The Story Behind Julia Garner's Gender-Swapped Silver Surfer In Fantastic Four: First Steps

SPOILERS ahead for The Fantastic Four: First Steps!

The latest of the new Marvel movies is here with the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and leading up to its debut in theaters you might have heard that the Silver Surfer would be in the movie after Doug Jones previously played him. However, when Julia Garner was cast in the role, some backlash took shape around a female version of the iconic comic book character being portrayed. However, now that the movie is out, I need to talk about what a lot of people have wrong about the gender-swap conversation.

Julia Garner Is Not Portraying The Original Silver Surfer

As soon as Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer started appearing in the marketing for the new Fantastic Four movie, there was a lot of backlash out there about Hollywood gender-swapping another iconic character after Taskmaster, for example, was also played by a woman. As one Reddit user said last year: “I’m sorry if you are using Silver Surfer, why not just use the actual Surfer??? What’s wrong with Norrin?” or another saying: “Wow, great actress, but this is an L for the movie.”

But, as pointed out in the original casting report and as we now know from seeing the movie, Garner did not simply replace Silver Surfer with a female version. She plays someone separate from the Norrin Raad character that’s actually in the comics: Shalla-Bal.

Why This Version Of Silver Surfer Works

Before we get to the origins of Shalla-Bal, I want to talk about her role in the movie, which was achieved thanks to mo-cap technology. I thought it worked really well in the context of the story, and its themes about parenting. Now that we’ve seen it, I think it was really smart for her Silver Surfer to show up. Her origin story of giving herself up to save her own child served as a really nice parallel to the Fantastic Four’s difficult decision with Galactus and Franklin, which really gave the movie more heart all around.

Her specifically being a mother who was previously met with the same problem as Sue Storm and Reed Richards, and reaching another conclusion, before later helping the team, really served the storyline of First Steps in a great way. I wasn't expecting to feel this way, but how Shalla-Bal fit into the team saving the world really stuck with me.

Who Is Shalla-Bal In The Comics?

In the comic books, Shalla-Bal first appeared in The Silver Surfer #1 in 1968 in an issue written by Stan Lee and with art by John Buscema. She’s initially depicted as the love interest of the original Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd. He is known for roaming the cosmos to search for planets for Galactus to consume, as Shalla-Bal does in Fantastic Four, while she’s been often used as a pawn by Mephisto and Doctor Doom to defeat Silver Surfer.

In the comics, Shalla-Ball is the empress of her planet, Zenn-La and Norrin’s love interest. In the source material, however, Norrin is the one who volunteers to become Galactus’s herald.

Considering we’re in the Multiverse Saga, and Fantastic Four does not take place on the main Earth we know, I think it makes a lot of sense for the MCU to shuffle the story a bit while also leaving room for Norrin to appear down the line. I like that Silver Surfer is a woman, not just because that's what was decided, but because it actually enriches all involved in the story for the better. And, yes, I hope to see Norrin Ladd (and I think there’s room for him to) show up at some point, as well.