How to explain the Silver Surfer? Imagine a man built like an Olympic swimmer, shaved bald as an egg, and wearing only a very brief pair of trunks. Give him a surfboard, and plate them both silver. Silver body paint won't do—it just doesn't have that mirror-like smoothness. Add to that a soul akin to that of Gandhi, and a tendency to soliloquize like Hamlet, and you have the Silver Surfer.
The surfboard is actually an interstellar space vehicle with both life support and artificial gravity of a sort—the details of which are unknown to me—but it looks like a surfboard. Hence his name.
The Surfer started off life as Norrin Radd on the planet Zenn-La, a nice guy with a nice girlfriend named Shalla. Then one day, Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds, stopped by Zenn-La with the intent of consuming it.
Galactus…It is not possible to explain Galactus without deeply questioning the nature of the universe, but since I do that on a daily basis, I was prepared to try. Galactus is a phenomenally intelligent and powerful being who must consume the energies of planets which are capable of supporting life in order to survive. The problem with that is that most planets which are capable of supporting life do support life, and sometimes intelligent life at that.
I would like to think that Galactus would prefer not to consume life-bearing planets, just as humans might prefer not to eat crackers full of weevils—an example of the relative intelligence level of Galactus as compared to us—but when he is hungry enough, he just doesn't have a choice. Perhaps there are some humans who would rather starve than eat a weevil, but Galactus is not of that spirit.
Then I have to face the fact that Galactus looks like an ordinary man, albeit a giant—who has inexplicably chosen to wear a costume in violent shades of pink and purple which clash horribly with one another, and to top it with a helmet that looks like the top of an art-deco skyscraper, if an art-deco skyscraper had branches like a candelabra attached to it. That is when my head begins to hurt.
As seeking out inhabitable planets uses more energy and time than he prefers to exert, he employs heralds—people who he transforms with the Power Cosmic—to look for them for him. At the time that he went to Zenn-La, he had no herald. Norrin Radd offered to become his herald, if Galactus would spare his planet. Galactus agreed, and ordinary Norrin Radd became—the Silver Surfer.
He performed his task without rebellion—although he was inwardly tormented by what he had to do—condemn the populations of entire planets to be eaten by his master—until one day he found Earth. He refused to let Galactus consume the Earth. As a result, he was exiled here—and became—surprise, surprise—another superhero.
That was a while ago. I had heard that of late, he had been reinstated into Galactus' service. So why was he here now?
"Who summons us?" demanded Victor.
"Uatu, the Watcher." replied the Surfer. "He dares not come himself, for fear of disturbing the Nexus Being, so he requested my services of my master, that I might conduct you to the Blue Area of the Moon and back again."
"To what purpose?" asked Victor.
"Conference. Beyond that, I do not know." the Surfer replied.
"Doom answers no one's summons." Victor told him, haughtily.
"It is not you who are summoned, but she." Norrin Radd pointed at me. "I would not take you, Doom, for any reason."
"Me?" I asked, startled. "But why?—Oh, this is ridiculous! I don't care who he is or why he wants to talk to me. I refuse. We're a little busy just now!"
"Your refusal was anticipated. I cannot nor will not offer you physical force to compel you, but I am to tell you this. If you will go to him, the Watcher will tell you a thing you most fervently desire to know: whether or not you bear the seeds of madness in your genes."
Oh, that was good. Much better than Mephisto… Uatu was a Watcher—a nearly immortal, nearly omniscient telepathic alien race who had appointed themselves to observing everything that went on in the universe for reasons of their own. They rarely intervened with events—they only witnessed them. I could not guess why he would want to talk to me—when he had only to read my mind, no matter what the distance. He sure knew what bait to use. "I—All right. Yes."
"I forbid it." Victor said.
"Victor—"I looked at him. "Yes, I agreed I would promise to obey—but you agreed you would promise to respect. Why do you forbid it? Would I be in danger? Would the Watcher deceive me?"
"I mean that I forbid you to go alone. If you do this, I will accompany you. There is no other way." Victor folded his arms, and looked at the Silver Surfer.
"I would not have dealings with you. You are deceitful, false, full of guile—treacherous. Do you know what it was he did to me, under the guise of friendship?" Radd looked at me. "He pretended to befriend me, then siphoned off the Power Cosmic and took it for himself, leaving me weakened, on the brink of death, his prisoner. Had my master not erected a shield around the Earth to prevent me from traveling off of it, I know not what he would have done."
"My intentions were what they have always been!" Victor defended himself stonily. "I would have used them for the betterment of mankind!"
"By ruling them." The Surfer responded.
"I would make a better job of it than they themselves have done!"
"Wait a moment." I said. "Your instructions were to bring me, but if you want me to go along, you'll have to put up with Victor. Is this important enough to do that?"
Radd gave that some thought. "Yes. If he gives his word that he will behave as he ought to."
