The Surfer Rises

[Mild spoilers about FANTASTIC FOUR 2 are contained in this post.]

The Silver Surfer and I are almost the same age.

The Surfer debuted in the

March 1966 issue of the FANTASTIC FOUR, which would have been released in December 1965 or January 1966. I made my debut in April 1965. So ol' Norrin Radd's a few years younger than myself.

The Galactus story, like most memorable superhero stories, tied into a legend deeply ingrained in western legends and mythology: The destruction of the world. The world sees all sorts of Revelations-type phenomena, such as the skies turning to flame, before the herald The Silver Surfer floats to earth and summons Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds -- a cosmic being (who appears, at least to human eyes, as a giant in purple armor) who feeds on entire worlds to survive.

The theme of the story is a recurring one in Lee/Kirby works: that mankind is a primitive race with the potential to either become magnificent, or to destroy itself. That was a particularly powerful concept in the sixties, which saw the proliferation of nuclear weapons simultaneous with the space race. In the story [mild spoiler warning for an over forty year old story], the Four and their pals win the day by impressing first the Surfer, then Galactus with humanity's potential, so that they cease to see people as merely ants crawling on the picnic spread that is Earth. They impress the Surfer when the Thing's girlfriend, Alicia Masters, persuades him that humans possess spirit and courage. They impress Galactus in a rather thuggish manner: Reed Richards holds a gun (a really, really, powerful gun) to the Big G's head and makes him an offer he can't refuse.

Over forty years later, the movie FANTASTIC FOUR 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER combines that story has combined with two other Lee/Kirby FF epics (the FF Annual in which Reed Richards and Sue Storm get married; and a later multi-issue story in which Doctor Doom steals the Surfer's power). Last night, we saw it in the Cinerama Dome -- a Hollywood theater that is older than either the stories adapted or me.

My opinion: Fun! Much more fun than the first FF movie (which I enjoyed, though it did not greatly impress me). The story benefits from not containing an origin. The first movie was too consumed with explaining how the Four get their powers and become world-saving heroes, which takes time away from the real attraction: Seeing them act like world-saving heroes. With that out of the way, this one is all hero-action, all the time.

It also benefits from far better performances from the weak points in the previous movie, Ioan Griffud as Richards and Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. (Since the actors are probably at the same level as before, I would credit the direction -- by Tim Story, who also directed the first movie -- with the improvement.)

Moreover, by drawing on the Galactus story, the movie expands the scope of the film beyond that of any previous Marvel adaptation -- or, indeed, beyond that of any previous superhero movie. While comic books think nothing of throwing in other planets and dimensions, movies have been more cautious about going there, concerned that they will ask the movie-going populace to believe too many impossible things before breakfast. Here, the movie postures the Four as heroes dealing with threats on a galactic -- indeed, universal -- level.

The movie's biggest asset, however, is the guy in the title: the Silver Surfer. Although Hollywood has tried to adapt the Surfer to movies before (in the early '80's, a Surfer movie was in development as an Olivia Newton-John project, believe it or not), it really took modern motion-capture technology to create a Surfer who truly lives up to those Kirby drawings from the mid-sixties. And the movie really does show us the Silver Surfer of the comics. This Surfer does not speak as much as his four-color counterpart -- and, mercifully, he does not whine like him -- but he is, truly, The Surfer. And the combination of Doug Jones's physical acting, Lawrence Fishburn's voice acting, and millions in technology make us believe that a Silver man can surf the cosmos.

As an adaptation of the comic book story, the movie does not really work. It does not follow the themes outlined above -- except to the extent that the Four impress the Surfer with humanity's potential. (Meanwhile, the military do much to teach him humanity's darker side. Think "extraordinary rendition.") In particular, Galactus comes off far differently than in the comic -- not only in physical form (giants in purple armor theoretically won't work as well in movies as in comics) but also in general attitude. The movie works best if those who know the original story forget it.

The bottom line: This is a terrifc movies for those who want to step out of the summer heat and watch cinematic simulicrums of Lee and Kirby creations slug it out on the silver screen.

All of the images are copyrighted by Marvel Comics.

Big, Bouncy, Shiny and Whiney

On the eve of the Silver Surfer's debut as a movie character in the second Fantastic Four movie (and with the Surfer's simonized dome protruding from the tops of billboards all over SoCal), Marvel has issued the SILVER SURFER OMNIBUS, which collects all 18 issues of the Surfer's late-sixties early-seventies comic book series -- plus a frequently-reprinted Surfer solo story from a FANTASTIC FOUR annual, and a Surfer parody story from Marvel's satire comic NOT BRAND ECHH -- into a substantial, 570-page color coffee-table hardcover.



The book retails for $75 (although I bought mine for $60 at my local comics emporium; and you can get it for about that price at Amazon and Barnes & Noble online). That's actually a pretty fair price, since Marvel's "Masterworks" reprint books run about $60 for ten issues' worth of reprints (with less quality). Plus, the Surfer comics featured longer-than-normal stories; and the Omnibuses, unlike the Masterworks editions, feature the letter columns from each issue.

