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Excelsior, once again True Believers! We are back with yet another breakdown for Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four. This time, the news is centered around the Silver Surfer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Julia Garner (The Americans, Ozark, The Royal Hotel, Wolf Man) has been cast as the Silver Surfer, but… not just any Silver Surfer.
Garner will be playing Shalla-Bal. (More on her later in a bit.) Marvel hasn’t confirmed this casting outright, but they have dropped this interesting teaser.
At first glance, this teaser has nothing to do with the Silver Surfer, but if you follow the link in Marvel Studios’ tweet, then you get taken to a blank page with a QR code. Follow that QR code and you get this page:
Marvel has been very gracious in giving folks five free issues of Fantastic Four to read. I don’t think these are just free comics; I believe these five comics form the basis of the movie.
Comics Galore
First up we have Fanstatic Four #1, which tells the origin of the team. The team is sent up into space on a research mission, gets blasted by cosmic rays, acquires powers, and becomes heroes, and the rest is history. This is pretty basic origin stuff that I expect the movie will cover but perhaps not in great detail.
Next up, we have Fantastic Four #46-50, also known as the “Galactus Trilogy”. These comics are the first appearance of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. The Surfer is the herald of Galactus, seeking out planets across the stars for Galactus to devour. The Surfer comes to Earth and eventually teams up with the FF to stop Galactus from eating the planet. I think it’s safe to say that if Marvel is encouraging people to read about Silver Surfer ahead of the movie, then Silver Surfer is in the movie. And where there’s smoke there’s fire. Given that it’s the Galactus Trilogy, Galactus will likely be the main threat of the movie — just like I theorized last time.
Now, here’s where things get interesting with the comics. The last comic on the list is Fantastic Four: Life Story #1, and Life Story isn’t set in the traditional Marvel Comics Earth 616. This comic is set on a completely different Earth. It’s an alternate Earth set in the 1960s and follows the Fantastic Four if they aged in real time over the decades. This leads me to believe that The Fantastic Four movie will be set in an alternate MCU Earth. Additionally, on this new poster in the background, you can see a very retro-futuristic skyline, which doesn’t look anything like any city in the MCU 616.
Tying it all Together
This leads us back to Julia Garner playing Shalla-Bal. Traditionally, Shalla-Bal is Norrin Radd’s lover before Norrin becomes the Silver Surfer. However, there is an alternate version of Shall-Bal who does become the Silver Surfer. Combine the fact Garner’s playing Shall-Bal, Marvel is encouraging people to read about alternate takes on the Fantastic Four, and the breakdown we did back Valentine’s Day, and it’s exceedingly obvious that the Fantastic Four will take place in the MCU Multiverse and that they’ll be meeting Silver Surfer and Galactus.
Am I reading into this too much? Maybe? I feel very confident in saying that this theory is right.
This article was edited by John Tangalin.