The Silver Surfer was created in 1966, first appearing in Fantastic Four issue 48.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Surfer is a product of the Marvel Method; a collaborative
technique at Marvel in which Kirby would working on a brief synopsis to draw individual scenes
and plot details, and then Lee would add dialogue and captions.
When the two were working together on the Galactus Trilogy story arc, which introduced
Galactus, Kirby handed over his pencil art for the story, and to Lee’s surprise, there
was the silver surfer, a character they had never discussed, a character that Lee called
“a nut on some sort of flying surfboard.”
Kirby believed Galactus should have some sort of herald, a fallen angel to his god like
character.
So today, we’re diving into some tidbits about the character that you may not have
known, with our list of the top 10 Silver Surfer shocking facts.
Let’s get to it!
10 Origin Before the Silver Surfer became the Silver
Surfer and Galactus’ herald, he was a mortal the name of Norrin Rad from the planet Zenn-La.
Zenn-La was considered a utopia; a planet free of crime, disease, hunger, poverty and
desires.
Norrin was named after the scientists responsible for eliminating barbarism from the planet.
A young astronomer, he grew restless, wanting more of a challenge in life, and buried himself
deep in the history of Zenn-La’s struggles and past.
Challenges would find him though, when his life changed forever thanks to an alien spacecraft
that broke through Zenn-La’s defences.
Norrin convinced the Council of Scientists on Zenn-La to let him go up in a space craft
to find out who the invaders were.
Turns out it was Galactus.
In an act of heroism, Norrin offered to become Galactus’ herald in exchange for the cosmic
entity to not eat Zenn-La.
Galactus accepted his offer, and for almost 100 years, the Silver Surfer served Galactus,
doing his best to find planets that were energy rich and devoid of sentient life; an increasingly
difficult goal that eventually caused conflict between Surfer and Galactus.
But more on that later.
9 His Parents If that weren’t tragic enough, this fact
will definitely make you feel for poor Norrin.
His parents both committed suicide on separate occasions.
His mother was the first to take her life.
Elmar Radd committed suicide when Norrin was a young child, feeling as if life on their
home planet of Zenn-La was ‘too perfect’ in a stepford wives sense, and she was ill
suited to its stifling environment.
Her death was accounted for in Silver Surfer vol 3 issue 57 in 1991, where during a battle
with Thanos, the two take a tour throughout Surfer’s memories.
After she died, his father, Jartran, raised Norrin, and fathered a child with another
woman, a boy named Fennan.
Jartran was a leader in the civil war on Zenn-La.
He raised Norrin to be intellectual, encouraging him to seek knowledge and achievement rather
than pursue hedonistic desires.
Jartran’s suicide was prompted by an accusation that he had committed idea theft.
8 His Speed Surfer is exceptionally fast.
He can travel 500,000 light years within a matter of seconds.
He’s pulled off extraordinary feats with his speed, including shattering through several
walls of Vibranium, causing them to exploded on contact with him when they collided.
He can be anywhere in the galaxy within seconds, covering what would normally take over 100,000
lights years in mere moments.
He’s flown from one end of the universe to another.
He’s even proven capable of time travel in the past.
7 His Board One of the reasons why fans disliked the Fantastic
Four Rise of the Silver surfer movie was because of how Surfer was depicted.
Among MANY other reasons, let’s be fair here.
Anywho, in the movie, Surfer gets his powers from the board, which is far from the case
in the comics.
In the comics, he acquires his board when he becomes Galactus’ herald, with it being
made out of the same materials he was constructed out of.
Jack Kirby had actually included the Surfboard because he was tired of drawing space ships.
It’s a very powerful object.
It’s mentally linked to Surfer, and he uses mental commands to control it whenever its
not within his immediate vicinity.
Surfer can literally trap living matter within his board, and then destroy it.
He once hit the Hulk so hard with his board that it knocked him unconscious In tales to
Astonish issue 93.
It’s nearly impervious, although once in the comics, Hercules broke it and then used
it to murder Surfer.
But whenever the board gets damaged or destroyed, Surfer just creates another one, having the
ability to manipulate matter.
6 Sustenance The Surfer doesn’t need anything to sustain
himself.
He converts matter into energy, meaning he doesn’t need food, or air, or water, sleep,
all of the things other living organisms require.
