The Silver Surfer graphic novel from 1978 is part of the Fireside publishing program which gave us the Origins of the Marvel Comics volume as well as its three sequels, and The Art of Marvel Comics. One source suggested this original story was prompted by the desire to make a Silver Surfer movie and the Ardina character was concocted specifically for Oliva Newton-John. (It might've been a hit like Grease or a notorious bomb like Xanadu. But if true, we'll never know. Rest in peace Olivia.)
Whatever its original inspiration, it is to my understanding the final collaboration between Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "King" Kirby. It is also the only original material publication Fireside published for Marvel. All the rest featured reprints of classic material.
The Silver Surfer is Jack Kirby's creation, no one disputes that these days, but Stan is a little coy on that particular detail in his introduction to this alternate version of the Surfer's initial trip to Earth. Stan had really taken a shine to the Sky-Rider when he showed up and had produced an ongoing series about the Surfer without Kirby's input or participation (at least at first) a year or so before Kirby departed Marvel for DC and the Fourth World. That perceived snub was one of the sore points between the two creators. (I'll have much more on the series this weekend.)
This is retelling of the Silver Surfer's first journey to Earth. There is no Fantastic Four to stop Galactus this time, and as far as I can tell, there are no other superheroes of any kind. No Watcher appears to give warning that Surfer is about to descend and bring the Devourer of Worlds to the hapless globe.
Instead we have a story from the Surfer's perspective for the most part which begins with the hand of Galactus opening and releasing the Surfer into the universe.
The dialogue tells us this is Norrin Radd of Zenn-La who left his planet and his love Shalla-Bal to serve Galactus. We see the Surfer as he comes to Earth and for reasons which even the Surfer seems confused about is struck by some aspect of humanity which he deems worthy to keep. So he turns on his master and is stuck down, forced to stay on the planet he has championed.
Later Galactus seems to regret his decision and having consulted his own quality of deviousness fashions a woman intended to seduce the Surfer and return him to the side of his master. Ardina is a golden woman who appears to have the essence of Shalla-Bal in some sense and the Surfer is indeed much attracted to this golden woman and the two have a dalliance. But afterwards when confronted with the choice of returning to Galactus, the Surfer rejects his master again.
Ardina is again tasked with bringing the Surfer back, this time with a different bargain. Galactus has found he needs and wants his herald back and offers the Surfer his freedom from Earth and a return to servitude for Galactus. All this and Earth can live.
The Surfer still seems torn and soon loses Ardina who is reduced by Galactus to her atoms. But in the end the Silver Surfer sees that he has little choice if Earth is to survive and so he accepts the conditions offered by Galactus and flies back into space, returning once again to hand from which he had first emerged in his shining glory.
This is a weird story, more a fable really. It's set apart from the Marvel Universe and since it largely recapitulates the events of the first Galactus story in the Fantastic Four, it cannot be blended into chronology. I suspect this story occupies an Earth which has been given a number designation by now, but I haven't yet bothered to look that up. This is a very talky tale with exceedingly little "action". There is a battle between the Surfer and Galactus but it's mostly a miss since we know how that has to turn out. There is no Ultimate Nullifier this time, so Galactus withdraws from Earth the first time for his own, most inscruable reasons.
We do get a fascinating sequence when the Surfer adopts a human guise and walks among men, falling victim to crime almost immediately. Despite this, he continues to champion mankind and sees in the youth of the population a great hope. There is surprisingly little racial diversity in this story. All the characters who speak save one are white and even the crowd scenes have an upscale suburban look to them. This is weakness for a story which wants to preach about the needs of humanity to overcome its differences. This is a surprising failure on Kirby's part. There is one significant black face in the story and sadly that belongs to a mugger. Perhaps I overstate this weakness but that it occurred to me at all is not good.
The way in which the Silver Surfer emerges from the hand of Galactus and then returns to it seems much more in keeping with Kirby's original conception of the character as being of pure energy and not really having a past. This story seems to want to have it both ways. Really it could be argued that this whole story is all about Galactus who divides aspects of himself out and then contends with them. The Surfer is part of him, the sly gray bird like man is part of him and Ardina likewise seems to be part of Galactus. It's only in the dialogue really that you see variations on this. Kirby was hurt when Stan absconded with the Surfer and contracted with John Buscema to do the series way back when. It was one of the many grudges he nursed as he took his talents to DC. Now a decade later we seem to get the Silver Surfer story that the King intended.
More Surfer next time as his we see what happened after he broke with Galactus in the regular Marvel Universe of 616.
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Beautiful work by Kirby. His imagination knew no bounds. To picture it in your mind is one thing -- to draw it is entirely another. The Galactus/Silver Surfer's storylines showed his powerful and "cosmic" art that in ways informed his Fourth World extravaganzas for DC, I think.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree with that general sentiment. The Silver Surfer and Him (to a lesser degree) are the first unofficial "New Gods".
DeleteKirby obviously had in mind the version of the Surfer he originally intended, though Stan weaves his take on the character throughout the story with his scripting. Even Sinnott couldn't quite save Jack's pencils on this one, which is far too cartoony in a lot of places. As you said, the art reflects Jack's vision of the Surfer, but the book is so underwhelming that I think it reinforces the belief held by many that Stan was right to go with John Buscema on the original comic. And I'd say that Norem's cover elevates the look of the book to something seemingly more substantial than Kirby's cartoony version, and suggests a 'depth' that the contents don't really have. Verdict? A well-meaning failure.
ReplyDeleteAs you already suspect, I could not disagree with you more on this. This is not the strongest work done by these men, but it's far from the weakest. I'm really startled that you prefer the Norem cover, which to my eye is singularly weak. Norem is a great cover artist, but he misses it on this one. Most likely because his figure work which is more realistic was following Kirby's powerful design. It's not the design's fault, just a clash of two different approaches.
DeleteKirby has drawn a cartoon, Norem has produced a painting. The former is just a poor drawing any way you look at it. (And Galactus's mouth is waaayyyyy too big.)
DeleteI must be looking at it differently indeed, because it's far from a bad drawing. But Norem did produce a painting. and we can agree on that at least.
DeleteYou're right, RJ - it isn't a bad drawing. It's a VERY bad drawing (for Kirby). And I could give you 5 or 6 reasons as to why. Norem's painting is just a much better piece of art. Having said that, Marvel should've got John Buscema and Tom Palmer to do the cover.
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