Infinity Gauntlet #1: Review

Other colorists: Ian Laughlin.

Description of tie-ins to this issue by Rob Johnson:-

Several issues of Silver Surfer and Dr Strange are tie-ins to the series, and they generally occupy specific slots within or between specific IG issues. Some issues of Hulk, Quasar and Sleepwalker are also connected, but their contents are spread over several IG issues. The Quasar and Sleepwalker titles are entangled with each other, but Hulk goes his own way.

During this issue Silver Surfer spends a long time explaining the Thanos problem to Dr Strange by recapping the events of his #34-35 (where Death gave Thanos a new life), the 2-issue Thanos Quest series (where Thanos gained the 6 Soul gems, renamed them the Infinity Gems and embedded them in the Infinity Gauntlet) and his #44-47 (where Thanos sent SS and Drax to Soul World inside the Soul Gem where they met Adam Warlock, Gamora and Pip the Troll, until Warlock sent them back to their bodies). Surfer has spent #48-50 battling his way to Earth. #50 ended with him crashing through Strange's skylight, which is where this issue starts.

Along the way Mephisto tried to steal the Gauntlet, and then became Thanos' lackey. There has been 1 official Infinity Gauntlet event tie-in, Cloak & Dagger (1988) #18, which features that Thanos/Mephisto 'partnership' but is otherwise unconnected to the event itself. The Marvel Chronology Project places that some time before the beginning of the event because Dagger is 1 of the disappeared and so is absent for nearly all of the event.

SS#51 is an official tie-in which only features Galactus and his herald Nova (Frankie Raye) (plus a flashback to Surfer persuading Nova to avoid feeding populated planets to Big G). Thanos stopped Galactus eating an unpopulated planet in SS#48, and now Nova has to give him a populated 1 to get his strength up to face Thanos again. It must occur between #48 and G's entrance in IG#2. It is only its place in the SS series that suggests it happens during or just after this issue.

The 2nd half of the bannered Quasar #26 happens during this issue. Thanos blames Eon for making the original Captain Marvel Protector Of The Universe in order to  defeat Thanos when he had the Cosmic Cube, so he's happy to hear that Eon died in Q#23. He takes time out from buttering up Death (before doing the finger-snap thing) to gatecrash Eon's funeral, beat up Quasar and cause Eon's 'body', which occupies the whole of his personal dimension, to expand through multiple portals into the real universe. The only direct connection to the IG event is that Thanos and Mephisto are seen in the double-throne palace Thanos created for Death in this issue.

Hulk #383 *isn't* bannered as a tie-in but is intimately connected to this issue. Hulk and Rick Jones are protecting Abomination's ex-wife Nadia from him when Rick disappears as part of Thanos' halving of the population. (Near the end of *our* issue we see Hulk learning that it's not just Rick who's gone.) It also shows versions of scenes in this issue involving Dr Strange, Surfer and Spider-Man. (But the last part of #383 actually happens within IG#3.)

And in the last page of the unbannered Sleepwalker #6 Sleepwalker's human host Rick Sheridan vanishes, leaving Sleepy stuck on Earth.

There are 1 and a bit official tie-ins between this issue and next:-
 
1st Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme #31. At the end of our issue Surfer collapses from the shock of sensing the disappearance of millions of people from Earth. In this issue Strange enters Surfer's mind and finds him giving up and saying that his career as SS has been a waste of time. Strange shows Surfer what the universe would have been like if he never became Galactus' herald, and restores his will to live. (Someone's been watching It's A Wonderful Life.)

And in the opening pages of Sleepwalker #7 the alien is blamed for the local disappearances. And 4 chained-together escaped convicts have an Origin and become the Chain Gang.