Around this time last year, comic book geeks were in an uproar over the state of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It appeared that, while the Surfer was going to be a strong part of the FF sequel, his boss, Galactus, wouldn’t be putting in an appearance. The responses were split, with some people bummed the world eater wouldn’t be shown, while others were glad because, frankly, a giant sized dude dressed in purple could look kind of stupid. For my money, Rise of the Silver Surfer reached a nice balance of alluding to the character without revealing him.
That was last year’s movie, however. This year the focus is on the spin-off movie, Silver Surfer, which writer J. Michael Straczynski spoke about at the recent WonderCon. The forums over at Newsarama quote Straczynski as saying that Galactus will show up for the Surfer’s solo picture. In fact, the author said that part of the reason the big guy wasn’t shown in the last movie was so that his appearance could be a big reveal in Silver Surfer. I still say it’s because he’d look stupid on the screen, but what do I know?
Even though we saw an abridged version of the story in the second Fantastic Four movie, Silver Surfer will focus on the origin of the character, although that contradicts previous reports by Stracyzinski, as pointed out by Filmstalker, where the writer said the spin-off would pick up right where the FF sequel ended. Could it be that we’ll get both, a continuation of the story, with flashbacks to the character’s origins? Straczynski did something similar with his recent Silver Surfer: Requiem miniseries, which explored both the origins and ending of the character.
I didn’t expect to like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, but I found it surprisingly good, especially compared to the first picture. The addition of the Surfer made for an improved story. Can he hold his own in a spin-off? We’ll find out soon enough.
