Originally posted by aliveinboston
1. Thor did not have warrior madness, he was insane, which is very different. The result was that he was not holding back for fear of killing. In fact, he almost killed the Surfer and Beta Ray Bill.2. IIRC Loki had given Surfer a boost as well.
3. It wasn't the hammer's power, it was his own power. The hammer was just a way to focus it. He can also release it from his own body but presumably the preparations are even longer. But Thor didnt need anything like his god-force to dominate the surfer.
4. Galactus wasn't in a weakened state he was his normal size. The fact is, although Galactus is far more powerful, Thor is powerful enough to kill a normal Galactus. This certainly cannot be said of the Surfer.
5. No, he is portrayed as precisely what he is, a user of the power cosmic. Even Galactus is limited in his control of the power cosmic so it only makes sense that the Surfer is even more limited in this respect.
1. "'Tis plain Thor is touched by the Warriors' Madness."
--- Beta Ray Bill, p 17 of that issue (the second Surfer/Thor fight).
2. Earlier in the issue of the first Surfer/Thor fight, Surfer stalemated Loki in one of those double hand-grip positions that superheroes like to do. This implies that, at best, Loki could only have doubled Surfer's power later on. This still puts Surfer way below what he was prior to the sonic shark incident. However, this is moot, since Marvel decided to completely ignore the whole sonic shark encounter.
3. Wherever that power comes from, Thor still needed prep time...prep time the Surfer could exploit. However, you are correct that Thor did not need that level of power to defeat Surfer, but then, I never said he did--I was responding to your Thor/Galactus reference.
4. Unfortunately, I no longer have that issue so can't comment on it with certainty regarding Galactus' exact power level, though also, I have never heard that Galactus' size relates to his power level (if you have canon text which states this, please post). As for Thor being "powerful enough to kill a normal Galactus"--this may well be true, assuming Galactus does nothing to defend himself (could not Spider-Man kill Thor if Thor does nothing to defend himself?), and as I recall, Galactus was not actively confronting Thor at the time Thor launched his assault. This evaluation of Thor's power also sounds more like opinion than canon. If canon, please post text. Regardless, Thor fighting Galactus is off-topic.
(As for Surfer not having that kind of power: In FF#50, where Surfer is fighting Galactus, SS says while encasing Galactus in a hardening cocoon of energy, "I cannot bring myself to cause him injury. I seek only to place him in restraint." Galactus did bust out and later deflected all the Surfer's subsequent attacks, but then, he was more actively engaging the Surfer than he was Thor when Thor attacked him. Thus, it can be reasonably argued that what you said about Thor could be said about Surfer--assuming no canon text exists to support your claim.
5. Given the vast array of power at the Surfer's disposal, and that 90% of the time he is basically shown flying around, firing cosmic bolts: clearly, he is rarely written to full potential, and for the same reason Thor is rarely written to full potential: imagine the challenge, the nigh-impossibility of constantly writing interesting and believable stories about either (or Superman, too, for that matter), if writers cut loose all the time. This is one of the drawbacks of having characters at these power levels.