John Buscema and Sal Buscema The Silver Surfer #7 Story Page 6 Original Art (Marvel, 1969).

Since my childhood, John has been one of the very few artists to move me profoundly; and his Silver Surfer is, without question, the finest ever set down upon paper.

In the saga of Galactus’ herald—Norrin Radd, the Zenn-Lavian who surrendered his very being to save his world—there is one issue that rises, for me, far above the hero’s endless cosmic wandering: issue #7.

Steeped in the Gothic romance of the mythic Frankenstein—The Modern Prometheus, brought into the world by Mary Shelley’s hand in 1818 and, more recently, magnificently reimagined on screen by the supremely gifted Guillermo del Toro—John and Sal dared, in 1969, to confront a monster. And monster is scarcely a strong enough word.

John’s linework, joined by Sal’s inking, does not merely complement but wholly inhabits the dramatic depth of this legendary tale, which follows Ludwig von Frankenstein, heir to Victor’s cursed legacy, and his assistant Borgo—both strikingly reintroduced in the opening panel. Their presence feels less like homage and more like resurrection.

Consumed by the same fevered hunger to create life, Ludwig is driven by a singular, obsessive aim: to see his Experiment X through to its ultimate conclusion. When the Surfer’s wandering path leads him to save Ludwig’s life, the scientist perceives in this synchronicity—this encounter fallen, as it were, from the heavens—the most exquisite opportunity to consummate his obsession.

Beyond its kinship with a novel that left an indelible mark upon me, this story—utterly untethered from the conventional architecture of superhero lore—seized me from the first reading. Once again, Norrin is made to be reborn… or rather, replicated. Cloned.

This poetic struggle to become whole with oneself—to reconcile division in order to continue one’s galactic exile—mirrors, at a deeper level, the plight of Victor’s creation: a being striving to grasp the meaning of his existence, to understand himself, to forge within his fractured nature a fragile unity.

Page six, constructed in three panels of staggering power, remains for me the pinnacle of the story. It holds everything at once: Ludwig’s inner tempest, his furious devotion to Experiment X—and, in haunting counterpoint, the cold, serene vastness of space. Space, which is there. Which does not judge. A silent witness and indifferent host to the Silver Surfer, adrift in existential contemplation.

In the end, it is dark romantic poetry fused with the language of comics—brought to life by what is, undeniably, the perfect artistic pairing—through Shelley’s Gothic masterpiece and the most complex of superheroes.

1969—what a year… and I should know better than most.