This post continues a look at the Silver Surfer series (1987) written by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. For part one, look here. It’s also part of a larger project called Event Horizon, which is about comics from 1985 to 1987.
Lond Distance Relationship (Issue 2)
In the second issue, the now-free Silver Surfer visits Zenn La to return to his love, Shalla Bal. Previously, the relationship of the two was presented as eternal, trans-universal, etc. In other words, it was idealized. The Surfer, a literal prisoner of Earth, had no choice but to keep a very long-distance idealized memory of Shalla Bal.
While the Surfer was away, Shalla Bal created a new, independent life on Zenn La. Zenn La was devastated by Galactus (again, I’ll refrain from relating the Surfer’s long history; read it here). To help heal the planet, The Surfer gifted part of his “power cosmic” to Shalla Bal. With this power, she restored the planet’s biosphere and, as a result, became the “Empress” of Zenn La.
Fictional Politics
As an aside, it’s always interesting to see what political systems are deployed in fictional worlds. Why did Zenn La become a monarchy? Was it one before? Is it constitutional? Absolute? The Skrulls are also an empire. In this series, the Skrull empire breaks into competing kingdoms, each ruled by a pretender to the imperial throne. The Kree are governed by the Supreme Intelligence, an AI composed of the minds of millions of Kree warriors. It’s a weird amalgam. It’s easy to imagine it as a Sparta-like warrior democracy that “progressed” to a pseudo-democratic technocratic rule by democracy as AI. More on this later.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Anyway, Shalla Bal and Surfer finally meet! But immediately, Surfer’s ideal love hits the unmoving force of reality. It becomes apparent that the two star-crossed lovers have different priorities. The love that bound them previously has ceased to exist. Shalla Bal becomes possessed by her duties as Empress.
The Empress has more important matters to attend to. The Skrulls sent an embassy to secure Zenn-La’s loyalty in the reigniting Kree-Skrull war. The Skrull designs must be checked, and the planet must be rebuilt. Romance is impossible under these circumstances. She rejects him romantically but insists that the Surfer remains a “protector” of Zenn La.
And the Surfer is… a bit lost. His freedom shatters all his illusions about love, duties, and his very nature. He’s also angry in a way we’ve never seen him before. This isn’t the anger of facing an enemy. This is the anger of a noble soul, rejected by his eternal romantic love, who remains honor-bound to protect the realm as its shining knight.
Knight-Errant
As he leaves Zenn La, he modifies a monument: “Here was born Norrin Radd, a son of Zenn-La,” to read “Here was born The Silver Surfer, a son of Zenn-La.”
He’s now a masterless knight in silver armor. His life as Herald over, he was ready to sacrifice for love. In the end, he realizes his love was “human.” It was Norrin Rad who loved Shalla Bal. The Surfer is now ready to discard his humanity and accept the Silver armor. The Silver Surfer flies alone. Or does he?
The Content of Freedom (Issue 3)
In the third issue, the continuity gets wonky. This is not uncommon in the vast labyrinthine Marvel Universe. By the late 1980s, crossovers, events (see my piece on Crisis on Infinite Earths), etc., created an increasingly tightly interwoven narrative tower of Babel. Englehart wants to tell a relatively clean Surfer arc, but much of the back story is vast and pulls in threads from other Marvel titles.
We already know the Elders of the universe are planning something. A big piece of this scheme is told elsewhere in two Avengers annuals. For the sake of brevity, I won’t get into it. Suffice it to say that the Surfer is now firmly set on a collision course with the Elders and intends to learn all he can about their nefarious plans.
Holy Man
Two interesting moments occur in this issue. First, after a brief confrontation with the Collector, the Surfer escorts Espirita, a Christian superhero, back to Earth. The two have a short conversation. Espirita tells the Surfer that many people thought him to be a Herald of the Messiah during his imprisonment on Earth. The Surfer, startled, denies any religious affiliation. He believes the religious impulse is universal and that some energy touches us all… but there’s no plan. In any case, he wouldn’t have a special place in that plan. Espirita, a good Christian, retorts, “We all have a special place, Surfer!”
The moment nicely foreshadows the scale of the Elders’ plans, which will have cosmic repercussions. The Surfer here sees himself as insignificant in the universe, and his insignificance will haunt him for the rest of this arc.
Twins
The other moment is the Surfer’s confrontation with the Elder known as the Runner. The Runner confronts the Surfer out of nowhere in the vast depth of space. Instead of silver, he is clad in gold. His appearance is that of a Greek god-like statue that comes to life. The Runner is a kind of twin of the Surfer. He says, “many sentients have spied my golden skin and thought us related.” Even though it is a physical contest, Surfer’s encounter with the Runner is also fraught with symbolic meaning.
