Why do we only have one Silver Surfer series?

Recently I got access to Disney+, and when opening the streaming service found a pleasant surprise. The Silver Surfer animated series, the short-lived gem that did everything right and I wish more than any other series got its second season. Many clamour for a 2nd season of Firefly still in hopes that it will happen and Disney announced that the X-men animated series that ran from 1992-1998 will get a continuation on Disney+ despite it getting an actual finale which the Silver Surfer did not. But who is the Silver Surfer and why has he only ever got the one show?

The Silver Surfer’s history isn’t as long as The Fantastic Four or Spider-man or The Hulk. In fact it’s relatively short with few publications for a character who has been around since the 1960’s. But the Silver Surfer is a well known character, you hear him referenced in things like the Big Bang Theory. He is popular, so his reason for a lack of publications is not a lack of popularity like Jack of Hearts. The reason for his lack of publications was Stan Lee. The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four 48 and he’s even introduced as “a character that Jack calls the Silver Surfer” (Jack Kirby being the artist and principal writer of the F4. At this phase Stan only did the final script). Despite this somewhat dismissive introduction by Stan, he grew to love the character, so much so that nobody else was allowed to write him. The other theory is that he felt guilty because this was around the end of his working relationship with Kirby that he wanted to do right by his former friend. While Galactus and the Silver Surfer where among the last characters Lee and Kirby co-created he’s not the last. Black Panther was introduced 2 issues after the conclusion of the Galactus trilogy. 

The Silver Surfer made very few appearances after a stint as a supporting character in the Fantastic Four. The most notable part he played was having his powers stolen by Doctor Doom. Without Jack Kirby Stan Lee wrote a one shot with European comics legend Moebius, a one off Graphic novel and an ongoing series with John Buscema. Despite handpicking Buscema to be Kirby’s replacement, Stan hated the end results of the ongoing series. Stan later mellowed on the series with Buscema telling the artist that he really liked the Thor and Loki crossover issue. Buscema then pointed out “that’s not what you said when the book was first released”.

The Surfer also joined the Defenders (briefly) but was removed on the insistence of Stan Lee. Even though the series was written by Stan’s protege Roy Thomas. Silver Surfer got an ongoing series after Stan Lee retired from Marvel comics in the 90’s (Stan would still work as a producer on non-comics projects).

The Silver Surfer is an unusual character in the genre of Superhero comics. Similar to Superman he is extremely powerful but doesn’t use his powers for gain. But Superman is a more active character, Superman will actively seek to stop evil, while the Surfer is a true pacifist. Also while Superman is a Man (when written well) the Silver Surfer is a demigod. Superman is super-strong, fast, able to fly and shoots lasers from his eyes. The Silver Surfer has the power cosmic “a power too vast, too universal, if misused it could destroy a galaxy” or “the power of creation itself”. 

The ideas and philosophies of the character are too difficult for your conventional boys adventure story. The Silver Surfer is more like a space Ghandi than a warrior. The Silver Surfer avoids conflict at all costs and even lets himself being enslaved. A notable example would be Planet Hulk where Silver Surfer takes a beating from The Hulk rather than fight back, because he could take the abuse. But is it truly enslavement if you can escape at any time like the Surfer does and transmutes the other slaves’ chains to dust allowing them all to revolt against their captors.

The Silver Surfer is more like Stan Lee’s self-published character. It’s normal in mainstream comics for a character to be created and then completely destroyed by subsequent writers. But Stan tried to keep the character consistent and was very protective of this intellectual property. Which makes the decision to let the character leap to TV worse. While the Silver Surfer cartoon is amazing and 100% looks like a Jack Kirby comic now animated. The next featuring role of the Silver Surfer pains me. 

The decision to add the character to The Marvel Superhero Squad, a pre-school show featuring the Marvel heroes, is baffling. Well until you realise the Mayor of the town is played by Stan Lee. Did the Surfer retain his personality? nope. In fact the only one who did was Captain America. The Hulk became the Cookie Monster, Wolverine became an easy-going happy go-lucky character and the Silver Surfer became Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

So what does the future hold for Norrin Radd? well Terry Crewes is campaigning to play the character. I’ll be very impressed if he can play the role, as it seems so out of his comfort zone. But what I really want is either a continuation of the series from the 90’s or the next film to be animated. So they can fully explore the parts of cosmic Marvel that were too out there for the movie where a tree and a raccoon with a machine gun save the universe. Terry could even do the voice as long as it’s a more subdued performance than his Old Spice commercials.

Bat-Theft and indifference: Superman the Animated Series

Batman the Animated Series is beloved, we all know that. Justice League is well liked and so is Static Shock. But Superman the Animated Series, is mostly deemed for “completionists only”. Why is this? You could call it the sophomore slump, but that is just an excuse. There are major problems within this version of Superman. Despite major changes to the lore, Supergirl is a better Superman show (even if some changes frustrate and confuse me). 

