Dan Slott and Michael Allred look back on their astounding run
Anywhere and everywhere hang on!
And now the journeys over.
As a lifelong fan of the Silver Surfer, Slott was the right man for the job.
Credit: Marvel
There were two big things I decided going in, Slott tells EW.
And thats the other thing: He always keeps going back to Earth!
If Im the Surfer and I can fly anywhere, Im going to find new places!
Marvel
He was the astronomer of Zenn-La he wants to see new stars!
Thats where Dawn came in.
The moment you say that you get the whole ethos.
Marvel
A Miyazaki heroine doesnt care about beating the bad guy, they care about solving the problem.
Theyd much rather, at the end of the story, turn the bad guy into a friend.
Theyre courageous, theyre adventuresome, they never give up, theres a whole feeling.
Marvel
The moment you say Miyazaki heroine, you get Dawn.
Allred says it took lots of lengthy phone calls for him and Slott to get her exactly right.
We very quickly just started talking about her like she was a real person, Allred tells EW.
Its so odd to not have her in our lives on a daily basis anymore.
Dawns eagerness to trust people meant that she and Surfer hit it off right away.
ButSilver Surferwas never a one-note comic.
People like to play him sometimes as Space Jesus, Slott says of the Surfer.
That planet looks good.
Oh whoops, a billion people died.
I dont think Space Jesus would do that.
One of the fun things was knowing what readers knew about the Surfer, and having Dawnnotknow that.
That was something fun to play with as a series.
Its something our editor Tom Brevoort likes saying: We tricked everyone.
What we were secretly selling you on was, its a romance comic.
And by the time you figure that out, its too late, and weve got you.
That meant there were only a couple of things that could happen.
Or worse, theyd kill her so that the Surfer would be motivated to do something.
Neither of those appealed to us.
We wanted to ensure we told the story in such a way that ended that story definitively.
If someone was going to tell the last Dawn Greenwood story, it would be us.
Theres an intoxicating sense of accomplishment, but also crushing sadness, like any end to a beloved era.
A happy, satisfying, crushing sadness.