Symbolically and archetypically, twins are often cast as moral opposites: good/evil, white/black, or civilization/barbarism. [ 1 ] Twins are locked in an everlasting struggle, whether on the physical plane or mental one. In Jungian terms:
“From this conflict, an irrational third arises the transcendent function, often in the form of a symbol. Logically, the opposites are always split and in conflict, but illogically, they coalesce in the unconscious psyche. The duality of archetypal content can be said to be integrated only when the full range of the spectrum has been made conscious.”
Source
Swept Away
There are interesting contrasts between the Surfer and the Runner. As the name suggests, the Surfer “surfs” on cosmic waves on his board. The symbolic implication is that he goes where the waves take him. Despite his vast power, he is swept up by events rather than affecting them directly.
The Runner, as the name suggests, “runs.” He is self-propelled and goes where he pleases. This goes well with his Elder-obsession. All Elders have an obsession (a Nietzschean will to power?) that has sustained and kept them alive for billions of years. We’ll get more in the weeds later, but the Runner’s obsession is to “see all there is to see, in all the universe!” Symbolically, he’s self-directed and possesses a goal and a destination (however vast it may be).
Alchemical Romance
The Surfer is silver, and the Runner is gold. Both are noble metals, but they have different symbolic meanings.
| Silver | Gold |
| moon | sun |
| Artemis | Apollo |
| purity | prestige |
| strength | luxury |
| clarity | wisdom |
| silver age | golden age |
| feminine | masculine |
| youth | decadence |
Slave, Meet The Master
The Surfer has always exhibited aspects of silver: purity, strength, clarity, and focus. Silver is associated with the moon and is also the color of Artemis. As such, it also contains feminine energy, which aligns well with his surfer nature and his general neurotic nature, full of self-doubt. He’s a human thrust onto a cosmic level; there’s a touch of impostor syndrome. He is the slave in Nietzsche’s master/slave dialectic.
The Runner exudes the ease and manner of an aristocrat, a golden child. He is confident and administers his brand of justice (kill the Surfer) without remorse. He also charismaticly affects the Surfer: “Something about him sweeps all caution from me!” The Runner has no qualms about his quest for more power. If he can take it, he will. He embodies Nitschean master morality.
The Runner says, “I would’ve swiftly reached the end of my five billion years if I’d had to endure what you did [imprisonment on Earth]!” At first glance, it sounds like a compliment, but it’s also an insult. The Runner values freedom over everything. To be trapped anywhere would mean the Runner cannot fulfill his obsession; it’s the same as death. By implication, the Surfer allowed himself to be trapped and endured a lengthy imprisonment. Only slaves do that.
Free
The Runner says a tantalizing phrase to the Surfer: “[you are] too new to this freedom to understand how utterly it dwarfs individual concerns.” The Runner spells out the Surfer’s current predicament. Since sacrificing himself for Zenn-La by becoming the Herald of Galactus, this is the first time he has truly been free.
The Runner proceeds to attack the Surfer. After brief combat, the Surfer is defeated and crashes into an uninhabited planet. In bad shape and dying… he is met with… Mantis!
Information, Art, Color, Letters
Both issues are still very informationally dense and heavy on backstory. One of the pleasures of reading stories set in the Marvel or DC universes is the back story, the obscure details, forgotten characters, missed connections, and esoteric lore. Steve Englehart is a master at this kind of pulp archaeology. He sifts through a mess of Marvel continuity and extracts a silver thread, which he uses to weave a complex narrative tapestry in The Silver Surfer.
While these two issues don’t have the visual impact of the first issue, they demonstrate Marshall Rogers’ mastery of the form. His art and layout continue to impress even when he must accommodate some information-heavy layouts.
The lettering is credited to John Workman, one of the great comic book letterers. Typically, letterers also create the sound effects (SFX). But in Silver Surfer, the SFX appear to have been drawn by Rogers. They are integrated into the art and don’t resemble Workman’s usual SFX. It seems Rogers is doing the SFX uncredited. If anyone knows otherwise, let me know. Anyway, look at that!
NOTES:
[ 1 ] “Twins appear frequently in folk cosmologies – usually cast in morally opposing roles. Anthony Stevens in his Guide to the Symbols of Mankind, Ariadne’s Clue, suggests that this archetype reflects the evolutionary ascent and involuntary descent of the sun: the good twin is represented as white, the bad one as black; one creates civilization, the other destroys it; Thus twins are locked in everlasting struggle (see, for example, the myths of Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Osiris and Set).
Stevens suggests that the symbolism has grown out of humanity’s primordial awareness that day is paired with night, light with darkness, summer with winter, and so on.
The archetype of twins is therefore to do with opposites, that together represent a whole.” — source