The comic series is a fascinating slice of comics history from the era of the King and Bobby Kennedy assasinations, of Vietnam and demonstrations. Writer/editor Stan Lee used the comics as a vehicle for his most philosophical writing -- resulting in lots of panels in which the Surfer sails around the outer atmosphere, gesticulating like a ham Shakespearean actor, whining about man's inhumanity to man, interspersed with kick-ass action sequences. The stories in general take a dark view toward humanity, emphasizing the menace of mobs, intolerance as the normal human condition, and paranoia vying with greed.

This mix does not necessarily result in uniformly well-written stories. Lee's forte was and is not necessarily brilliant plots -- indeed, most of his Marvel stories consisted of loose plots or discussions with the artists, leaving the artists to essentially plot and lay out the story before Lee stepped in and wrote the dialogue. Here, Lee must contend with a protagonist who is powerful enough to rearrange the molecular structure of matter with a gesture. About the only limit to the Surfer's power is the barrier that his former boss, Galactus, placed around the Earth to pen the Surfer in -- the cause of much of the Surfer's kvetching. Faced with trying to create challenges for such a puissant main character, Lee makes the Surfer's nemesis no less than the Devil Himself -- personified as Mephisto, whom artist John Buscema depicts as a red, muscular man with a leonine face. Since Mephisto moves in mysterious ways, his plots don't always have to make strict sense -- and they don't. One has to read the two-part story in which Mephisto turns the Flying Dutchman into a claw-handed cyborg (???)to appreciate the loopiness of the story.

Where Lee's writing shone, however, was in his language. Lee is a writer who, like Bradbury and Vonnegut, is in love with the music of the English language. Working in the clipped vernacular endemic to comics, Lee nevertheless uses rhythm, alliteration, bardic appellations, and a sparkling vocabulary to make the abundant dialogue sing. There are phrases in these stories that pop into my head at times decades after I've read them, such as Mephisto's description of his negotiation technique: "Now, where CAJOLERY has failed -- let CARNAGE succeed!"

The best run of the series comes early, in issues 3 through 5. Issue 3 features Mephisto's New Testament style attempt to first tempt, then beat, then extort the Surfer into giving up his soul -- including using the Surfer's girlfriend from his home planet, the Barbara Feldman lookalike Shalla Bal, as a bargaining chip. Issue 4 is a beautifully-drawn battle between the Surfer and the Marvel versions of the Norse Gods, including Thor. Issue 5 is a convoluted yet intriguiging story, in which the Surfer is faced with raising a lot of money in a hurry. Being an honest soul, he goes out in a trenchcoat, sunglasses and slacks -- looking unsettlingly like Michael Jackson would thirty years later -- and tries to get a job; but can't land one without experience or a Social Security card. He tries to rob a bank, but his conscience gets the better of him. He finally acquires the money by cheating his way through a rigged craps game, letting the thugs who ran the game roll him, and then stealing the money back!

The art for these issues is, without exception, excellent -- some of the best Marvel has produced. John Buscema drew every issue except the last (which Surfer creator Jack Kirby illustrated), and his art before and after was never as superb in its spectacle and storytelling as it was here.

The letters columns are a treat in themselves. In light of its philosophical bent, the column attracted correspondence from college students across the nation, themselves engaged in the societal soul-searching of the time. The letters definitely do not toe any line of political correctness. In issue 5 of the series, physicist Al Harper befriends and aids the Surfer. When SS asks Harper why, Harper -- who is black -- muses, "Mebbe it's 'cause I know how it FEELS to be pushed around!" In issue 8's letter column, a correspondent from North Carolina apparently takes this comment personally. "That was uncalled for!" he protests. "For months you've been knocking 'us' (you know who I mean). It sounds as if we were all big, bad murderers who liked hurting minorities." The writer insists, "I'm not a racist," but states he doesn't want Marvel "ruined" by something "that really doesn't concern you as comic publishers" -- i.e., a "civil rights protest." The response to the letter replies that "such matters as racism and equality do concern us . . . as human beings."

The SILVER SURFER OMNIBUS is worth checking out -- not just as a time capsule, but as a fun example of what made Marvel Marvel.

Surfing in Silver

When TERMINATOR 2 came out in the early '90's, it was obvious to comic book fans that the technology used to create the liquid-metal T-1000 would likely be used one day to replicate one of Jack Kirby's most visually striking creations: The Silver Surfer. This weekend, the teaser trailer for FANTASTIC FOUR: THE RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER is playing in theatres with NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM; and the image above, from the movie, makes evident that the movie's version of Norrin Radd is indeed the descendant of the T-1000.

Although the comics have always described the Surfer as wearing a silver-metal coating, the comics have been inconsistent on depicting him that way. Kirby drew him as sort of a gun-metal color, rather than with a mirror-silver finish; he had a metallic glint, but was not reflective. And John Buscema, who drew him in his late-sixties-early-seventies series (which, as the panels above show, depicted him as the universe's most philosophical whiner), essentially drew him as high-gloss white. Only when the Surfer's series was resurrected in the mid-eighties, by the team of writer Steve Engelhart and artist Marshall Rogers, did Rogers finally draw the Surfer as shiny silver.

As I blogged last year, I liked the first FF movie (though many didn't), and based on the trailer description I'm looking forward to this sequel.

The images above are copyrighted by Marvel Entertainment.