After like the ninth time this happens to you, that's kind of on you, Norrin.

I mean, it had reached the point where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby themselves had parodied it, in Not Brand Echh #1 in 1967! (Page from Mars Will Send No More.)

But today we've got another book in Marvel's occasional animated style: from 1998, Marvel Adventures #16, "New Worlds for Old" Written by Ralph Macchio, pencils by Andy Kuhn, inks by Harry Candelario. (With "Skrullduggery" on the cover!) The Fantastic Four summon the Silver Surfer back to earth to help them defend against Galactus; except that is a lie. Multiple lies. Galactus isn't coming, this wasn't the Fantastic Four, this wasn't even earth! The Skrulls, including the Super-Skrull, had lured the Surfer to Counter-Earth. They were going to use him to power a weapon to sap energy from the original flavor earth. (It does seem doubtful the Surfer would be fooled by Counter-Earth, even if cosmologically speaking it's right there.)

Drained of his power cosmic, the Surfer is then set free; as the Super-Skrull intends to use him to create anti-alien hysteria. Well, him and a Skrull disguised as the Surfer going on a rampage. Still, the Surfer saves an old man from some muggers, and in return the old man gives him some Beatles lyrics that help him out: "The movement you need is on your shoulder." Summoning his board from the Skrulls' Baxter Building, the Surfer is able to smash-and-grab the fuel cell with his stolen power and recover it. The Super-Skrull runs through his Fantastic Four powers, but is no match for him, and is forced to reveal the government officials replaced by Skrulls. The Skrull Empress calls back her invasion force, knowing it was a lost cause; and the president is back in charge, but it's not quite that simple. The Skrulls had destroyed the Surfer's reputation, and the only way to calm the public's fears was for him to be "captured." The Surfer leaves Counter-Earth largely "feared and despised," but knows he did the right thing.

I had not read much else of this series, although the Surfer would appear a few times in it. I'd like to see the last issue with Captain America as well. And while that title has been used elsewhere, New Worlds For Old was a socialist treatise by H.G. Wells.