Batman the Animated series drew from many sources of inspiration. This is often touted as one of its great virtues, it drew from all of Bat-mythos. It drew so much inspiration it took some from Superman and gave it a lick of Bat-paint. Most obviously (and admitted by Bruce Timm) is that the look of the show is inspired by the Fleischer studios theatrical shorts from the 1940’s. Batman the Animated series’ Gotham is a mix of Tim Burton’s Gotham city (from the movies) and Fleischer’s Metropolis. It wasn’t just the visuals that got Bat-pilfered, stories did as well. Some that work better as Batman stories like the Jail-master. He works better as an antagonist for Batman because the Gotham police department and Mayor are recurring characters in the series (the only cop that is notable in Superman comics is Maggie Sawyer). “Joker’s wild” is another example of a Super-story turned Bat, in the Superman comic The Joker is mad because some business man in Metropolis is selling Joker toys without his permission. The Animated series changes it to a Gotham gangster starts a Joker themed casino which annoys the clown prince of Crime.

Some of Superman’s rogue’s gallery ended up not making the leap because of them being sloppy seconds. The Prankster is essentially every Silver-Age Batman villain, Roxy Rocket stole Terra-man’s mode of transport a giant rocket. Terra-man did later make it to Justice League Unlimited but just as a cowboy themed villain (losing both his mode of transport and eco-terrorism). Silver Banshee had a similar fate but this wasn’t because of Batman, a quote about the Disney series Gargoyles from Bruce Timm explains why she was cut. “Gargoyles it’s trying to Batman the Animated series but with lots of gay celtic mythology”. So the Irish super-villainess was cut due to Timm’s prejudices. The biggest victim of Bat-theft was Winslow Scott the Toyman. Even in the first season Toyman’s stories were being stolen from him, his gimmick was stolen in the Gray Ghost episode by a villain voiced by Bruce Timm. The Clown prince of crime got his revenge on the Toyman for stealing his place in the legion of doom (in Super Friends) by stealing the story where he kidnaps rich children. But Edward Nigma would steal more from Scott, the reimagining of the Riddler has The Toyman’s back story of a disgruntled toy designer. The Riddler’s 2nd outing in the series was ripped almost wholesale from the Toyman, with The Riddler using his fame to market Toys (something the Toyman has done many times).

Despite running for 3 Seasons many of Superman’s villains didn’t appear. Vandal Savage, The Ultra-Humanite (Superman’s first arch enemy) Mongul got introduced in the following Justice League series. Mongul’s late appearance confuses me, while a lot of Vandal Savage’s plots could move to Lex Luthor as they’re both earthbound, millionaire, evil geniuses. The Ultra-Humanite has been struggling for relevance, desperately trying to be memorable. Ironic because you’d think a super-intelligent albino gorilla would be memorable. Mongul’s first appearance was straight adaptation of Action Comics Annual from 1989 and Superman 35, with Martian Manhunter added. This storyline from the comics was the 2nd introduction of Mongul. His first introduction story did have him try and pit Superman against the Martian Manhunter but this is not the story they chose. They chose to adapt the one that is a Superman solo story. 

Batman the animated series for it’s 4th Season had its budget cut leading to all the characters being redesigned. Superman the animated series started with the lower budget. This probably lead to the mindset that if Lex Luthor could be behind it then he should, because then they wouldn’t need to design a new character and cast somebody new to voice them. So this led to; Vandal Savage, Colonel Future, The Ultra Humanite, Victor Volcanum, The Planter, Morgan Edge, the original Atomic Skull and more villains who try to defeat Superman with intricate plots not appearing. Lex Luthor is over used, he’s responsible for making Bizarro, Metallo and Parasite despite in the comics only being responsible for Bizarro. Metallo was actually improved by this change, but being voiced by Malcolm MacDowell probably didn’t hurt. However, this an oddity, in an attempt to make this series’ Harley Quinn new female characters were added and none of them lasted in the comics. The least successful was Volcana who was so forgotten that in Emperor Joker, a new fire based villainess called Scorch was created completely stealing her niche. Mercy Graves Luthor’s personal driver has her fans, and she has reappeared in Titans. But in Superman comics she had a moment, including an addition to her back story of her being a disgraced Amazon (similar to the villain Artemis). But most popular was the writer’s mouthpiece Livewire.

