Pretty much since Fantastic Four’s abysmal opening day
there have been rumors circulating that the big wigs up at 20th
Century Fox are considering pulling Fantastic
Four 2 from its June 9th 2017 release date and swapping out for Deadpool 2. To the ladies and gentlemen
of 20th Century Fox, if that is indeed the case, I humbly request
you return the Fantastic Four’s rights back to Marvel and parent company
Disney. The Four aren’t making the money that you obviously hoped it would, and
it seems like you’re having difficulty utilizing the characters to their
fullest potential. So either sell the rights back to Marvel, or work out a deal
like Sony did with Spider-Man. That’s really the only way I see you guys making
any money back after such an awful opening weekend. Enough of this dreary talk,
let’s move on to the main focus of today, the Silver Surfer.
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| I do have to wonder how one navigates deep space with just a surf board. |
For the Silver Surfer’s origins we
turn our attention to the planet Zenn-La, a world orbiting the star Deneb. It’s
one of the top twenty brightest stars that we can see from Earth. The man that
would become the Silver Surfer was at the time known as Norrin Radd. Norrin’s
world was a peaceful, utopian world. Norrin’s people were an ancient, highly
advanced culture, which was good, but they as a collective group had long since
lost the desire to explore the cosmos. Norrin, as one of those idealistic young
scholars that are so popular in works of fiction, was bored senseless by the
perfection of Zenn-La. Like many restless youths, he wanted to see new and far
off places, experience new worlds and cultures. And, very unfortunately for
Norrin, he got his wish. Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, had come to Zenn-La and
planned to, obviously, devour it. Somehow, Norrin was able to get Galactus’ attention
as he began the world eating process and offered Galactus a deal. In exchange
for Zenn-La’s safety, and by extension the safety of his friends, family, and
girlfriend Shalla-Bal, Norrin would serve Galactus as his Herald. Basically,
his job would be to seek out new worlds for Galactus to consume, which would
shorten the times between feedings. Galactus agreed. Norrin was imbued with a
small portion of Galactus’ cosmic power, known simply as the power Cosmic, and
was transformed into the Silver Surfer. As Norrin, he’d planned to use his
position to lead Galactus only to worlds that hadn’t developed intelligent
life. Unfortunately, the Devourer of Worlds predicted this desire, and scrambled
Norrin’s brain during the transformation. The end result is an immensely powerful
being more than willing to lead Galactus to the closest worlds to sate is
unending Hunger.
The Surfer served Galactus for an
unspecified amount of time, I’ve always assumed it was decades if not
centuries, before leading Galactus to Earth. While waiting for Galactus’ arrival,
he encountered, battled, and got to know the Fantastic Four. Something about
the nobility and courage of the team of heroes touched The Surfer, and
convinced him to fight Galactus to protect the Earth. Under normal
circumstances The Surfer would equate to a particularly annoying Gnat buzzing
around Galactus, but he got help from the FF and the ever vigilant Uatu the
Watcher. The six superbeings made Earth more trouble than it was worth to
Galactus, who relented. But, as a bit of payback for The Surfer’s rebellion,
Galactus used his power to erect an invisible barrier around the planet. It’s
function? Keeping The Surfer stuck on Earth.
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| It must be pretty awesome to fly through the cosmos like that. |
While initially depressed about
being stuck on just one planet yet again, The Surfer found ways to keep himself
occupied. Chiefly in battling some of Marvel’s most powerful villains, like
Doctor Doom who desired The Surfer’s Power Cosmic, and the arch-demon Mephisto,
who loves collecting souls of powerful beings. After getting acquainted with
some of Earth’s best and brightest, The Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor the
Sub-Mariner formed a team that they rather stupidly called the Titans Three.
The Surfer and Namor need to stop hanging out with the FF so much. The mystical
Doctor Strange joined soon after, and they changed the name to the much more
impressive sounding Defenders. The Surfer enjoyed the company of his new team,
but still had a desire to return to Space and Zenn-La. This led him to
frequently flying up to the barrier and slamming into it. This led to some
friction with his team, and The Surfer left the team. A while later Reed
Richards was able to weaken the barrier around Earth just enough for the Surfer
to escape. He flew straight home, but discovered, to his horror, that Galactus
had wreaked his vengeance on Zenn-La too. The planet had been consumed, left
life less. But, for some reason, Galactus let the people of Zenn-La survive.
Even the Devourer of Worlds isn’t a total jerk, apparently. Unfortunately,
Mephisto had seized this opportunity to kidnap Shalla-Bal and taken her to
Earth as part of a plan to gain The Surfer’s noble soul. The Surfer was able to
defeat Mephisto. Mephisto used the last of his strength to send Shalla-Bal back
to Zenn-La, in sort of a final “forget” you to The Surfer. The Surfer, knowing
he was re-trapped on Earth and anticipating Mephisto’s actions, transferred a
portion of his power to Shalla-Bal. Once she was back on Zenn-La, she used her
new power to reinvigorate the planet. Why this isn’t standard practice for
Galactus, you know to eat a planet but then insure that it would live again and
thus feed him again, I’ll never know.
