Return of the Silver Surfer!

Soooo...the new Fantastic 4 movie will be coming out soon...this summer or something like that. I assume the perennially hot Jessica Alba will be in it as Sue Storm and hopefully consumate her relationship and become Mrs. Reed Richards and have babies... BECAUSE that is what happened in the comic book. I was never that big a Fantastic 4 fan but there was some very good stuff in the old Fantastic 4. It was written and drawn by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Geniuses both. The Lennon and Mc Cartney of comics. Comics dealt with big issues....love, death, cosmic nothingness...serious stuff that helped get me through adolescence. There was something about the way they were drawn...the way they were inked...and the overly dramatic story lines...it was all good.


Never DC Comics. DC was the bastion of the stodgy and poorly drawn classic comics like Batman and the droning and annoying Superman. DC Comics were like my parents comics and even though Kirby did things like Captain America, Marvel was edgy, sexy, hot...and really violent. The Fantastic 4 was really boring I thought. Ben Grim was not a compelling character. he was a pile of orange stones who had clever lines like...”It’s Clobbering Time!” Johnny “The Human Torch” was good looking and there was an air of Greek tragedy to his obsession with his sister. Reed Richards and Sue Storm? I never got it. Still the first movie was not disasterously bad and it looks like there might b e some more drama this next time around. But for all the boredome the Fantastic 4 engendered they were part of the Marvel universe as such part of the mythology...cosmology...idiotology of that Universe.

They introduced som very complex characters, villians and plot threads. Dr. Doom was dark and unhappy and...very steel covered. Galactus was...God and then there was... The Silver Surfer! There was never a comic book character like The Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer had...issues. The Silver Surfer is the sad Norin Radd from the planet Zenn-La. Galactus was about to destroy his planet and he negotiated with Galactus to find other planets for him to destroy and be his emmissary. Eventually that lead him to earth where he was setting it up to be destroyed by Galactus when he was so moved by the nobility of the earth people he battled Galactus, lost and was banished from the Universe to Earth....very, very sad story. The Silver Surfer is a metaphor for..everything. He was well intended, he got corrupted by power and used and... broke free and had his own cosmic morality but paid a price for it and was banned forever to our little planet...harsh punishment indeed.

And somehow...in a comic book form for a late blooming teen ager...it worked. All of this huge morality play worked in the form 05 twenty five cent and thirty cent comics which came out on a monthly basis bringing along fantastic story and plot lines. I could feel empathy with the shiny, well drawn surfer and it will be interesting to see whether with all the fabulous computer tricks and graphics whether they can turn a Quarter comic book into a 30,000,000 dollar franchise. Stay tuned.