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Underground > Comic Books >

The Silver Surfer, Thanos and the gateway drug theory of comics

No star here laces

14:31 / 13.05.04

Oh Silver Surfer, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1.) "But it is NO MATCH for my POWER COSMIC"
2.) Internal struggles: freedom vs love; justice vs mercy; wanderlust vs peace; hatred of humanity vs love for humanity
3.) The Elders of the Universe: beings who are each the last of their race, kept alive by sheer dedication to a singular obsession
4.) "To me, my gleaming board"
5.) Only ever falling in love with people who are kept from you by destiny or who die immediately after you realise you love them
6.) Being able to breathe in space
7.) Becoming unemployed in a horrible bureaucracy and having no saleable skills because your only work experience was being herald to Galactus - "I'm sorry sir, we have no heralding vacancies at present"
8.) Encountering Mephisto, Galactus and warring Galactic Empires in the same story arc
9.) "Norrin Radd is no more. There is only THE SILVER SURFER"
10.) Clumsy Foulup

I walked into a comic shop the other day and found that there was a new series STARRING Thanos the Titan. And it's amazing! Thanos feels remorse and starts trying to atone for his sins! And gets a humorous sidekick! Why isn't everybody raving about this?

The Silver Surfer is sequential crack. I think that if certain things are gateway drugs into comics - The Invisibles, SLG goth whimsy,Shonen Jump etc. etc. then the Silver Surfer is the addict's last port of call. If you constantly crave MORE ridiculous scenarios, more silly pop explosions, more cod-philosophy, more extraordinary concepts and visuals, then there is not much further that you can go than the Silver Surfer.

He never battles against anything less than all-powerful forces that seek to destroy the cosmos. He is always racked by unsolvable dilemmas. He always makes absurdly grandiose statements.

If ordinary superhero comics are the Iliad and Hercules stories in greek mythology of the Marvel Universe, the Surfer is like the innermost mysteries. This is the highest level of the cosmology and the comic most capable of making me grin with sheer pleasure every time.

What does everybody else have to say about the Surfer?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:51 / 13.05.04

I was buying it around the time of the various Infinity series, every storyline was the Silver Surfer feeling guilt for the sins he was involved with as the Herald of Galactus, going into some mental manifestation of his guilt, fighting his dark side, winning, then it would all start over again. I lost interest. The Surfer is a bit like that Death Skier chap from the New Gods, a very silly idea that shouldn't have lasted any longer than the first story he was in (well, I don't know if that last bit applies to Black Skier Guy, but he does look silly).

15:18 / 13.05.04

Not so much a gateway drug perhaps as the nasty old skag of last resort...

17:15 / 13.05.04

The Silver Surfer is a brilliant character. He is Silver Age Kirby in its most purest form. Shakespearean and magical in every way that comics need to be. From the original Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Fantastic Fours, to the John Buscemas, to Moebius, to the 90s JIm Starlin crossovers. What more could anyone possibly want from the comic book medium?

The Surfer may be silly, but its a damn super-hero comic and he makes the silliness work perfectly.

But why aren't their any good Silver Surfer comics out today? There is one series that no one is reading so I assume it isn't that good. Why can't Marvel put some big names in the credits for Silver Surfer?

The Jim Starlin issues of the new Thanos were good, as was Marvel: the End, Infinity Abyss, etc.; but I happaned to stop picking that book up after the new team of Keith Giffen and Ron Lim. Is it still just as good?

Horatio Hellpop

18:31 / 13.05.04

my favourites are the stan lee/john buscema issues, stan lee/moebius parable, the jim starlin/ron lim stuck on planet (what were the circumstances? a reading of thanos' will or something. kafkaesque hilarity ensues.) and finally the j.m. demattes/jon muth issues that ended volume 3. those were perfect! i loved buying the new issue every month! like jack kirby, except graceful. i bought volume three for a long time. steve englehart's stories were fun, but seemed to really miss the character of the surfer and the moral explicit moral conflicts that made the original series so good (i don't want to overstate this, however, as the original series certainly has its fair share of generic fighting of villains.) oh! also really good was the galactus origin story by stan lee/jack kirby which was reprinted in the 80's as supervillain classics 1 i think. i basically like jim starlin's run but he was just using the surfer as yet another vehicle for his own personal cast of characters and thanos agenda, so while i enjoyed them, not as much as a surfer book. i would also have preferred starlin's artwork. i bought the ron marz run until around issue 85 because i was too young to know any better. i haven't picked up the new series because i was disappointed by the artwork and haven't heard anything particular glowing. did anyone read the dematteis run (of which i only have the muth isssues)? it seemd the perfect vehicle for his cosmic newage-yness.

19:20 / 13.05.04

I yearn fine space opera in the comics.

