I think the reason why Surfer's post power up feats aren't "special" compared to his pre-power up feats is because Surfer's always been depicted as capable of doing practically anything via the power cosmic, so it just looks like more of the same, but it's actually not. Surfer has more power. His remorse holds him back from fully utilizing it to it's highest potential, but it's there.
Also, in Annihilation, the point where Surfer got his power-up was prior to the point where Surfer and Galactus were captured and placed in the Galactus Cannon. When Drax and Moondragon break Surfer out of his harness (after Drax had killed Thanos) Moondragon states that Thanos built in a failsafe to the device which was tuned to Thano's power level. Surfer's able to activate the power cell array, which was tuned to Thanos's energy signature, and Thanos was previously significantly more powerful than Surfer. A depleted Surfer, who couldn't stand up, was able to output Thanos's level of power:
The way Surfer stood up to T&A clearly indicates a level of power beyond anything he'd demonstrated before.
I think an unrestrained Surfer is probably deep into Trans maybe even Sky Father territory, but we'll never see it on-panel, unless it's another one of those "the universe depends on you" situations.
Moondragon says the device is powered to Thanos power signature twice ,ie cosmic power. She says that before Drax kills Thanos and and after Drax kills Thanos when she is panicking she then says power lvl.
If you look at the scans the gauge next to the device is empty. When Thanos places his hand on the pad he starts to fill the gauge up. When Drax kills Thanos you can clearly see the gauge is full, all Surfer does is simply complete the sequence.
"You don't understand! The controls are keyed to Thanos's power level!"
It's right there in the speech bubble on the right.
*edit
I also have a scan of Thanos and Annihilus having a conversation where Thanos flatly tells Annihilus that he himself doesn't possess the power cosmic and uses other sources of power. I'll post after work as I'm on my way out the door now, but no, it's not a case of simply being keyed by the power cosmic.
I think its a bit of a stretch to think that subsequent appearances of Surfer under Fraction, Slott etc take into account any kind of powerup. These kinds of power-ups may be important to people like us that worry about this sort of thing but I doubt anyone at Marvel remembers it.
If one accepts that I dont see much reason to assume it makes any real difference once Giffen was done. Its like Iron Man getting a suit thats more powerful than ever before - everyone else is just going to write him as the Iron Man they know & remember.
So is the point that a vastly weakened/damaged Surfer~Thanos? So where would we put a full-power Surfer, then? Peak-Skyfather or low-end Abstract(nothing less than that could possibly hope to match Thanos' energy output while weakened, after all)..?
I mean, of course we wouldn't assume said feat was just an outlier, because Surfer=Odin makes a lot more sense.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Last edited by Galan007 on Sep 29th, 2014 at 03:12 PM
It's either Thanos' s power signature or Thanos power level. If power level I don't understand why Thanos would have to put maximum effort into it to activate it. It'd be more like just some power imo.
We also know Surfer is nowhere near Thanos full power or not. Especially when Giffen had Thanos dunking on two "unlimited power" people straight up.
Still Surfer got a powerup. And subsequent showings where Surfer is durable and powerful as all shit don't hurt. He got rid of any notion of a glass jaw at the very least. His average now is his better showings back then.
The point I'm making is in regards to Galactus giving Surfer a power up (scans on previous page), not in regards to Surfer being equal to Thanos. That's the missed context. Insane Titan stated that there was no evidence that Surfer received a power up. I then stated as points of reference Surfer's two encounters with Ravenous (his difficulty prior to Galactus's 'healing', and his ease afterwards), and the other subsequent showing of Surfer being able to output Thanos's power level to activate the device when Moondragon stated the device was keyed to Thanos's power level (in scan above). I'm not saying that Surfer has Thanos's power level, I'm saying that, per that scan, a depleted Surfer, giving it his all, was able to activate a machine keyed to Thanos's power level. It's right there on the printed page, and also alluded to with Moondragon's statement about Thanos being "power incarnate".
KMC Community Forums
Sep 29th, 2014 12:01 PM
