'Fantastic Four' reboot will have a female Silver Surfer — Marvel casts Julia Garner for role with obscure justification

A new version of "Fantastic Four" will feature a female actress playing the role of the Silver Surfer character, reaching deep into Marvel lore to justify the gender switch.

Rumors from November 2023 turned out to be true after industry insiders tipped fans off about the potential gender switch for the Marvel reboot. In fact, the rumor even goes back to 2019 when reporter Mikey Sutton claimed that a new "Fantastic Four" movie would open with a transfer of power from the Silver Surfer to a female character.

The Silver Surfer is set to be played by Emmy-winning actress Julia Garner, Deadline first reported. The announcement raised the question among fans as to why the typically male character would be played by a woman.

In the 2007 film "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," the title character was played by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne, neither of whom are women.

However, it is actually a different female character who will take on the role as the Silver Surfer, and the justification of the character is about as obscure as one can get.

The character's name is Shalla-Bal, and fans will have to dig deep into their archives to find an instance when she inherited the role.

Shalla-Bal was first introduced in the debut issue of the Silver Surfer comic in 1968 and spent 50 years in comic book lore as the Silver Surfer's love interest.

As Bounding into Comics reported, the character has spent a very minimal amount of time as the Silver Surfer and never in the main timeline/universe of Marvel.

Shalla-Bal was seen in the role in the final two issues of 1997's "Earth X," in which she was temporarily granted the Silver Surfer's powers so that she could stop an invading force.

In total, the character's total time as the Silver Surfer has amounted to roughly four pages across two issues since 1968.

The character was given a similar role as Starbolt in 1982 but appeared gold.

Despite the technicality, Deadline cited inside sources that the character is the Shalla-Bal version of the Silver Surfer. For a reimagining of a franchise like "Fantastic Four" that hasn't been seen for 10 years, the film would have to take place in the exact timeline at that specific moment, coupled with an explanation as to why the Silver Surfer is a woman.

While audiences will have to wait for specific details, the internet is already alive and well with heated debates as to whether or not the character is another woke choice by Marvel and Disney. This, despite both companies going nearly — if not completely — undefeated in recent years in terms of using the Kathleen Kennedy method of storytelling.

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