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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 10, 2015 10:52:44 GMT -5
As adam pointed out, we've seen Galactus create heralds that didn't need an object to travel the universe so why did the Surfer get a board? Had the Big G (or Kirby) just sat through a Frankie and Annette marathon?
Cei-U! I summon Erik Von Zipper!
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 10, 2015 10:52:49 GMT -5
I think the surfboard is genius. It's a cool visual that works despite the tie to a sport popular with stoner dudes with a death wish. The Black Racer? Eh...I'd agree on that one. Even Kirby couldn't making a cosmic messenger of death look cool on a pair of ski's. Visually there are some artists that really can capture the board as more a part of his body, like A GL ring manifestation then a separate entity. Ribic did really well with it in Requiem. And being biased to Ron Lim's Surfer already, there were plenty of times he did well in his run doing so.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 10, 2015 10:54:56 GMT -5
I seem to remember a retcon where he was simply known as "The Herald of Galactus" and was named The Silver Surfer by either the FF or the press. Might be off base on this. I actually like this idea. I do remember during Jim Starlin's run with Ron Lim, that it was stated that there just so happened to be a similar sport on Zenn-La and Galactus plucked this from Norrin's mind when he transformed him into the Surfer.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 10, 2015 10:57:08 GMT -5
It's definitely an interesting visual, but it still seems weird to me. It is weird, but in a Howard the duck way. While the surfer's board can be seen as a simple surface on which to travel, a pair of skis (with poles, too!) can never be seen as anything else than a pair of skis. The hapless Gaard (dressed up as a hockey goaltender) had the same problem: no way can he be seen as anything else than as a cosmic hockey player. I had forgotten about him. When I saw that cover, I didn't even need to ask if I could take out of the bag and board, because I knew a cosmic hockey player fighting the FF would be worth the money.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 10, 2015 10:59:30 GMT -5
Oh man, I didn't even know Gaard existed! I've read all the Lee/Kirby, Byrne and Simonson runs, but very little from 1970-1980. Once I get through my Silver Age reading I might have to head to that issue first.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 10, 2015 11:36:30 GMT -5
As adam pointed out, we've seen Galactus create heralds that didn't need an object to travel the universe so why did the Surfer get a board? Had the Big G (or Kirby) just sat through a Frankie and Annette marathon? Cei-U! I summon Erik Von Zipper! In Arlen Shumer's book The Silver Age of Comic Art, he quotes Kirby as saying in a 2002 interview with Gary Groth that "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." In another interview in The Kirby Collector, Kirby goes on to say, "And I said, suppose there was a surfer who surfed the universe? And of course, the Surfer does that. He also has to have godlike appearance... being all silver gives him the kind of aura that makes him different form ourselves." I found the Black Racer goofy from the get-go, where I never really looked twice at the Surfer. I think it's because he was so graceful and the surfboard, however weird, could be conceived of as a way to soar through the void of space. It also lent itself to the kind of flight pattern that a jet or a spaceship might and Kirby exploited that by making the Surfer look one with the board and portraying him in the same kind of acrobatic, sleek style as Gil Kane used on Green Lantern. The Racer, on the other hand, was clunky in design, like a refrigerator on a sled; the Centurion outfit wasn't exactly aerodynamic. Plus, because his poles had nothing to dig in to, he was even more difficult to accept. The design just didn't lend itself to acrobatic poses. Had he used only skis, it might have been a bit better. Space as a concept seems more fluid, like the waves of an ocean, and IIRC, Stan often used words like "waves" and "currents" to describe the Surfer's environment. That the Racer uses skis implies that space is as solid as snow. PS: He "mounts" his skis? Classic Kirby.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 11:48:54 GMT -5
I agree with both of the previous posts. That said, I offer a new topic of conversation: the basic concept of the Silver Surfer--conscience-stricken herald of Galactus--is sound but the visual of the Oscar riding around the cosmos on a surfboard (it even had a rudder originally) is stupid as hell. Cei-U! I summon the ho-hum ho-daddy! I LOVE Silver Surfer! ♡♡♡ Silver Surfer was what made me appreciate and love Stan's writing. It is hilarious! I have only read Stan's Silver Surfer, so not sure about how he is under other writers, but reading Stan's writing of him has me chuckling while I am reading him.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 10, 2015 11:58:38 GMT -5
I have a love/hate relationship with the classic Lee/Buscema run. On one hand, the art's gorgeous, and there are some fine individual issues, but as a whole the Surfer simply wasn't portrayed in a way that maximized his potential. He certainly never should have been stuck on Earth for 20 years of publishing time! The overly dramatic angst was amusing at times, but toward the end it started to get tiresome.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 10, 2015 12:00:08 GMT -5
About the Silver Surfer, He's the first real proper superhero I had an irrational affection for, to the point that I got a complete set of his first run plus FF 48-50. I just thought he was such a romantic character that he needed to be loved, and tat may have come from a single scene from the movie "A bout de souffle Made in USA" I'm not sure I even care that much for his adventures, but just his existence in that fictionnal world is heart-warming to me.
