Despite the fact that DC and Marvel Comics are perhaps the two greatest competing comic book franchises in history, it seems as though their universes share a secret cosmic link–and DC’s Silver Surfer cameo proves it.
The Silver Surfer is a hero within the Marvel Universe who was once a Herald of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. Silver Surfer’s mission was to fly across the universe and search for planets Galactus could consume–an endless task that resulted in the deaths of trillions throughout his tenure. Eventually, Silver Surfer left Galactus’ side and became a hero of Earth alongside the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, and due to the Power Cosmic that flowed through his veins, courtesy of his former master, Silver Surfer was a great asset–and now, it seems Silver Surfer has become significant not just on an in-universe level, but in a meta sense as well.
In Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame (written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael D. Allred, Terry Austin, Mark Buckingham, John Totleben, Matt Wagner, Eric Shanower, Arthur Adams, Jim Aparo, Kevin Nowlan, and Jason Little), Clark Kent is put on a story for the Daily Planet about a new museum opening up, one that somehow has a collection of valuables from all over the universe. This museum immediately becomes credible when it’s shown to possess a Green Lantern Power Battery, indicating that the other objects on display are just as authentic–including none other than the Silver Surfer’s surfboard.
Silver Surfer’s Surfboard Appeared in DC, & the Justice League Seemingly Appeared in Marvel
This isn’t the first time Marvel and DC have seemingly crossed over within each other’s official canon–and it isn’t the first time it had something to do with a cosmic entity. In Thor #2 by Donny Cates and Nic Klein, Thor and Galactus prepare for the coming of the Black Winter–an entity that consumes entire universes the way Galactus devours planets. In the opening pages of this issue, readers are shown a previous (or parallel) universe being destroyed by the Black Winter, and it is seemingly the DC Universe. The panels depicting this reality show a red blur flying past what appears to be the logo of the Daily Planet with similar blurs in other panels–the familiar red, one green, and one lightning. Not only that, but in the narration boxes describing the horrors of the Black Winter as it relates to this particular universe, these heroes or ‘gods’ are described as “A sun god. A god of emerald light. A god of dark, perhaps. A god of the ocean. Of speed. Of strength. This universe, like so many before it, is protected by leagues of gods”.
The descriptions of these dying heroes within the doomed reality of Thor #2 is a more-than-subtle nod at the Justice League. That, mixed with the appearance of what seems to be the Silver Surfer’s surfboard indicates that–whether they exist in each other’s past in some kind of endless loop or concurrently within the same multiverse–the DC and Marvel Comics’ universes are linked on a cosmic level, even if the exact nature of that connection is currently unknown.