SILVER SURFER BLACK #2
Writer: Donny Cates
Artist: Tradd Moore
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel
Rating: 9/10
You know, sometimes the second time around, a comic can be better than you’d remember. I read this the day it came out. Super hyped because it wasn’t until the Tuesday before that I remembered that issue #2 was coming out. I got home and as soon as I found the time, I read this issue. In between watching a tv show and showing my significant other attention, I managed to finish the second issue of Donny Cates’ writing for our Sentinel of the Spaceways. After all the praise I gave the first issue, I placed this run on a pedestal. But issue 2 initially left me wanting, but the negative kind of want. I felt it was rushed. I felt it didn’t give me the same feelings the first issue did... and low-key, I felt a little bit cheated. But with fresh eyes, peace, quiet, and a more critical stand-point, I realized within the first few pages that it was I who was cheating.
The second issue continues on with another one of the Surfer’s memories, back to his first memory of the symbiote King in Black, Knull. Recalling an entire planet composed almost completely of symboites and the burden they carried. It’s then we’re brought back to Norrin Radd’s current predicament: a fierce battle with the symbiote god. The result of the fight gives us a foreshadowing of one of the possible fates that await the Surfer during this run and we only see what it looks like, in no way does it give us a scope of what that fate is truly going to be capable of. Those glimpses are cut short when Norrin is saved by cosmic intervention from an unknown source. Delivered from the clutches of the Black God, Norrin escapes with Knull in persuit, on the back of a gigantic space-dragon-bat. During the chase, The Surfer hears the voice from the source of his cosmic deliverance as the Dragon Bat closes in. The Ex-Herald reminds us again just how bright his light really is. Drained, his last bit of strength is used to bring him to the voice’s origin, his savior. I feel that cates is going to end every issue with a reveal that will try and out-do the last and this issue accomplished just that.
What the hell was I thinking the first time around? The writing does not falter. Cates and Moore give the vacuum of space some much needed atmosphere and I didn’t feel it at first. Was it because I was rushed while reading? The internal monologue of the Silver Surfer is at top form here with the opening line, “I have seen such wondrously horrible things.” How did I miss that the first time around? The contrasting tones between what the surfer was experiencing and his Poet Laureate train of thought give this run it’s interstellar heart. Those little blue boxes are truly the core of this run and its corresponding panels are truly something different and beautiful. The depth and exaggerated lines of action in each panel that Moore illustrates supplement Cates poetic melancholy. The most noteworthy being Knull. The range of expression that Moore presents in such a new character is truly a talent. Also, drawing up a giant Dragon Bat is no small feat either. I have no idea where Moore and Cates are going with this or what other big reveals they have in store, but I for one will not being taking it lightly and if need be, I’ll give it a third (and maybe fourth) read to make sure.