My suspicions are that Gerber and Starlin (who was, I think, Thanos' writer before Giffen, the present incumbent) colonised the best aspects of it some time ago, though.

Superman and Green Lantern offer the possibility, and tantalising glimpses (cf: Superman #204) of it. In the right hands...

14:02 / 14.05.04

If you want space opera, you might want to take a look at the Adam Strange mini coming up. At the very least, he looks less silly now.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12846

14:19 / 14.05.04

All I've read is the Essential Silver Surfer (Vol. 1). It ends with him giving up on trying to be good & turning to evil. What happens after that?

I ought to love stuff like "To me, my gleaming board," but so far the Surfer just annoys me. He's so snotty and stuck in his own viewpoint, and he's such a total mark! He's always like, EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING SAYS THAT I CANNOT TRUST YOU... but uh, okay, I'll let you out of that box...

14:38 / 14.05.04

What's the "clumsy foulup" in Surfer lore?

No star here laces

16:11 / 16.05.04

Clumsy Foulup is an incompetent space pirate from Cap'n Reptyl's crew who is used as a tool by The Contemplator and via an unlikely series of events ends up as supreme leader of the Kree owing to a piece of "accidental heroism" in the Kree-Skrull war...

21:54 / 16.05.04

Having just re-read Mitefall after the Batman thread, I feel this is a good place to quote this:

[Stoner schlub radiating angelic energy in Azrael costume]
"Once, when I was under the influence of a hallucingoneic substance, I read something that I never forgot. It said that when the Golden Light of Purity shines, no evil or corruption can exist in the glow that it casts*"

*"Possibly in a Silver Surfer comic -- editor"

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

06:03 / 17.05.04

All I've read is the Essential Silver Surfer (Vol. 1). It ends with him giving up on trying to be good & turning to evil. What happens after that?

That's an odd little story in Marvel history. If you notice, that one is illustrated by Jack Kirby, who was brought in to save the series, as it was selling poorly. Lee loved writing the comic, since he got to use his old morality play plots he used in Amazing Adult Fantasy and the like, but there wasn't a market for that sort of thing. In an attempt to try and save the book (and maybe placate Kirby, who was upset that his character had been given to another artist to work on), he turned it over to Kirby, who did a typical Kirby action story. Kirby was going to do a couple more issues and then turn it over to Herb Trmipe, but the sales were so low that the next issue didn't come out.

Stan, who had little to do with the story other than scripting it, never followed up on it.

A few years ago, Keith Giffen did a story in one of the Spider-Man round robin comics that wrapped it up, but it was pretty bad. I tend to think that the Surfer just had a very bad day and got over it.

Horatio Hellpop

12:24 / 17.05.04

are there any steve englehart fans and his particular style of cosmic space opera? i can't say that i'm particularly fond of clumsy foulup or any of the characters from that era (question: the elders of the universe aren't englehart's creation, are they? they were kind of cool) although i enjoyed ron lim's art during the early issues, even though his supermuscular surfer is kind of antithetical to the elegant buscema/moebius surfer that feels most appropriate to me. what is my problem with englehart...they are fun disposable comics (after a number of years, mind you). maybe it's just the serialized narrative that i have a problem holding onto, as superificial plot issues, which can be very involving, once having lost the element of surprise completely, have difficulty retaining any kind of glamour.

Horatio Hellpop

12:25 / 17.05.04

and the surfer is always so angry and agressive in the englehart/starlin/marz comics. what's up with that?

No star here laces

15:56 / 17.05.04

I actually like those ones a lot. Foulup isn't a great character, but I just like the name. I think the Surfer has every right to be a little bit pissy. My favourite arc ever is the one where the elders of the universe try to destroy Galactus so they can bring about the end of the universe and become Galactuses of the next universe. The elders are just the best idea ever.

19:08 / 20.05.04

The Thanos ongoing. I was in two minds.

I love Thanos. Love him. He's easily one of my favourite characters, when done right. It was for him that I read the Inifity mini-series'. And loved them.

Did you read "Thanos Quest"? The lead-in to Infinity Gauntlet? Great stuff. And the "Cosmic Powers" limited series. And that one-shot where he brings Captain Marvel back to life for while. And the holiday special with Gamorra.

He has to be drawn by Ron Lim, though.

What was the point of all this? Oh, yeah, I was worried that the new series would just be overkill. You can have too much of a good thing. (See Scorpius in the last season of Farscape) I just read my first issue of "Thanos" (issue 7) and...it's good! Ron Lim art! Cosmic talk! Looking bad-ass! A-woohoo!

Death actually speaks to him (in the form of little-girl-what-don't-look-like-vertigo's-death-at-all-no-siree) and the conversation make sense.

I might have to start buying this.

Plus the first lines are:
His singular goal: ultimate power! He is Thanos, the Mad Titan!

Ya gotta love that...