• Silver Surfer #1: The Most Important Person in the Universe
• writers: Dan Slott and Michael Allred
• color artist: Laura Allred
• published by Marvel Comics
• Roar Score: 4/5

Full disclosure time. Growing up, I was exclusively a DC reader. I never even read a Marvel superhero comic until I was an adult. The characters just never interested me. Blasphemy, I know.

Now, I’m a full-on convert. If we’re talking capes and spandex, it’s the Marvel universe that I find fascinating. I still flip through DC books every Wednesday, but I’m usually appalled at most of what I see. But that’s content for an entirely different post.

When I saw there was a new Silver Surfer book written by Mike Allred, I jumped. Allred’s Madman comics were a staple of my teenage years. And this new title just looked too cool to miss.

Bonus points for it being all ages. It’s rated T+, but there’s really nothing objectionable here. In fact, Zoey loved it. Her knowledge of Silver Surfer comes almost entirely from Super Hero Squad, where he spends most of his time as the Dark Surfer. Which actually turned out to be a fairly good background going into this issue since there were several references to him being the herald of Galactus. No explanation was needed for my little 5-year-old. She was on board from the first panel.

This issue is more or less all setup. We meet Silver Surfer as he bandies about the galaxy, trying to atone for all the evil he did in his past. We meet Dawn Greenwood, running a beachside B&B in New England. Their stories intersect on the last page and set up the story that will play out in future issues.

Verdict? It’s a great issue. Zoey was fascinated by the double-page spread of The Impericon (which she called “a lot of junk”) and took to mimicking the green-skinned Brundlebuds–saying “Praise him! Praise him! Praise him!” ad nauseum.

She even asked me to read the issue two nights in a row. We have a winner!