Livewire with the ear-grating voice of Tank-Girl herself Lori Petty, embodies my next point. The series actually hates Superman deeming him uncool, Batman the animated series never did this Batman. Livewire only does one thing and talk about how lame Superman is. This would be fine for a villain if the universe didn’t seem to back her up. The two best examples of this would be Superman saving kids and then them calling him a loser and the Maxima episode. Maxima in the comics antagonises Superman because she wants to have his baby deeming him the only man worthy of her. The Animated series version didn’t get this memo, because her episode ends with her running off with the new cool kid Lobo. Lobo was then the most popular character but now he can’t maintain an ongoing series. But how are we supposed to root for a hero if the whole series calls him a loser?

Why it took so long to get a show like Primal?

Cartoons are for kids” is a stigma that animation has spent many years trying to over come, and in some ways still is. We may now live in a world with “Adult Animation” but this labelling is still strange, most mediums you put “Adult” in front of it means pornographic but animation while it can mean that it can include the Simpsons. Western animation is limited in what Adult animation can mean, it generally means Sitcom, but Genndy Tartarkovski’s new series Primal may look like Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Flintstones it is nothing like the never ending barrage of edgier and edgier Family Guy clones that dominate the genre. 

So where does this idea that Cartoons are for kids actually come from? The original theatrical shorts where played in movie theatres along side any movie, of course the travelling roadshow musicals didn’t have the cartoons but audiences wanting to see Casablanca or The Grapes of Wraith weren’t demanding their money back when after the news reel Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny showed up with their zany antics. Some theatrical cartoons from this time are now banned for being to raunchy like Red Hot Riding Hood or Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves (that ones also rightly banned for other reasons). But Coal Black actually leads to the answer, Disney. Walt Disney animation as well as making theatrical shorts started to experiment with longer animation the first of which being Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but feature length animation was very expensive so expensive that even the Oscar win made their profit margins razor thin. So to subsidise their income they had to merchandise everything, but adults in the more conservative 1940’s wouldn’t have Donald Duck on their lunchbox and grown women wouldn’t have a Minnie Mouse pinafore, but kids if they loved the character they’d want them on everything. So animation to become feasible needed to be toyetic so the next theatrical release for Disney’s animation division was Pinnochio which is literally about a toy that comes to life. This might sound like I’m being critical of Disney but I see this as a utilitarian act, and without them there would be no innovation within the medium as the highly experimental Fleischer studios (known for Popeye, Felix the Cat and Betty Boop) crumbled under the costs of animation post-unionisation. While Disney had found a market selling toys to children via animated films they did make attempts to try and appeal to a more high-brow and adult audience with Fantasia and the lesser known Make Mine Music, these failed to make the money the studio hoped for. Fantasia was in the mind of Walt Disney a more grandiose idea, they would own their own Fantasia theatres (Fantasia being more of a genre) and every few weeks a new animated short would be added to the playlist meaning that if you kept coming back to the theatre to see it you would see new content each time. In 1945 Walt Disney even commissioned Salvador Dali to come up with a shorts for a second tour of Fantasia, the short itself was finished in 2003 and was named Destino. After Fantasia failed to live up to it’s creators dreams they tried again with Make Mine Music but this time their would be more styles of music in there, while Fantasia was classical Make Mine Music had Baroque and Jazz pieces for Diversity. 1946’s Make Mine Music did alright at the Box Office, but this could be more to do with the war effort than the quality of the film (also because of the war Disney did not make a full feature length animated film until 1950).

Many attempts by animators where made to break the glass ceiling of it just being a kids medium. Hanna Barbera attempted it first with two animated shows, The Flintstones which started out advertising cigarettes and was about two married couples the Flintstones and the Rubbles. Inspired by the Honeymooners the Flintstones storylines were about Fred jealousy of what his neighbours have and him being a neglectful husband. As the series continued the show became more and more kiddie with the additions of more Dino-pets, babies and an alien. Hanna Barbera’s other attempt to crack a more adult audience was doomed from the start, Jonny Quest was based on the comic book art style of Doug Wildey and was meant to emulate the success of Dr No. The show started out with Race Bannon as the leading hero (working title then was “Amazing Race” not Jonny Quest), but with it being animated and with a time-slot that was just before children’s bedtimes the show got altered to being about Jonny. Further medalling happened and the show had a cartoon dog called “Bandit” added to show, Bandit was also drawn in a completely different style to the rest of show and more and more corners where cut because the show wasn’t that profitable and the shows art deteriorated and started to look more and more like the Flintstones. Hanna Barbera had another attempt to break into prime time television with the animated show “Wait till your father gets home” which is most notable to be the last prime time cartoon series (not one off special) before the Simpsons, Hanna Barbera also had so little faith in selling the show as animated they produced an alternate version of the pilot as a live action sitcom.

