STAN LEE, the great American comic book creator died last year on this day, November 12.
Stan Lee was the creative genius at Marvel Comics for decades. He transformed the company from a small family-run business to a publishing empire that gave life to some of the most famous comic book characters of all time.
AMAZING LEGACY
With the brilliant artist Jack Kirby, Stan Lee created Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man and the Silver Surfer.
Just about all of them became successful movies under the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Lee and Kirby’s best creation is said to be the three-part “Galactus Trilogy“ that began in Fantastic Four No. 48 (March 1966), chronicling the arrival of Galactus, a cosmic giant who wanted to devour the planet, and his herald, the Silver Surfer.
It’s a long shot but profound grief makes one push the envelope.
First of all, let me tell you about this super hero, the Silver Surfer. Man, I can’t begin tell you what he can do (see footnote below). But just for starters, he travels throughout the Universe on a surfboard craft faster than the speed of light.
Now, as incredible as this sounds, there’s a remote chance that I can enlist the Silver Surfer to help find my wife, who, I hope beyond hope and pray beyond prayer, is somewhere out there, among the 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.
The Silver Surfer suffered his own loss of a soulmate, so he would understand my quest.
THE LONG LOST DAWN
I don’t mean to insult any reader, but in case you don’t know, the Silver Surfer is a humanoid alien with indestructible metallic skin who can travel through space on the surfboard at superluminal speed.
He used to be an astronomer, Norrin Radd, who lived on the planet Zenn-La, which was targeted for extinction by the planet devourer Galactus, a god-like figure who feeds on the energy of living planets.
GALACTUS
Radd confronted Galactus and offered to become his herald, seeking out new worlds for him to devour if Galactus would spare Zenn-La. Galactus agreed and transformed Radd into the silver-skinned, cosmic-powered super-being, imbuing him with a small portion of his Power Cosmic.* (see footnote)
Radd basically had sold his soul; he served Galactus for 100 years. But when Galactus planned to devour Earth, things changed radically for the conflicted Radd. It’s a complex story [see here] but with the help of the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer rediscovered his noble spirit and his soul.
The Silver Surfer defied Galactus and saved Earth! Galactus took his revenge by exiling him to Earth, where the Silver Surfer joined forces with the Fantastic Four and other super heroes to fight demons and destroyers throughout the Universe.
Heavy duty stuff! So here’s the deal. I have a supernatural acquaintance — I can say no more about that at this time — who has a way (again, secrecy must prevail) of contacting a certain member of the Fantastic Four, who in turn can contact the Silver Surfer.
As I said, it’s not going to be easy — in fact it’s going to be incredibly difficult — but I believe that nothing is impossible in this already impossible Universe.
*Herewith the “aesthetic evil” of the footnote: Power Cosmic is cosmic energy that allows the possessor to perform God-like feats, including creating life, resurrection, manipulating souls, memories and emotions, telepathy, telekinesis, size alteration, transmutation of matter, teleportation of objects across space, creation of force fields, inter-dimensional portals, and, the most formidable of all, mass-scale events such as re-creating dead worlds and destroying multiple solar systems simultaneously.
