Silver Surfer Reviews

If it hadn’t been cancelled after the first season maybe the Silver Surfer could have grown into as adult, intelligent, mature, and ground-breaking an animated series as Batman: The Animated Series. But, alas, Marvel’s bankruptcy proved that even the Cosmic Power was fallible in front of the ever more impressive power of money. The potential was always there, but without a more expanded season or follow-up season’s to show the progress and depth in the writing, the show remains only halfway there.

It does, however, frequently achieve greatness in its stylized animation, and the way in which traditional animated elements and computer-generated ones blend nicely. (The two animation styles are never seamlessly blended but the effect holds up spectacularly well considering this was a Saturday morning cartoon airing in 1998.) There are moments when the animation looks so much like a Jack Kirby comic come to vivid life that the most hardcore of comic book nerds will want to rewatch certain segments with the sound off to just enjoy their beauty.

However, given Marvel’s financial troubles lurking just around the corner, there are also moments when the animation dips into crappy motion-comic territory. Oddly enough, whenever Galactus and Silver Surfer occupy the frame the animation is always of the highest quality. The problem comes in whenever Nova, Beta Ray Bill, Adam Warlock, and other guest stars make their appearances. For some reason the animation on these characters is lacking. Thanos is also devoid of weight, menace or grit, which really hinders the show as a whole since he’s set-up as the overarching nemesis for the series.

But it’s still refreshing, quite pleasing really, to revisit an old show and realize that the reason who truly liked it still holds up much of the time. The writing on this show never shies away from the Surfer’s existential quandaries, or the human weakness beneath the demigod surface. He seeks not just his home world, but a spiritual awakening and inner peace which offers up much time for quiet, meditative scenes of the Surfer narrating his inner monologue and flying through space (look for a planet that looks suspiciously like Apokalypse). A show like this would never get made nowadays. It waits too much, and doesn’t pander the character’s psychology to the grade-school set. Flaws and all, Silver Surfer is worth a watch just to witness a superhero cartoon that has it’s character question his purpose, his god-like power, and where he fits in the grand cosmos.