X-Men / Silver Surfer: Fugitive from Space by George Pérez

Eventually Pulse realizes who he is.

The reason he had come to the X-Mansion in the first place wasn’t out of some desire to harm or get help from the X-Men, but rather as a inorganic life form he needed some Shi’ar tech to heal and the Danger Room was the only source of it within our solar system.

When Deathbird shows up to take out Pulse, X-Force (seeing him as a good-intended rebel much as they are, someone outside the system represented by Deathbird) 17000 Seconds Is How Many Hours cover his escape.

On his ship, he looks out at the stars and ponders if his next ‘target’ will be as forgiving:

The Silver Surfer!

A few things: this is actually a very well-written story.

It isn’t trite, it doesn’t talk down to the reader, and on first glance it is much less “random villain that has no effect on continuity” than the average Annual at this time would be.

I say that because I assumed that Pulse would be the main character linking these three issues together into a non-storyarc...

But as you’ll see, I was mistaken.

X-Men / Silver Surfer: Fugitive from Space by George Pérez My rating: 2 of 5 stars

And yes, I kind of regret placing all of these together, because X-Force | Cable 1996 Annual doesn’t deserve to be saddled with these...

Things, but at the same time: well, here we are.

X-Men Unlimited #13 is a story of the X-Men in space interacting with, wait for it, Deathbird and the Shi’ar, along with the Silver Surfer.

So you’d think this would all be related, right?

Well, so did I.

And to be fair, Deathbird makes mention of her recent spat with X-Force and Cable, but interestingly Pulse is left out of it entirely.

As the story picks up, Cyclops, Jean, Bishop, and Beast are already in space, along with Binary (Captain marvel, nowadays, for those keeping track).

There’s no explanation given as to how they got there or why they’re there.

Actually there is, but it’s done so weirdly I found it unfollowable.

There are flashbacks over and over again, every page or so, that aren’t clearly marked and don’t last long enough.

The crux of the story seems to center around the fact that Zenn-La has gone missing, and somehow this is affecting things here, and there’s a space station in trouble, I think the same one from The Dark Phoenix Saga...

I dunno.

I really wouldn’t be able to tell you.

In addition to Perez proving himself to be not-the-best writer, the art is just horrible...

Which is ironic, because I feel like things would have been a lot simpler if Perez would have just written and drawn it:

At least the art would have been good, and I feel like the story could have been more coherent then too, as things that are currently made unclear by the art could have been accurately portrayed.

The story ends with the Surfer looking devastated, as he has finally learned that Zenn-La, his home, has vanished from the stars.