A short time late, he was forced to
battle Galactus again, and his new Herald, Terrax. The Surfer was able to
defeat Terrax, and finally learned how to finally break free of Galactus’
barrier. It was actually thanks to the Thing, in a classic Dumber-guy-has-an-idea-that-the-smart-guys-couldn’t-see
set up, suggest that the Surfer fly up in a spacecraft instead of flying
through under his own power. The Surfer was finally free to move about the
cosmos. Since, The Silver Surfer has become one of the most powerful
spacefaring superhero of the Marvel Universe. He is often called in to handle
cosmic conflicts, typically between intergalactic powers like the Kree and
Skrull empires, or in dealings with his former master Galactus.
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| Tell him his name sounds silly, I dare you. |
Eventually, he’s forced through a
portal to the planet Sakaar. There, he was weakened enough for the tyrannical rulers
of Sakaar to implant him with an “obedience disk.” That advanced bit of slavery
tech forced the Surfer to obey or suffer mind boggling agony. He was forced to
battle the Hulk, whom was exiled to this planet, and his Warbound. Hulk and the
Warbound were able to out think and overpower the Surfer and removed his
obedience disk. Once freed, the Surfer used his power to free every slave on
Sakaar. He offered to take the Hulk home, but the titan declined.
Later, once he was reinstated as
one of Galactus’ Heralds, The Surfer led his master back to Sakaar. He theorized
that another ancient cosmic power known as the “Old Power” could feed Galactus
and leave him sated for, hopefully, thousands of years. He was opposed by the
son of the Hulk, Skaar. The spawn of the Hulk proved to be as tough an opponent
as the Hulk himself, and overpowered The Surfer. He was once again outfitted
with an obedience disk, but is freed shortly after. Skaar’s mother Caiera sacrificed
herself to protect Sakaar and hopefully stop Galactus. The Old Power flowing
through Caiera did feed Galactus, but it unfortunately had some side effects. The
energy did feed Galactus, but the foreign energies proved addictive to the cosmic
being. He started searching the Universe for more planets that held the Old
Power. After that, The Surfer was rebound to Earth, this time one of the most
horrible places imaginable, Oklahoma. Hey, The Surfer is an explorer by nature,
can you think of a worse place for an explorer to be stuck? Truth be told, be
isn’t “stuck” there, but the farther he travels from Oklahoma, the more his
power wanes. We all have to find ways to make due, don’t we?
The source of Norrin Radd’s power
is the Power Cosmic. This ancient cosmic power gives The Surfer several distinct
advantages. The energy greatly enhances The Surfer’s body, giving him super strength,
endurance, and senses. He can live without food, water, sleep, or air. He can
survive in the vacuum and cold of space. The power gives him the ability to
navigate through deep space on his own, and travel at incredible speeds. He can
fly up to and surpassing the speed of light. He enters hyperspace when he goes
beyond the speed of light. He has nearly limitless power over the physical
universe. He can heal just about anything, be it a dying human or planet. He
can create bursts of energy so powerful that they can destroy an entire planet.
Norrin has a mental connection to his board. He can command it with a thought,
summon it from great distances, and even recreate it on the rare occasion that it’s
damaged or destroyed.
The Silver Surfer has been used
sparingly in Marvel franchises. Which is understandable, it’s kind of hard to
introduce a being with such power and make him an interesting character.
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| Doom thought he could barter with this guy. Who just dug a colossal tunnel into the Earth with his bare hands. It turned out as well as you can expect. |
He appeared in an episode of Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. entitled
“Fear Itself.” While this is his introductory episode, his interactions with
the Hulk make it clear that they’ve know each other for a long time. He is
battling a cosmic being known as Null the Living Darkness. He’s accidently
knocked out by the Agents, which allows Null to escape. Hulk and his team help
The Surfer take down Null and banish him back into deep space. As he leaves,
the Surfer promised to let the universe know about their contribution to Null’s
defeat. Being a nice guy, I assume he’ll leave out the whole “they knocked me
out first” part out.
Back in 2010 Planet Hulk was adapted into an animated film. Unfortunately, the
Silver Surfer was left out due to licensing issues. He was replaced by the
equally powerful Beta Ray Bill, but it’s a shame that we couldn’t see the
Surfer as he was meant to be seen.
We saw a live action version of The
Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of
the Silver Surfer. He was portrayed by Doug Jones. In it, The Surfer arrives on Earth and begins preparing it for
Galactus. By drilling giant holes into the planet. Huh. While creating these
holes, he comes into contact with Doctor Doom, who is healed from the injuries
he suffered in the previous film for some reason, and the Fantastic Four. Human
Torch touches him and then develops the power to switch abilities with the
other members of the FF. The Fantastic Four team up with the military, and also
Doctor Doom, and are able to separate The Surfer with from his board. Doom then
steals it, and starts causing trouble. The Team are able to convince The Surfer
to help them stop Galactus, and get him his board back. This movie was bad,
really really bad. The core problem from a story telling perspective being
this, if Galactus is simply a sentient dark cloud, how the heck could Norrin
make a deal with it? Just doesn’t make sense. I liked the design of the Silver
Surfer, but that was about it.
The Silver Surfer is an okay
character. I do like the characters origin, as a reluctant servant turned
superhero. Unfortunately, the sheer power of the character makes it very hard
to get into him. When you can restore or destroy a planet with a snap of his
fingers, it’s hard to come up with a stories that make him seem riveting.
Granted, seeing him take on a space armada single handedly is pretty awesome. I’d
like to see him used in a few more projects, but given the troubles that Fantastic Four have had under the care
of 20th Century Fox, I can see that happening anytime soon. Next
time, I’ll finish this Theme Week with the Fantastic Four’s top baddy, Doctor
Doom.
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