The SILVER SURFER - CREATED BEING Or TRANSFORMED 'HUMAN'...?

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS.  The Surfer in his first U.S. issue

When MARVEL powerhouse JACK 'KING' KIRBY originated a guy on a surfboard who came to be known as The SILVER SURFER, it's obvious that he intended him to be a created being with no history, brought forth from nothing by GALACTUS to serve him as herald.  That's why the Surfer, in his first appearance in The FANTASTIC FOUR mag, seemingly had no conscience about leading his master to inhabited planets to syphon-off their energy (and thus destroy them); he was merely fulfilling the purpose for which he'd specifically been created.

STAN 'The MAN' LEE decided that it would be far more noble if NORRIN RADD had endured a great sacrifice of some sort, in fitting with the quasi-religious martyr-type that he wanted to develop, resulting in the backdrop of ZENN-LA and SHALLA-BAL against which ol' Surfy played out his personal drama in his own monthly mag.  Of course, this meant that the readers had to assume that Galactus had sneakily suppressed his herald's memory and conscience, and indeed, subsequent writers later wove this explanation into the character's history.

It's arguable, of course, which approach is the better one; I can see merit in each of them, although, understandably, Jack was miffed about the Surfer's hijacking by Stan and thereby being deprived of the chance to show what he could do in a regular series.  Gotta be honest though, I think Stan made the right choice in picking JOHN BUSCEMA to illustrate the Surfer's own mag; by that time, Jack's rendition of the Sentinel of the Spaceways (and figure-work in general) had lost much of its former grace and fluidity, and had become a bit blocky-looking and abstract.

John B, on the other hand, imbued the character with nobility and grace, and readers were treated to a tour-de-force of visual excellence that Jack no longer seemed capable of.  Having just said that however, the cover of the Surfer's first issue has always been a bit of a mystery to me.  It surely stands as one of the rare examples where Big John B failed to rise to the challenge.  A boring, straight-on view of ol' Norrin in one of the most stiff and non-dramatic positions I've ever seen of the character.  Why Stan allowed such an underwhelming cover to adorn a first issue is beyond me.  The Surfer even seems to have a gap in his teeth - look at his mouth.

However, John Buscema made up for such a lacklustre cover in the inside pages, and his 17 issue run on the 18 ish series (Jack drew the last one) are now rightfully regarded by fans as classics and are highly collectable, just as they deserve to be.

(Oh, but John - that first cover...)

So, fellow Criv-ites - agree, disagree, don't give a fig?  Or do you fancy a punch-up in the playground over it?  Let your voice be heard - get typing those comments now!

The Surfer in his first  U.K. issue

PART FOUR Of SUPER DC TEXT STORIES...

Copyright relevant owner

Perhaps one of the things that worked against SUPER DC was that it was a monthly mag, as opposed to the weekly publications that  British kids were accustomed to. Back then, U.K. readers got their comics fix every seven days, and although some also bought American comicbooks from time to time, they tended to choose from whatever was periodically available, rather than follow a specific title month after month.  That's because U.S. mags had a spotty distribution on these shores and one simply had to take what one could get.

Therefore, had it come out on a weekly basis, readers wouldn't have had time to forget when it was next due on sale.  Further, being weekly would've meant sharing the shelves with the other U.K. comics,  instead of being in the spinner-racks with the monthlies.  It was in the spinner-rack of my local CORSON'S that I spied the first issue of Super DC, and as not everyone who bought British comics also bought American ones, there were probably quite a few potential readers who never even saw it during its short existence.

However, that's by the by.  What we're concerned with for now are the text stories in the 14 issue mag, which barely managed to limp into 1970 ('71 if you lived in Scotland, where it was released a year later).  Here are another six titanic tales, from numbers 10-12, which first appeared in TV TORNADO, a weekly comic published in 1967.  The stories were slightly abridged this time around, and I suspect that some of the conclusions seemed hastily arrived at, given that explanatory sentences (and perhaps even paragraphs) were jettisoned in order to fit the page.

There's another SUPERMAN tale still to come, plus three other completely unrelated generic adventure stories.  Don't dare miss 'em - or I'll be sending the lads 'round!