How Fast Is Silver Surfer? & How Does He Compare to Other Marvel & DC Speedsters?

Both Marvel and DC comics are home to some of the fastest characters imaginable, and Silver Surfer is one of them. Serving his master Galactus in his eternal pursuit of planets to eat, Silver Surfer needs to move extremely fast to cover vast distances of the cosmos, and for that purpose, he was imbued with a fraction of Galactus’ Power Cosmic. Today, we set out to see how fast Silver Surfer is exactly compared to other fast Marvel and DC characters. 

Silver Surfer is many times faster than light, as his estimated speed is 500,000 light-years per second. Silver Surfer is so fast that he can enter hyperspace, although while moving within the outer layers of the planet’s atmosphere, his speed is limited to Mach 10. His Cosmic surfboard allows him to fly at unimaginable speeds without using up his own energy reserves. Silver Surfer is faster than most characters in Marvel and DC comics, save for Flash, who, due to his own unique connection to the Speed Force, is capable of moving as fast as teleportation. 

Now that we’ve covered the extent of Silver Surfer’s speeds, it’s time to explore it in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

How did Silver Surfer get his speed? 

Silver Surfer didn’t always have his unimaginable speed as he was born as Zenn-Lanian on a distant planet of highly advanced humanoid beings. One day, Galactus visited Zen-Lan with the intention of devouring the planet, and Silver Surfer willingly offered to serve as Galactus’ Herald in exchange for Galactus leaving his planet and his people alone. 

Galactus accepted this proposal, and Silver Surfer was imbued with Power Cosmic and was set on a task to find planets suitable for Galactus’ consumption. As we all know, Universe is a big place, and cosmic distances are extremely difficult to traverse, even if you’re traveling at the speed of light. Considering that not all planets that Surfer discovers will be suitable for Galactus and Galactus has to feed fairly often, it’s logical that Power Cosmic allows Silver Surfer to travel at many times the speed of light. 

Silver Surfer can travel 500,000 light-years per second. This speed is limited, however, to Mach 10 while he is under Earth’s atmosphere. Silver Surfer was fast enough to travel from Earth to the middle of the Universe in a matter of minutes. He is fast enough to enter hyperspace and uses almost no energy while flying through the cosmos due to his Cosmic surfboard. Silver Surfer also has teleportation at his disposal. 

Silver Surfer is so fast he bends space-time while he is moving, and he is rightfully considered among the fasters Marvel characters, but how fast is he compared to other superheroes? 

Is Silver Surfer faster than Captain Marvel?

Captain Marvel is well-known to be among the fastest Avengers. She can fly and reach mindblowing speeds. This is due to her hybrid human/Kree physiology that grants her near-divine powers.

When it comes to numbers, Captain Marvel can reach the speed of 17,000 miles per hour while flying. It’s estimated that she can go faster in her binary form. This is, however, not enough to race with Herald of Galactus, who can easily both match and surpass Danvers’ speed on his worst day. Silver Surfer is faster, much faster than Captain Marvel. ž

How fast is Silver Surfer compared to Sentry? 

Sentry is known to be extremely broken in terms of his powers and abilities. Due to the Golden Sentry Serum, Sentry has the power of million of exploding suns, and that power also allows him to fly at insane speeds. Sentry can traverse at Mach 10 speeds while within Earth’s atmosphere and can travel faster than light while in outer space.

The best proof of this is the fact that he reached Sun by traveling from Earth in only 8 minutes. Sentry is fast, but he is not faster than Silver Surfer, who often breaks the possible known limits of speeds. Besides, Silver Surfer has better feats. 

Silver Surfer is several classes above Quicksilver

Quicksilver is not even remotely close to being the fastest speedster that Marvel has at its disposal. Still, he is often included in these comparisons due to his superpower basically being super-speed. He once ran from Tibet to Indonesia in a few seconds. While upgraded with Isotope E, Quicksilver was able to reach high supersonic speeds of Mach 4 to Mach 5, and although this is impressive, he can’t match Norring Radd. Silver Surfer is way faster than Quicksilver. 

Is Silver Surfer faster than Superman? 

Superman can, on average, reach a speed of 1 light-year per second while traveling in outer space. This is much slower than Silver Surfer; however, fans of Man of Steel often mention a feat when Superman managed to fly undecillion light years per second. However, there’s a catch to all of this since this was never shown to be Superman’s consistent speed.

Besides, Silver Surfer can probably fly a lot longer due to the source of his powers being cosmic energy instead of the yellow solar radiation that powers Superman. Even though Superman is capable of storing excess solar radiation in his cells, he’s eventually bound to run out of it. Silver Surfer was shown to be consistently faster than Superman. 

How does Silver Surfer compare to Wonder Woman? 

Wonder Woman was blessed with the speed of Hermes, which easily allows her to reach speeds faster than light in outer space. She is so fast she was able to, on several instances, match Flash’s cruising speed. However, her godlike empowerment is not enough to match Silver Surfer’s space-time warping flight. Especially while flying in outer space. 

Is Silver Surfer faster than the Flash?

We’ve left the best comparisons for the last since Flash is the fastest superhero on this list. With a unique connection to the Speed Force, Flash is speed incarnate and has had plenty of crazy feats over the years. Flash is capable of running between  500 times the speed of light, even 13 trillion times the speed of light. This makes Flash way faster than Silver Surfer. 

How do you think Silver Surfer compares to other characters? Let us know in the comments below!