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Post by The Captain on Dec 10, 2015 12:20:04 GMT -5
I never got the Silver Surfer love. Part of that was because I was born in the early 70's, so I wasn't part of the "Jim Morrison is a great poet" contingent that was apparently drawn to the character, and I lived in a land-locked area in the eastern US, so surfing never held any particular interest to me. Cool visual aside, the Surfer just seemed like a little emo kid to me, always whining about his lot in life and thinking the kind of "deep" thoughts that only make sense after a few joints and a big bag of food from Taco Bell.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 12:23:42 GMT -5
I never got the Silver Surfer love. Part of that was because I was born in the early 70's, so I wasn't part of the "Jim Morrison is a great poet" contingent that was apparently drawn to the character, and I lived in a land-locked area in the eastern US, so surfing never held any particular interest to me. Cool visual aside, the Surfer just seemed like a little emo kid to me, always whining about his lot in life and thinking the kind of "deep" thoughts that only make sense after a few joints and a big bag of food from Taco Bell. But that is what makes Silver Surfer enjoyable. It is hilarious!
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 10, 2015 12:23:51 GMT -5
I agree with both of the previous posts. That said, I offer a new topic of conversation: the basic concept of the Silver Surfer--conscience-stricken herald of Galactus--is sound but the visual of the Oscar riding around the cosmos on a surfboard (it even had a rudder originally) is stupid as hell. Cei-U! I summon the ho-hum ho-daddy! I LOVE Silver Surfer! ♡♡♡ Silver Surfer was what made me appreciate and love Stan's writing. It is hilarious! I have only read Stan's Silver Surfer, so not sure about how he is under other writers, but reading Stan's writing of him has me chuckling while I am reading him. I am in total agreement about Stan Lee and Surfer. I have never cared for most of Stan's writing (some Thor) but am so thankful for his ideas. He is a great idea man. But Stan's style fit perfect for what the Surfer was then. Once he became a more being more wrapped up in Marvel's universe he became less moody and somber. Those elements still stayed with him some, with other writers, but not to the degree Stan did. And Parable with Moebius is easily one my favorite Surfer stories ever. And there's this Surfer by Lee/Kirby that reprints a quite scarce graphic novel from 1978. Also more good Lee dialogue. www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=15800191And then the Enslavers HC from Lee as well. www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=514841Starlin and Marz did the best at cosmic entity with Surfer, for my tastes. I liked Engleheart's but it seemed aimless and paled in comparison. I did read it after Starlin's and Marz's and Engleheart, went more towards the human side than the powerful hero to Thanos' (and others) villainy. Vol. 5 (15 issues) by Don Charlton is a good and completely different direction for Surfer than I think really anyone had done before. It's hard to give a spoiler free synopsis, but it is quite good and unique. (Now I think I want to read it again.) I don't remember the inside art, but can recall the covers being very much in the vein of the name of the first story arc -- Communion. That kind of gives you a hint of what the story is about. Requiem was also a great read by Straczynski. A good four issue story with amazing art. I would have to read it again to give more details than that but I remember really enjoying the story. I'm a bit of a Surfer fan. :-)
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 10, 2015 12:31:51 GMT -5
I never got the Silver Surfer love. Part of that was because I was born in the early 70's, so I wasn't part of the "Jim Morrison is a great poet" contingent that was apparently drawn to the character, and I lived in a land-locked area in the eastern US, so surfing never held any particular interest to me. Cool visual aside, the Surfer just seemed like a little emo kid to me, always whining about his lot in life and thinking the kind of "deep" thoughts that only make sense after a few joints and a big bag of food from Taco Bell. I'm with you. I always hated the Surfer. And it wasn't the visual...I'm okay with it. It's the incessant whining. I just want someone to punch him in the face and stop the damn whining.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 12:33:11 GMT -5
I love the whining, though! IT IS SO FUNNYYYYY!
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 10, 2015 12:33:12 GMT -5
I have a love/hate relationship with the classic Lee/Buscema run. On one hand, the art's gorgeous, and there are some fine individual issues, but as a whole the Surfer simply wasn't portrayed in a way that maximized his potential. He certainly never should have been stuck on Earth for 20 years of publishing time! The overly dramatic angst was amusing at times, but toward the end it started to get tiresome. Lee's Surfer was much more appealing or at least tolerable in FF or issues of Tales to Astonish, than his own series. The melodrama could get tiresome, just like Lee's (and some others) Ben pining on about being a ugly monster. And curtailing the coolest thing about Surfer by confining him to the Earth did make that melodrama the only thing left to do with him. Yeah he had battles, but nothing like his space faring ones. It's the comic equivalent to dry humping. If that's all you got, it's fun, but if not, there's plenty more fun things to do.
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