I just got back a few hours ago from watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. My nine-year-old and I are still buzzing about the movie. Although purists will have problems with the presentation, I loved it as a longtime fan and my son loved it just because it was so darn cool. He laughed at all the one-liners at about the same time his dad did — proving the boy is getting really quick-witted or I’m not as fast as I think I am. I actually think we’re meeting somewhere in the middle, probably at about age seven.
As everyone knows from the title, this movie introduces the Silver Surfer to the movie-going world for the first time. There have been previous incarnations of the character, including guest spots in cartoon series such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four animated series. There was even a short-lived cartoon series about the Silver Surfer.
It’s going to be interesting to see if the movie crowd reacts any differently to the character than the comics fans. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the character back in the 1960s in pretty much the same context as he was used in the movie. When they wrote a comic book series just about the Silver Surfer, it only lasted eighteen issues the first time. Fans loved the character of tormented Norrin Radd when he was exiled by Galactus to be bound to the earth, but it was just too much of a good thing. They didn’t pick up the monthly series.
There have been a couple of comics series runs since then, but even though the character fascination is there, the longevity for the fan base isn’t. It’s almost like people love stories about people reacting to the Silver Surfer’s plight more than watching him deal with it himself.
Although the Silver Surfer’s backstory was touched on in the movie, there’s not a lot of detail. We know that he’s in servitude to Galactus to save his own world and he gave up his love to do that. That was one of the main conceits of the comic book version, that idea of noble self-sacrifice. And the fact that, despite all the power cosmic he had, he could never go home again.
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