Marvel Legends: Silver Surfer

 

 

Let me tell you a story: once, not that many years ago, there was a young girl who would play with her cousins. One of her cousins had action figures of Spider-man and the Silver Surfer; this little girl always wanted to play with the Silver Surfer, but found perpetual denial, constantly being forced to play with Spider-man instead.

Some years later, Legends Silver Surfer would be released as a Walgreens exclusive, most likely the fairy godmother equivalent in this story, as that very phrase, “Walgreens exclusive,” is still so odd to hear. A man would purchase this Surfer for that young girl, now all grown up, in a gesture so romantic an entire group text worth of friends cheered it, only to have the woman not be that impressed by the figure that was now hers after all those years of wanting. Fortunately for her, she is married to the guy who runs Child Sized Coffin, so nothing went to waste.

The Silver Surfer is one of those comic characters that everyone seems to know of, but few seem to actually know much about, present company most certainly included. The Herald of Galactus, he is an alien. That surfs in space. Alright.

The Surfer body is a repainted Spider-man, with the giveaway being the additional shoulder joints, allowing the arms to cross in front of the chest as well as reach a bit further behind the figure than the standard Legends shoulders. The main benefit to the figure of these shoulders is that he can be posed so as to look like he is surfing, but honestly, these shoulder joints should just be included on every figure. They are interesting additions, and do allow for some extra movement, which is excellent; but, they do look a little bit bad, awful from some angles, so if there were a way to obfuscate them, even a little bit, it would be a huge improvement on 6” figures. I’ve honestly only encountered this joint a few times, and the Surfer here is the first one that isn’t wearing something to cover his chest, leaving the joints totally visible.

Considering the Surfer is a naked silver man, covering the shoulder joint is not possible. But while we’re on the subject, the Surfer is indeed silver, not a shiny, chromed figure or anything, but a nice silver. This is not a toy painted to look like silver, it’s actually painted silver. That’s a pretty long way to go to say the paint job is nice, but it is. The head sculpt is strong and clean. Kind of hard to say things about a figure that is really just a body; the Surfer doesn’t really have any characteristic looks or features, other than being a silver space surfing alien, I guess.

The figure comes with a load of parts, mainly extra hands, as well as a surfboard, because he’s the . . . Silver Surfer, and a pair of those thin translucent plastic rings that are supposed to be effects parts that I truly hate. They are supposed to represent those panels in comics where a character is casting a spell or gathering or expelling energy or some such, but in execution the parts are a letdown. They “work,” being a very relative word choice here, by slipping over the hand and then clipping on to the wrist via a C of soft plastic, but they do not hold their position very well once applied. They are the kind of piece that you attach once you’ve got the figure in the position you want it to maintain for the rest of the time you own it, and even then you look over at it periodically to see if it hasn’t just randomly shifted or slid. I 100% appreciate what these parts are intending to do, but I do not like them at all. They discourage me from handling figures once I get these dumb rings the way I like them. And, while that may be stupid or silly on my part, I find them that irritating. Oftentimes, they are fairly integral to the overall look of the figure, or are necessary to strike a certain appearance that the figure is kind of designed to strike: I’ve got a Legends Dr. Strange that I need to photograph that I purposely keep putting off doing because I don’t want to fool with these rings again. But the Surfer doesn’t actually need these ring pieces for any particular look or pose, so they can be safely stored away. The surfboard is just a long, flat piece of silver plastic, with a peg hole on it so the figure can be loosely secured to the board. And I mean loosely. Once you peg the figure on to the board, you have to make sure the combo is balanced, or else it will lean a little bit and tip over.

Any figure that can crotch-grab is going to be a hit around these parts.

To revisit the article opening anecdote, this figure was purchased with the intention of it being a romantic gesture towards my wife, but it didn’t quite work out as well as I’d hoped it would have. This is a good figure, and a fairly standard Legends figure, and one that is kind of an interesting conversation piece when guests come over and gawk at our collection, but I have no affinity towards the character. To me, the Surfer is mainly just another figure on my shelf and a memory of what I will most certainly always think of as a romantic overture. But it’s also likely to soon be stored, along with other store exclusives that I had higher hopes for before they were obtained. It’s not a fault of the toy though, this time. One of the things on my winter to-do list is honestly to learn more about the character, so maybe I can forge a personal appreciation and thus increase my enjoyment of the figure version.