The Silver Surfer (1998) versus the comics: a hero who refuses to act

A hero whose subject is refusing to act, on a children's channel. Decryption source by source, without disclosing the outcomes.

As in each article in this series, only verified information (creators, distribution, dates, publishers) is stated; the comparative analysis is ours, without reproducing dialogue or protected images.

1966: a character that no one asked for

The Silver Surfer appears in Fantastic Four #48(1966), and the circumstances of its creation are one of the medium's best-established anecdotes.

He was not included in the scenario . Jack Kirby added it on his own initiative when drawing the episode, believing that a being of the power of Galactus must have an emissary. The text was written after the fact, on boards which already contained the character.

This corpus explored, with regard to Watchmen, the question of paternity of a work. Here is a case of a different nature: one of the most enduring characters in the catalog exists because a designer decided, alone, to put him in a box.

The fact illuminates a reality of the mode of production of the time, where the designer constructed the story from an outline and the screenwriter then entered into a dialogue. In such a device, the invention can come from anywhere.

The character gets a personal series in 1968, where his register is established: an exile condemned to Earth, who observes humanity without understanding it, and blames himself for it.

The basic problem: a hero who does not want to fight

Here is the central difficulty of this adaptation, and it is structural rather than technical.

The subject of the character is reluctance. He has considerable power and uses it as little as possible; what occupies him is a remorse, a contemplation, a judgment on what he sees. The stories in the paper are largely composed of monologues.

The format of a children's action series is based on the opposite principle. Each episode must produce a threat and a resolution in a fixed length of time, and the resolution comes through action.

The contradiction cannot be avoided. A character whose interest is in not acting cannot sustain a format that requires them to act every twenty minutes.

This corpus formulates a useful distinction here. There are characters whose adaptation is difficult due to their content— too violent, too adult, too dated — and characters whose adaptation is difficult due to their diet: what they do, and at what pace. The latter pose a deeper problem, because no amount of mitigation solves it.

The characters, from paper to screen

• The Surfer— Fantastic Four #48 (1966); added by the designer.
• Galactus— FF #48-50 (1966); the master, and the original fault.
• Mephisto—Silver Surfer #3 (1968); permanent temptation.
• Thanos—Iron Man #55 (1973); cosmic magnitude.
• Empires— Galactic decor inherited from the paper.

The graphic bet, and what it demonstrates

The series makes a remarkable aesthetic choice: rather than seeking a plausible rendering, it assumes the graphic language by Kirby — fields of abstract patterns, unnatural colors, frontal compositions, spaces that obey no perspective.

To do this, she resorted to digital processes, then uncommon in television production, in order to compose backgrounds that traditional animation would not have been able to hold.

This file therefore comes to correct a conclusion that this corpus had drawn about the Fantastic Four. It was observed that the cosmic scale was poorly transposed, the screen having a constant size where the page plays on the contrast of surfaces.

The correction is as follows: the problem is not insurmountable if we give up the naturalism. By using graphic conventions rather than trying to make them credible, the series clearly comes close to achieving the desired effect.

And yet it is stopped after thirteen episodes, with no outcome. The teaching is therefore twofold, and a little bitter: the technical obstacle was surmountable, the obstacle economic was not. An ambitious animated series costs more than an ordinary series, and must attract at least an equivalent audience.

Why the prose of 1968 is not played out

The stories in the paper are based on long interior comments, with assumed lyricism. The series cannot repeat them, and the reason is technical rather than literary.

In a comic, this text is housed in framed. It occupies a place on the board, coexists with the image without masking it, and above all it is consumed in reader's pace: we slow down, we reread, we skip. The monologue does not take up time from the story, it takes up space.

Brought to the screen, the same text becomes a voice over images. He then occupies a duration, a period of time during which nothing happens, and it competes with what we are looking at.

The consequence is arithmetic. A twenty-minute episode that devotes the space given to contemplation to the paper would have almost nothing to show.