"Victor?" I turned to him.
"I have never behaved any other way—but I will give my word that I will take no action against him."
"Satisfied?" I asked the Surfer.
"It will have to do." The Silver Surfer scowled.
"Could you return us to Genosha, rather than here?" I asked. "It would save us some time."
"Yes." The Surfer said.
"Very well; let us go." Victor strode over, leapt up unto the board—which startled the Surfer—then gave me a hand up. We set off for the moon.
I don't get motion-sick as a rule, but as a rule I don't try to balance on a tiny little board (comparatively speaking) while the Earth drops away below me. I had been told that it was perfectly safe, but my stomach wasn't convinced. I had a massive attack of vertigo. I realized, to my horror, that because the mask had a grille over the mouth, if I threw up while wearing it, it would have nowhere to go…
"Victor, what do you do when you're wearing your armor and you start to feel nauseated?" I asked.
"Get to some private place, and—Take the mask off! Immediately!" he said, realizing it was not an idle question. "She is ill; turn back at once." he commanded the Surfer.
"I'm okay, I'm okay." I mumbled, fumbling with the closure that held the mask in place.
"You are not." Victor said. "Sit down, at least." I sank to my knees, letting the mask fall from my hand, and closed my eyes.
Not being able to see the spiraling Earth or the wheeling stars helped. I opened them again, just in time to see the Surfer turn, asking, "Is she all right?"—and in turning, he knocked the mask off the board with his foot, sending it spinning into the void.
I closed my eyes again, tight.
"Confound it—that was unfortunate. Half the suit's functions are disabled without the mask." Victor said. "Take care the life support does not fail now, Surfer—or it will be the worse for you."
"You need not threaten me." The Surfer replied. "Will you be all right?" he asked me. "We are now closer to the moon than we are to Earth—if you can go on, the Watcher will make you more comfortable."
"I'm all right—as long as I keep my eyes closed. Who is this 'Nexus Being' that Uatu daren't disturb?" I asked.
"Wanda Maximoff—the one known as the Scarlet Witch." Radd explained.
"Okay. Now, what does that mean?" I inquired.
"She exists at the very crux of our reality—a being of tremendous power, upon whom all things hinge." the surfer replied.
"Okay. Now what does that mean in practical terms?" I asked again. "There are dozens, if not hundreds, of beings of tremendous power, etcetera, flying around. You can hardly move for tripping over them sometimes."
"That is not so!" the Surfer answered.
"You think not?" Victor responded. "The Phoenix, your master, Franklin Richards—from time to time—The Beyonder, the Molecule Man, the…"
"Your point is taken." The Surfer said. "The nexus being personifies the character of our reality, and is its focal point, its anchor."
"For our entire reality? As it is, or as it was before?"
"As it—returns to." he said, uncertainly.
"So our reality is personified—to some extent determined—by Magneto's daughter, a woman who is sometimes insane, who married an android and thought they could have children without there being any sperm involved, whose children are products of her imagination? That's not sounding good for our reality… It doesn't sound like a very good system for running a universe. Who decides who gets to be the nexus being, anyway?" I was getting annoyed.
"I do not know." The Surfer said, sounding even more uncertain. "You would have to ask Uatu."
"I said I would take no action against you." Victor put in, sounding cheerful. "I never said I would protect you from my wife. She has a way of inflicting existential uncertainty on the unwary."
"We are here." Radd announced. The board glided to a halt before the feet—of a fifty foot tall toddler wearing a blue and white toga.
I greet you. came from a voice inside my head. I am Uatu, the Watcher.
"Hello." I replied. He wasn't actually a toddler, in all truth, but his head was grossly oversized by human standards, just as a baby's is.
"What is it you want from my wife?" Victor did not waste time on pleasantries.
I want to ask her why the timestream is being manipulated—for I, who have watched this planet since before life began upon it, cannot perceive the manipulation, not who is doing it. I do not summon her merely to dispute with her—for I cannot see the date of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff's birth, nor reconcile it with the facts as they are.
The massive face did not change as he related, Magda Lensherr, who was the first wife of Magneto, and their mother, was a woman of twenty when she escaped the death camp. Her first child was born five years later, died four and a half years after that. She was thirty when she bore Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch—yet they are but twenty-seven now, and I cannot find in my memory how this should be. It is not Wanda Maximoff's doing. I do not know whose doing it is…and I am frightened. This cannot be—yet it is.
"I believe it is being changed so that a certain set of people—the costumed adventurer community—does not change very much—so they do not age, or grow out of being superheroes, or suffer physical decline, or die permanently. It does not affect everyone. Many people are born, grow up, live out their lives and die without being affected directly—only their memories are affected."
You say this state of existence began about forty-five years ago. I do not remember when it began. I have not noticed it until you came to my attention. I merely witness all—I do not ascribe importance to every thing I observe.
