Silver Surfer #1

The character nobody ordered

The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four #48, cover-dated March 1966, the opening chapter of what fans call the Galactus Trilogy. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked in what became known as the Marvel Method: they discussed a plot, Kirby drew the story, and Lee added dialogue afterward. When Kirby turned in his pencils, there was a character in them the two had never discussed.

Lee recalled in 1995 that in the middle of the carefully planned story he found "a nut on some sort of flying surfboard." Kirby said he had read in the paper about California kids taking up surfing, and that he could not draw an ordinary teenager surfing, so he drew a man from outer space on a surfboard. He later described the Surfer as a fallen angel, exiled to Earth by Galactus.

The Surfer kept turning up as a guest in Fantastic Four from 1966 to 1968 and had a solo backup story in Fantastic Four Annual #5 in November 1967. When Marvel was told to expand its line, Lee gave the Surfer his own title at once. Because Kirby already had more than enough assignments, Lee gave the new book to John Buscema.

Lee and Buscema

John Buscema was born Giovanni Natale Buscema on December 11, 1927, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to Sicilian parents. He became one of Marvel's defining artists, best known for The Avengers, more than 200 Conan stories and The Silver Surfer, which he penciled for its first 17 issues. Joe Sinnott inked this issue; one indexer who examined the original art suspects Frank Giacoia added brushwork on the cover.

Lee wrote all 18 issues of the series, and the Surfer became something like a personal project. He asked other writers not to use the character as a general rule, and when the 1987 series became the first Surfer comic written by someone else, he said openly that he was disappointed. Kirby came back to draw only the final issue, #18.

The issue's 13-page backup, Tales of the Watcher, was also written by Lee and drawn by Gene Colan with inks by Syd Shores. It told the origin of the Watcher, the cosmic observer from the Fantastic Four, and began a run of such backups in the early issues.

Norrin Radd of Zenn-La

The story opens: "High o'er the roof of the world he soars--free and unfettered as the roaring wind itself!" The Surfer, stranded on Earth, remembers how he got there. He was Norrin Radd, a restless young scholar on Zenn-La, an advanced world that had lost the will to strive. When Galactus came to consume the planet, Radd bargained: he would serve as Galactus's herald, finding other worlds to devour, if Zenn-La and the woman he loved, Shalla-Bal, were spared.

Galactus gave him a portion of the Power Cosmic and made him the Silver Surfer. Eventually he led his master to Earth, where the Fantastic Four's nobility moved him to rebel, and Galactus punished him by trapping him on Earth behind an invisible barrier. The issue revisits those scenes, with the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom and the Hulk in flashback, and adds a meeting with the astronaut John Jameson.

The series that followed dealt with the Surfer's exile and the inhumanity he saw in people. It ran only 18 issues, through September 1970, but became known as one of Lee's most thoughtful and introspective works. The first seven issues were giants with Watcher backups, priced at 25 cents when a standard comic cost 12 cents. Indexers count this issue at 68 pages; one history describes the giants as 72 pages with advertising.

Plenty of copies, few perfect ones

Silver Surfer #1 survives in large numbers. In June 2023 the grading census held 310 copies at CGC 3.5 and 4,682 graded higher, so a 3.5 sits near the bottom of a very deep pool. A copy at that grade sold at auction in June 2023, though the price was not published openly.

At the top the book is scarce. In April 2025 the census counted ten copies at CGC 9.8 and none higher, and the issue's top result at one major auction house was $132,000, set in April 2025. A dealer's guide noted an earlier record of $33,000.

A cameo helped its fame: in the 1983 film Breathless, Richard Gere's character clutches a copy of Silver Surfer #1 while dancing and talks about the character's appeal.

After the first series

Lee and Kirby reunited for a 1978 Silver Surfer book from Simon & Schuster's Fireside line, later recognized as Marvel's first true graphic novel. A second ongoing series ran from 1987 to 1998, 146 issues, and Lee wrote a 1988-89 miniseries drawn by Jean Giraud, known as Moebius.

The Surfer reached the screen in 2007, the year the Silver Surfer: Requiem miniseries launched on May 30 to coincide with his first movie appearance. Through it all, Silver Surfer #1 remains the book where the Surfer first told his own story.

The numbers

Cover price

25 cents

Pages

68 per indexers; origin story 38, Watcher backup 13

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Census, June 2023

310 at CGC 3.5; 4,682 higher

Census, April 2025

10 at CGC 9.8; none higher

Frequency

Bi-monthly

Timeline

1. Mar 1966

   The Silver Surfer debuts in Fantastic Four #48.

2. Nov 1967

   The Surfer's first solo story runs as a backup in Fantastic Four Annual #5.

3. May 16, 1968

   Silver Surfer #1 goes on sale, telling the Surfer's origin.

4. 1968

   The issue wins the Alley Award for best full-length story.

5. Sep 1970

   The first series ends with #18, drawn by Jack Kirby.

6. Sep 1978

   Lee and Kirby's Silver Surfer graphic novel is published.

7. 1983

   The issue appears in the film Breathless.

8. Jul 1987

   A second ongoing series begins; it runs 146 issues to 1998.

9. Jan 10, 2002

   John Buscema dies.

10. May 30, 2007

    Silver Surfer: Requiem launches to coincide with the Surfer's first movie appearance.

11. Jun 2023

    The census shows 310 copies at CGC 3.5 and 4,682 higher.

12. Apr 2025

    The census shows ten copies at CGC 9.8; the issue's top auction result reaches $132,000 at one major house.

The world in 1968

• Apr 11, 1968

  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

• Apr 29, 1968

  The musical Hair opens on Broadway.

• May 14, 1968

  The Beatles announce Apple Records at a New York press conference.

• May 22, 1968

  The nuclear submarine Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard.

• Jun 5, 1968

  Robert F. Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles.

• Jun 8, 1968

  James Earl Ray is arrested for the April assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

• Jul 18, 1968

  Intel is founded.

• Aug 22, 1968

  Police clash with protesters outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Price record

A realized private sale is a completed transaction outside an auction room. The amount is what changed hands on the date shown. Private sales are reported less consistently than auction results, so a single comparable carries less weight than a run of them.

By reference price, Silver Surfer #1 is number 84 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (64 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Jack Kirby added the Silver Surfer to Fantastic Four #48 without discussing him with Stan Lee first.
• Kirby got the idea from newspaper stories about California kids taking up surfing.
• Kirby, the Surfer's co-creator, did not draw this origin issue; he was too busy, so John Buscema got the job.
• Richard Gere's character holds a copy of Silver Surfer #1 in the 1983 film Breathless.
• Stan Lee asked other writers not to use the Silver Surfer.
• The 25-cent giant cost more than twice a regular 12-cent comic of the day.