An oddity of theatrical success for animated came about in the form of Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat and it’s success came from leaning into its subversion of a children’s genre. Fritz the cat featured un-family friendly themes like Sex, Drugs, unconventional sex and experimenting with Neo-Nazism. The films success spawned many imitators including; Down and Dirty Duck produced by Roger Corman and directed by one the future creators of Rugrats and Once Upon a Girl a fully animated pornographic cartoon made by disgruntled Hanna Barbera employees in their spare time and far less successful sequel to Fritz (with neither the comics creator Robert Crumb or Ralph Bakshi’s involvement), Bakshi’s next projects were Heavy Traffic and Coonskin which is even more controversial than Fritz. After Coonskin getting banned Bakshi started making fantasy films, the first of these was Wizards but starting with his adaptation of Lord of the Rings he started using a technique called rotorscoping. Bash wasn’t the first to use this technique, it was first used by Fleischer studios for their out of the inkwell series and it was actually quite normal for it to be used in hand-drawn animation. Walt Disney often used it for more realistic movements in their children film most notably Margaret Kerry for Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Rotarscoping is done by filming someone for reference and then drawing an animated character over them, for Ralph Bakshi’s animated fantasy films he filmed an entire film on a low budget with props and the drawing fantastical elements over them. 

Animation broke into prime time with the Simpsons and while the earlier episodes tackled more taboo subject matters like depression in it’s first season. But by Season 11 when all of the shows creators had left Ian Maxtone-Graham took over and the show changed, it lacked any empathy or investment in the characters. The animation now wasn’t being used to increase the storytelling, it was being used more of gags and so Homer could get away with things no human could, shattering the bounds of reality that the show had previously. Adult animation had found it’s place on TV (while Bill Plympton did make feature animation and Ralph Bakshi continued until his career collapsed around Cool World). MTV created Liquid TV that featured shows like Aeon Flux an Avant Garde cartoon series and The Maxx (an adaptation of Sam Keith’s comic book) neither made a mark but what was successful was more of the same. Every cartoon comedy (even ones intended for children) where told to be more like The Simpsons, so inevitably we got Family Guy. Family Guy became The Simpsons minus any subtlety, but even with that as the show progressed the point got missed by everyone even those who work on the show, Peter is not supposed to be likeable he’s an illiterate slob and a chauvinist whilst Homer in his earlier appearance (pre-“Jerkass Homer”) is flawed and lives in a world where anyone who can help doesn’t care, Peter is irredeemable. Animated shows became a way of presenting unlikeable protagonists getting away with everything, animation does have a tradition of winners and losers look at the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, Tweety Pie and The Road Runner always win and Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Wile E Coyote always lose, but these cartoons are detached from reality as opposed to Archer. Now I actually like Archer but I often wonder does this need to be animated? especially as the art style in the creators own words is “too look as realistic as possible” and yes the characters and sets are very detailed but you know what looks like real people? actual humans. The animation seems to be there to make the characters pain funny, we don’t think “that poor man” we think “ha ha it’s ok he’s just a drawing”. It creates a detachment a lack of empathy, which is the opposite of what Primal achieves with it’s animation.

  

Finally after all that context I’ll explain why I think Primal is finally animation for adults living up to it’s potential. Of course this is entirely from a fan perspective, I have very limited experience with animation, I’ve made the flash animation of a bouncing ball that everyone makes as part of an IT course but everything else I’ve ever tried to make with animation has been limited at best (and nothing like what I hoped it would be). So I’ve been comparing the techniques of one conjurer to another as they use skills I do not possess but this is the internet and anyone who can type can express an opinion. Genndy Tartakovsky is a master of his craft, and with his first series entirely made for Adult Swim (he previously made Samurai Jack which had it’s last series on Adult Swim and increased the violence) he has done something different to everybody else. Primal’s storytelling is done entirely dialogue free. It’s all told in animation whilst other shows will have 2 characters talking, in Primal it’s all in motion and we know what Fang (the Dinosaur) and Spear (The Caveman) are thinking in any scene. Silent characters are nothing new to animation, but they’re mostly reserved for gags like Tom and Jerry, in Primal the stakes are serious. The two characters are fighting for survival and are also working out how to get along, it’s all conflict and resolution. Not to mention it’s violent and you genuinely feel the pain of these characters and hope they survive, Spear is as expressive as an comic panel by Jack Kirby. In fact the whole art-style is quite Kirby-esque, it’s all stylised. Primal isn’t the only piece of animation I’d like to add to the Adult animation renaissance the other candidate would be Netflix’s “Love, Death and Robots” but that as anthology is a mixed bag, with some falling into the trappings of “make it look as realistic as possible” which really adds to the stigma of animation as a lesser art form (these episodes almost always bored me) but some like Zima Blue told an interesting sci-fi story with an animated style of their own proving animation can do more than cheap laughs at others expense and still have a more “mature” audience.