Jack Kirby drew the Silver Surfer like no one else before or since. He made him truly an alien among us, a being strange and enigmatic who moved faster than light and was possessed of a power greater than most can imagine. He was a god laid low, and angel come to Earth, in our shape if not of our kin. We identified with him, but never with a sense we could truly know him. His silver skin reflecting us, but not really revealing the Surfer himself.
When Stan Lee and John Buscema took over on the Surfer's own magazine he became something else, someone else, in some ways greater, filled with anxiety and fear, but having lost some of the awesome mystery which only Kirby seemed able to tap. Perhaps he had to change to grow, but I find as much as I like the Buscema version, the Kirby seems truer to the character.
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It's an old debate, and probably will be for some time to come--but I'm pretty much right there with you. I've made posts along the same line, yet there still seems a good deal yet to mine on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI like the Lee-Buscema Surfer well enough and frankly really like Buscema's lean pale Surfer, but they changed him because likely they needed to. I think I like the Kirby Surfer better, simply because that character is weirder and more compelling somehow.
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