If there is one bit of surf-adjacent kitsch that I’ve properly never understood, it is the Silver Surfer. As a surf enthusiastic child, I figured the metallic fins-free longboarder was the character for me, seeing that “Surfer” was in his name. Every time I tried to get properly invested, though, I was rebuffed by the incomprehensible. Namely, the Silver Surfer did not surf in the ocean or any sort of wave, but zoomed around space. He did not come from earth, but from a planet called Zenn-La that he saved from a bad guy named Galactus by becoming his slave. He was eventually exiled to earth but didn’t surf in the ocean there, either, even though he had a finless longboard.
Plus other Scientology-esque oddities.
Jack Kirby, who created the character in 1966, explained, “My conception of the Silver Surfer was a human being from space in that particular form. He came in when everybody began surfing — I read about it in the paper. The kids in California were beginning to surf. I couldn’t do an ordinary teenager surfing so I drew a surfboard with a man from outer space on it.
Well, hot news has dropped, this morning, the industry source ComicBook announced publication of Death of the Silver Surfer, a five-issue series, that will drop June 6, 2025.
“The SILVER SURFER returns to defend a war-ravaged Earth,” the synopsis reads, “but Norrin Radd (the Silver Surfer’s real name) has a galaxy-sized target on his back. A new enemy will stop at nothing to steal away everything the Surfer is or ever will be. A single human life may be all that decides the Surfer’s salvation…or damnation. If the Surfer falls, who then wields the awesome Power Cosmic? And what of the Surfer’s old master, Galactus, Devourer of Worlds?!”
Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.
We already have Kelly Slater and he is more than enough.
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