Galactus encased his body in a life-preserving silvery substance of his own creation, which
shields Surfer from the heat, the cold and from a lack of oxygen, stating that not even
the all consuming inferno of the hottest sun would harm him.
5 Carnage Cosmic In 1998, in the Amazing Spider-Man issue 430
and 431, Silver Surfer became Carnage Cosmic when he bonded with the Carnage symbiotic.
After Carnage escapes captivity when the institute that Cletus Kassidy was being held it cuts
costs, and therefore cuts the funding for the microwave field containing him.
Carnage escapes after it’s disabled, and Silver Surfer decides to fight it in space
in order to keep civilians protected.
Once it’s revealed that the Carnage symbiote was keeping the cancer in Cletus Kassidy’s
stomach at bay, the Silver surfer comes back down to Earth, bonded with Carnage, with the
intention of giving it back to Kassidy.
Surfer convinces Spider-Man that that’s a good idea, and then encases Kassidy and
Carnage in an ethereal energy shell in order to ensure that the villain won’t harm anyone.
4 Cured Bruce Banner One of the Silver Surfer’s abilities is
to use the Power Cosmic to heal others.
This includes a time where he ‘healed’ Bruce Banner of the Hulk, removing all of
his gamma radiation in order to be rid him of the big green monster.
This happened in Incredible Hulk vol 1 issue 250, and, fun fact, despite the two characters
having met one another in the past, this issue is written as if it’s the first time that
Hulk has met the Surfer, leading comic historians to suggest that perhaps the Hulk didn’t
remember Surfer.
Anywho, Surfer didn’t cure Banner in this to help Bruce out though; it was because he
was annoyed with him after he tried to get Hulk to help him break through the forcefield
that Galactus had put around Earth in order to trap Surfer there.
Unfortunately for Bruce though, he wasn’t able to survive without the Hulk, meaning
Surfer had to reinstate the radiation and return Hulk to him.
There was also a point where surfer cured Rhino of the condition that game him his abilities,
too.
He’s also been known to regenerate himself and his board from time to time, also using
the Power Cosmic to do so.
And he can even revitalize or evolve organic life on a planet wide scale, as seen in Silver
Surfer vol 3 issue 104.
While he’s capable of healing living organisms, Surfer isn’t capable of reviving the dead.
3 Black Holes The Silver Surfer can survive travelling through
a black hole.
That’s impressive AF.
If you were sucked into a black hole, the gravitational pull would stretch you body
apart, with the stretching being so potent that your body would be completely torn apart
before you could get really far inside of one.
Not only can silver surfer survive travelling through or being around a black hole, he can
also create them, which is pretty darn terrifying.
Surfer is capable of surviving in almost any environment, which includes travelling through
deep space and hyperspace without needing any sort of protection.
2 His Emotions One of the Silver Surfer’s most notable
traits is that his emotions are less intensive than human’s emotions.
While he was serving Galactus as his herald, Galactus’ destruction of the first planet
that Silver Surfer found for him almost drove him mad.
This caused Galactus to alter his mind, which suppressed Norrin’s memories and emotions.
This adjustment made it easier for Norrin to explore the galaxy and offer up inhabited
worlds to Galactus, which included Earth.
But that doesn’t mean that he’s emotionless; if anything, Surfer is incredibly sensitive
to the emotions around him, having the ability to sense the emotions of humans and perceive
those emotions empathetically.
Sometimes these emotions are overwhelming for him, feeling them as if he were a living
magnet.
1 The UN Back in 2004’s Silver Surfer volume 5 issue
5, Surfer is given citizenship to every single country in the world as a means of a thank
you from the United Nations.
So let’s back track a sec.
In this series, he saves the Earth from his home planet Zenn-La, several different UN
representatives from various counties wanted to give him the gift of nationality to their
countries.
This included Wakanda, France, Egypt, Japan, Russia, China and India.
Later on, the rest of the world follows suit and he would gain the citizenship to the other
remaining 189 countries, which was a pretty nice gesture to do.
I mean, how do you give a gift to an individual who can theoretically have any material object
he wanted?
Give him something intangible and meaningful, of course.
There we have it friends!
Which of these facts surprised you?
Which other Silver Surfer facts do you think we should have included on our list?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know your thoughts!
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