Really late with this again this week but I’ve been up to my eyeballs in festival stuff so haven’t really had the time to put something together. Catching up now though so here it is.

Silver Surfer (2014) #3

Dan Slott’s opening arc concludes in this issue and it’s a great conclusion. Dawn was superb in this issue with her humanity really shining through in this alien environment. The format for this series is nicely laid out in this issue as the pair head into the vastness of the universe.

I’ve compared this series to Doctor Who in the past and that comparison still stands. In that show, The Doctor always has a human companion to remind him to pay attention to what some consider the “little things” because it’s so easy for a powerful being to forget about that. The example here comes when The Surfer is only concerned with rescuing Dawn but she wants to make sure that all of her new friends escape as well. The Surfer claims that the rest of the prisoners are unimportant but she reminds him that everyone is important. This causes him to think about this again, clearly he’s wandering for so long that he’s lost sight of the importance of individuals and he needs to be reminded of that. I really liked that scene and it’ll be interesting if a major theme of this series is Norrin Radd rediscovering compassion through the eyes of a young Earth girl.

This issue had some really cool outlandish sci-fi concepts like The Never Queen’s heart being something that’s metaphysical which makes it infinitely large and small at the same time. Obviously we see it from the human perspective which is limited but through The Surfer we know that there’s more to it than that. What strikes me as interesting is that Dawn is able to accept the concept pretty quickly and she is instrumental in returning the heart to the proper owner. Through that we get some great insight into Dawn and her conflict with her sister. Dawn has always been fiercely individual with an infinite imagination, represented by the sand castle idea. With sand she can create whatever she wants where the only limitation is her imagination. When she returns the heart she perceives it as the gate that was keeping her at home, suggesting that she’s casting out that barrier that was keeping her from achieving her potential and now there is nothing to stop her. As symbolism goes it’s hugely effective. The comic ends with a hint of greater things to come.from this pair and I have no doubt that this is true.

I can’t praise this comic enough, the story was fascinating and the characters were excellently written. I found myself laughing out loud at many points, such as Dawn wondering why she can breathe in space and The Surfer answering almost every question with “Power Cosmic”. Only thing I can fault this on slightly is that the consequences of returning the heart from the Impericon aren’t fully explained or explored, given that there are many innocent residents there then I feel something should have been said about it, hopefully the consequences will become clear in subsequent issues.