This corpus therefore formulates a principle complementary to that of scale: in a comic, the text is spatial ; on screen he is temporal. A story whose interest lies in the abundance of interior comments is structurally disadvantaged by any medium where reading costs projection time.

Thanos, or the cosmic corner assembled after the fact

The presence of Thanos deserves clarification, because it sheds light on an editorial mechanism.

This character does not appear in the Surfer series, nor in that of the Fantastic Four, but in Iron Man #55(1973) — a title that has nothing cosmic about it. He begins there alongside another character destined for the same galaxy.

What we call today the “cosmic side” of the publisher was therefore not a planned whole. It's a retrospective construction: creations scattered in unrelated titles, then brought together by authors who saw a coherence.

The lesson for the collector is direct and often costly to ignore: the first appearances of a thematic set are not found in the titles where one would expect to look for them. A character cosmic can perfectly start in an urban hero series.

The practical consequence is even to the advantage of the patient buyer. As long as a character remains associated, in the public's mind, with a thematic aspect rather than a precise title, his true first appearance circulates without being identified— row with the ordinary issues of the series which hosted it. This is one of the rare situations where catalog knowledge is worth more than a budget.

Collection side: which numbers to aim for after the series

Fantastic Four #48(1966) bears the first appearance of the character — and that of Galactus. It is one of the most requested numbers of the Silver Age, and for good reason: two major figures debut there.

Silver Surfer #1(1968) deserves an explanation, because it illustrates a market mechanism that this corpus recommends understanding.

This series was interrupted after eighteen issues, due to lack of sufficient sales at the time. However, an interruption due to insufficient sales means that the latest issues were printed in fewer copies than the first, and distributed to a shrinking readership.

The consequence is counterintuitive: on this type of series, certain numbers late are more difficult to find in good condition than the first, although they are much less expensive. This is one of the rare situations where rarity and price do not go in the same direction.

The methodical collector draws a concrete idea: to complete a series interrupted by the end, while these issues remain in little demand.

Silver Surfer #3(1968) features the first appearance of Mephisto, and Iron Man #55(1973) that of Thanos – the latter having been very strongly supported by the adaptations.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Where to start reading

Start with Fantastic Four #48-50(1966), where the character is born. Then move on to the series of 1968, available as a collection: eighteen issues are enough to cover its entire founding period, making it one of the easiest to navigate sets in the catalog.

Timeline to know

• 1966— Fantastic Four #48: added by the artist, outside the script.
• 1968— Silver Surfer #1: personal series.
• 1968— Silver Surfer #3: Mephisto.
• After 18 numbers— Discontinuation due to insufficient sales.
• 1973— Iron Man #55: Thanos.
• 1998— The animated series, stopped without ending.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

This series will remain for two contributions. She corrected first a conclusion from this corpus: the cosmic scale is not untransposable, provided that we renounce naturalism and assume the original graphic conventions. But its judgment shows that the technical obstacle overcome, the obstacle economic remains. She then establishes a lasting distinction between characters who are difficult to adapt by their content and those who are so by their diet— here, a hero whose subject is not to act, placed in a format that demands action every twenty minutes. For the collector, it leads to a rare lesson: on a series interrupted for lack of sales, the latest issues are often rarer and yet less expensive than the first.

The verdict: the graphics achieved, the rhythm impossible

• Loyalty: the assumed cosmic graphic language, the exile and the past deal, the reluctance to fight, Mephisto as tempter and the galactic scale of the setting.
• Freedoms: an action imposed by the format, the emphatic prose of the paper abandoned, the Earth left as a setting, a reduced melancholy and a plot left without resolution.
• Collectible numbers: Fantastic Four #48 (1966), Silver Surfer #1 and #3 (1968), Iron Man #55 (1973).

The most beautiful series of its generation, stopped at the thirteenth episode. She proved that you could depict immensity on television — and that that wasn't enough.

Frequently asked questions