I don’t like Palmer’s inks on this.  He didn’t just overpower JB’s pencils, he changed the piece completely.  I believe this was a cover image, so maybe he felt an obligation to make it grand with detail.  But JB’s Silver Surfer is powerful in his sleekness and simplicity.  And when you keep the character design simple, the coloring works much better.  Silver Surfer will be white, and we have heard much on the Forum about the graphic power of white space.  When the inker and the colorist try to fill in this white space, they are not considering the overall work.  Sometimes less is more.

And to be clear, this is not a knock on Tom Palmer.  I just love his work on X-MEN HIDDEN YEARS.  I was disappointed when the series didn’t feature JB inking has own work, but having Palmer on the book turned out to be a stroke of genius.  Palmer provided a kind of connective tissue between the Neal Adams run and the “all new all different” iteration that featured JB.

I think a successful inker is one who is able to embellish the penciled art and add a touch of their own style but doesn't overwhelm the piece. Their job is to enhance not take over and Palmer too often falls into that trap of making it his own.

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The small changes confuse me most. For example, SS's screen right leg was completely redrawn. Look at where the knee lines up with the surfboard on both drawings... why change that? 

I had no idea this was a John Byrne pencilled piece.

Palmer knew it was a cover image, so maybe there was a sense by him or the editors to make it Grand.  So they spilled a lot of ink on it!

The only good thing about this instance is that the penciled art gets some attention.  The pencilled piece is more cosmic and grand than the inked piece to me!