"You would not have noticed when it began because not only is the...seminal event caught up in the distortion—you are also. You see, until the event occurred—you didn't even exist. After the event—you and your people have been around since before the earth was ever formed. It affects not just everything that has happened since then—but everything that ever happened before it, as well." I said, thinking that this would be an excellent moment to tell me that I really was schizophrenic and delusional.
You spoke of proofs. I can perceive the secondary materials which you collected together—the ones which are dispersed throughout the attic of the domicile your father's mother owned. They are powerful arguments for the truth of your statements. However, I cannot see what is within the hidden box—the box which you purchased at the 'yard sale'. I cannot even access them within your memories. It is a grey area. This is an unknown thing among my race. What was the event which began this manipulation of time?
I took a deep breath. This was going to have a most interesting effect on Victor, I knew it. "Back around 1961, Reed Richards wanted to reach the moon before the Soviets did, so he, his best friend Benjamin Grimm, his fiancée, Susan, and her brother, Johnny Storm, snuck aboard the rocket he was building for the United States Government, took it, and tried for the first moon landing. They didn't make it. They were caught in a cosmic storm, and crash-landed back on Earth, where they found they had acquired some strange new powers."
"Richards!" Victor said, with grim satisfaction. "I might have known he was behind this." The other shoe had not yet dropped; I was waiting for that.
Uatu said, Yet you have not told Reed Richards of this. It was a statement, not a question.
"No. It sounds insane even now. All I could do—was amass evidence. I can't explain more without my proof from my grandmother's attic." I looked at my feet.
It does not exist in this reality. Once you have recovered them, I would appreciate it if we might discuss this further. At this moment, Stephen Strange is preparing to send his astral form forth to visit Wanda Maximoff, while the heroes who remain gather to attack Magneto's palace. Neither she nor they yet know that her father and brother lie dead. I am blocking that knowledge from Charles Xavier, whose mind and powers she has pre-empted. That much I can do from this distance. I do this to recompense you for the time you have spent to come here.
"Then you are satisfied?" Victor asked.
No. But no more can be resolved at this time. I thank you.
"What of the promise you made through the Silver Surfer?" I asked. I had not forgotten that. "He said you would tell me…"
If you will develop schizophrenia or not. You have in you the genetic factors—
My heart sank.
—but you will never develop the condition. You know of the connection between the diseases known as 'cowpox' and 'smallpox'. The first is a minor ailment—the second, a dreaded disease that leaves disfigurement and death in its wake.
"Yes, but they're so similar that the anti-bodies the immune system produces against cowpox serve as protection against the smallpox. That was how vaccination began. It gave vaccination and vaccines their names— from vaca, meaning cow."
Your obsession with these matters we have discussed is a very small madness. It serves to vaccinate you against the greater madness you fear.
"Oh." That was… interesting. Well, everybody in the world was secretly convinced they were a little insane; it was part of the human condition. At least in my case there was some justification. "What about the children I might have—will they be at risk?"
Of those not yet conceived, I cannot know—but I can tell you that the daughter you now carry, though she is but a cluster of sixteen cells at this moment, has only partial copies of the factors that produce schizophrenia. She will never develop it.
Beside me, I heard Victor breathe in sharply, and my hand crept, almost of its own accord, to my belly—or, rather, my glove went to the abdominal section of the breastplate with the bomb crater in it. "A daughter." I whispered. The future was getting so close that it was already here…
"A daughter." Victor echoed, jubilant. There was a distinct hint of testosterone based 'Yes, I am the Man!' in his voice.
"Don't go beating your chest just yet," I play-scolded him. "Anything might happen. I could sneeze and dislodge her."
" Then don't sneeze." he commanded. "Yes, I know, but all the same…Joviana."
You need not fear. In all the futures that I see branching out from this moment, she is in them. Farewell. I shall watch you—all of you—with particular interest from now on.
I was smiling so wide my face was aching. I couldn't do anything else. "Thank you." I told Uatu.
"I add my thanks to hers, Watcher. This news is most welcome, and I am grateful for it."
The Watcher made a slight bow, and was gone.
"I wish you happiness in your union and your child." the Silver Surfer told us. "It is more than you deserve, Doom. I hope you will come to merit it—in time."
"Let us return to Earth." Victor said, "or else this child shall be homeless. Not a bump nor a swerve as you go, Surfer—as smooth a flight as can be—or else."
"I have told you before that you need not threaten me, Doom. I shall do so for her –for their sake, not yours."
As we left the moon, Victor turned to me, and asked, softly, "I hope you do not regret this child's conception, my dear. Can you reconcile yourself to it? It will be well. I promise you that."
I looked at Victor. "I'm overwhelmingly happy and utterly terrified at the same time—but regret her? No. Your baby—yours and mine. I—oh, drat! I forgot to ask Uatu about the whole Nexus Being business!"
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A/N: Next chapter—Wanda!