
Galactus agreed, embuing him with some of his cosmic power and transforming him into a silver skinned being with a flying board Galactus dubbed the Silver Surfer. When Norrin met with Galactus, he suggested he become his herald, to find worlds for him to devour in exchange for saving Zenn-La. Norrin was able to persude the planets Council of Elders to give Norrin a space ship confront Galactus in the hopes of finding a way to convince him not to destroy Zenn-La. In a peaceful but decadent world, Norrin began to hunger for the kind of challenge and adventure that he had read about in books detailing the history of Zenn-La.Įventually, the world of Zenn-La was approached by Galactus, a god-like being that devours the life energy of worlds, who intended to do the same to Zenn-La. He would later meet and fall in love with the woman Shalla Ball and the two became longtime lovers. While most other residents of Zenn-La enjoyed their freedom from want by embracing hedonism, Norrin sought knowledge, education, to achieve more and to improve himself in anyway possible.

Later Jartan would commit suicide after being accused of idea theft (but not before fathering another son with a new lover, Ferran, unknown to Norrin). Norrin was born to parents who were both unique in this world: his mother Elmar who found the utopia of Zenn-La to be suffocating to the point that she committed suicide and his father Jartan, who was unusually ambititious for a man from Zenn-La raised Norrin to be intensively intellectual. Norrin Radd was born on the planet Zenn-La, which was a planet whose technologically-advanced peoples created a utopia that had overcome war, poverty, crime, hunger, poverty, disease and want. He became the sentinel of the spaceways, using his power cosmic to help those in need while searching for his home planet.

When the Surfer betrayed Galactus to betray the Earth, he was given his freedom at the cost of being trapped on Earth and, later, finding that his home planet was now hidden from him. In order to protect his planet from the god-like force known as Galactus, Norrin Radd became Galactus' herald, the Silver Surfer, finding planets for him to devour and to warn its inhabitants to leave.
