Was Silver Surfer ever a woman? Fantastic Four Silver Surfer Rumors Explained

Another day, another unexpected Fantastic Four rumor. We just recently thought that Pedro Pascal could be our Reed Richards, and now it’s possible that the Silver Surfer is a woman.

To be clear, unlike Pascal’s casting – which was reported by Deadline, although Marvel declined to comment on the story – this is actually just a rumor. However, according to the so-called scooper Jeff Sneider or The hot mic podcast, the Fantastic Four’s frequent ally will be depicted as female once they debut in the MCU. This same source claims that Galactus will be the villain of the reboot film and could be played by Javier Bardem.

Again, let’s not put too much emphasis on this right now, but for the sake of argument, has there ever been a female Silver Surfer? Could this really be Marvel’s plan? We’ll take a look.

There is a female Herald of Galactus, and she has appeared in the films before

First of all, yes, there is a female Silver Surfer in the pages of Marvel Comics. The Silver Surfer of Earth-829, known as Juno, is an inverted variant of Norrin Radd. She only appeared in three issues in the 2010s Hercules: Twilight of a God comical, however, so she seems unlikely to make a jump to the big screen.

What seems more plausible is that Marvel could consider adapting Frankie Raye, a female herald of Galactus from the Earth-616 continuity. Originally introduced as a love interest for Johnny Storm who was afraid of fire in 1975. Fantastic Four #164, Frankie’s phobia was later explained as the result of his own repressed pyro powers. After harnessing her own abilities, she volunteered to become Galactus’ new herald to save Earth in 1982. Fantastic Four #244.

From that point on, Frankie became known as Nova, although confusingly she has nothing to do with Marvel’s other cosmic superhero, Nova. Although she is not a Silver Surfer as such, Frankie is largely Radd’s female counterpart in the comics, so it is possible that the two characters could be put together to create an original female Silver Surfer in the MCU.

Oddly enough, Norrin Radd and Frankie Raye made their film debut together in 2007. Fantastic Four: The Silver Surfer. Radd was memorably voiced by Laurence Fishburne (with Doug Jones as a physical presence) while Raye was taken back to her roots and introduced as a romantic interest in Chris Evans’ Human Torch. This incarnation was played by Beau Garrett.

So there are ways to make Silver Surfer female, but whether that’s the direction Marvel should take I’ll leave it up to the fans to debate (and debate, and debate).