Popverse's top stories

• Summer 2026 is getting started already - we have the Florida Supercon 2026 dates!
• Why have a family vacation from hell when you could read one instead with Jennifer Thorne's Diavola? [If It Bleeds, We Read]
• Marvel Studios veterans are teaming up to bring 2000 AD icon Judge Dredd to the big screen one more time

This week, Marvel Studios formally unveils the MCU Silver Surfer - and it's a woman. While some feel rankled because this isn't the classic Norrin Radd version of the character from comics but one of several Silver Surfer variants, those fans will now have something else they can become sanctimonious about: the main Silver Surfer in comics will soon also be a woman.

But we don't believe it's who the haters (and everyone else) might think.

Marvel Comics has revealed the cover image to October 15's Death of the Silver Surfer #5 comic series, and it features on its cover a new version of the titular hero - with a redesigned surfboard, a seemingly female body, and some darkness around their neck and hands. 

"The Silver Surfer is dead. Long live the Silver Surfer," reads Marvel's succinct description of this issue. 

While some, including GamesRadar+, are jumping to the conclusion that any female version of Silver Surfer would probably be Shalla-Bal - the identity of the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four: First Steps and some previous Marvel Comics - but for those of us reading this series so far, there's a simpler explanation.

In the first two released issues of 2025's The Death of the Silver Surfer, a new character named Major Kelly Koh is introduced - a human with a similar haircut to the one seen in this cover (minus the silver of course), and someone who worked for S.H.I.E.L.D, its outer space sister agency S.W.O.R.D., and now a new agency known as the Bureau of Alien Neutralization (B.A.N.). In the course of that work, she was exposed to the Silver Surfer's power, and he seemingly saved her life (and met her mom).

Either way, revealing a female Silver Surfer in Marvel Comics the same week as a female Silver Surfer makes their MCU debut reeks of corporate synergy but also common sense, given more people will be watching this movie in the next few weeks than have been buying Silver Surfer comics the past few years..

Look for the female version of Silver Surfer to debut by October 15's Death of the Silver Surfer #5 - or possibly already under our noses.

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.