Silver Surfer: Ghost Light #5 // Review
A stranger has arrived in Sweetwater. And he’s not just any stranger...he’s THE Stranger--a powerful entity from another planet that once effortlessly took Magneto into space to study him. He’s powerful, and he’s attacking. Thankfully, he’s attacking a couple of people who might be powerful enough to stop him: the new hero known as Ghost Light and a former herald of Galactus. Writer John Jennings continues an earthbound story of cosmic energies in Silver Surfer: Ghost Light #5. Artist Valentine De Landro and colorist Matt Milla bring the cosmic action to the page once more.
Al Harper is back. He has returned to Sweetwater, New York...changed. It’s a small town that is safely out of the way of Spider-Man and the Avengers and all of the problems that seem to be plaguing Marvel Manhattan every month. Nowhere is truly safe from danger in the Marvel Universe, and so Al’s return to life in Sweetwater will be complicated by the sudden appearance of the powerful alien entity known only as the Stranger. Al’s got his hands full dealing with the Stranger, but luckily enough, he has got help in the form of the Silver Surfer.
Jennings’s mix of interpersonal drama and cosmic-level superhero action doesn’t quite fall together on the page in a way that feels very coherent. The cosmic-level action is enjoyable on its own level, but the Sweetwater small-town New York setting of the story doesn’t really fit what Jennings is exploring in the action and conflict of the issue. Ghost Light has been a great strength of the series thus far. The mystery of Al Harper IS compelling even this far into the series. With Harper’s personality being what it is, it’s easy to see how Jennings would link cosmic-level conflict with a more mundane personality. It doesn’t quite fit, though.
De Landro’s style doesn’t feel right for the format of the story. Though some of the visuals ARE intriguing, the overall gloopiness of the art and the imprecision of the detail doesn’t fit the breathtaking intensity of the cosmic-level action that Jennings is trying to bring to the story. All of the basic elements are there in the art. There are strong angles and highly kinetic action, but without more fine details, it all feels a bit unpleasantly squishy on the page.
There IS room in the Marvel pantheon for another high-powered character. (Honestly, there’s always room for that. There are endless epic, Earth-shaking conflicts for heroes to deal with.) The issue, though, is that Ghost Light is lost in a kind of nebulous story that isn’t adequately fusing the cosmic with the personal and psychological. The worst element in the entire series may be the main title character. Silver Surfer himself doesn’t seem all that interesting in the fifth issue of the series, which is too bad. He’s been a part of some remarkable plots in the past.
