Is Silver Surfer a villain?

It looks like Marvel Studios has found its next big, red hype button in the form of The Fantastic Four, given that every new reveal has managed to deftly capture our imaginations without fail so far.

First, it was the announcement of Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the titular first family, then it was the following scrutinization of that teaser poster that led us all to the conclusion that The Fantastic Four would be a period piece of sorts; specifically, a superhero movie taking place in the 1960s.

And now, we know that Julia Garner will step into the fray as Shalla-Bal, a version of the Silver Surfer from the Earth X continuity of the Marvel comics. The question now, then, is no longer if the Silver Surfer will be involved, but how she’ll be involved; indeed, can the Fantastic Four look forward to her as a powerful ally, or will she cause problems for the gang instead?

Is Silver Surfer a villain?

If the character’s comics history is anything to go by, we’d be wise to expect the Silver Surfer to turn up as a hero; at the very least, she’ll switch sides at some point to stand with the heroes.

It’s true that the Silver Surfer serves Galactus as his herald, scouting out planets for the god-like being to consume, but historically, the character only ever took on the role to spare their people, and would often — despite eventually succumbing to Galactus’ influence — go out of their way to find planets that weren’t inhabited.

It’s furthermore true that the Silver Surfer has been tricked into battling the Fantastic Four on a few occasions, but “tricked” is the key word there; under normal circumstances, the Silver Surfer operates as a force for good in the overwhelming majority of instances.

That being said, most all of the character’s history has come through the adventures of Norrin Radd, the original Silver Surfer, rather than Shalla-Bal. The noble animus that longtime comic fans expect from Silver Surfer, then, isn’t something we’ll outrightly expect in the film from the objectively more flexible and obscure character of Shalla-Bal. Therefore, The Fantastic Four has the best of both worlds in Shalla-Bal, who isn’t as tied to expectations nearly as much as Norrin would be, but is still a sensible conduit for whatever pieces of Norrin’s history, if any, the writers wish to include as they build the character. Norrin, of course, could also still be lurking in the shadows on top of it all.

In other words, there’s no way to truly know what to expect from Shalla-Bal, and that’s just one layer of the big-brain play that was casting Julia Garner as this particular Silver Surfer.

The Fantastic Four hits theaters on July 25, 2025.