Surfer to return to earth and inform someone capable like Reed or Dr. Strange that he discovered a guy was trapped in the Lifeform, and tell them where he deposited him so that a cure could be attempted?

Instead, after refusing to slay him, he leaves the guy on the barren world, presumably to slowly starve to death.

This is one of my favorite stories ever.

It's a horror story, but has alot of pathos in it, especially the Hulk one (whos ending it quite dark)..

I also used to love those Annual back-up features (like the powers of the Surfboard).

Besides Swamp Thing’s Anton Arcane, Lifeform also retains a strong resemblance to the monsters of the Spider-Man graphic novel Hooky. Not coincidentally, both Arcane and those monsters were designed by the late and great Bernie Wrightson.