*SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE UNSPOILED!*

1. The Surfer's arrival:
When the Surfer first arrives on Earth, he causes a bunch of weather weirdness (read: he makes two locations really cold without warning) and causes massive blackouts all over the west coast of the U.S. First of all, that never happened as a side effect of any of his arrivals in the comics. Secondly, if he was causing the computers on airplanes to shut down, wouldn't he also cause cars' onboard computers to shut down as well? Oh, right, sorry. Logic. I'll move on now.

2. Causing Problems With Johnny's Powers:
Debatable. The Silver Surfer's abilities in the comics are pretty much limited to his writers' imaginations, so I can't rule this plot factor out. What the movie changes is that it says his powers are based on the same cosmic radiation which granted the Fantastic Four their powers. Nearly every herald of Galactus's energy comes from the Power Cosmic, which is totally different from the cosmic radiation. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Surfer doesn't go around all the time creating Super Skrull knock-offs by accident.

3. The Surfer's Speed Limits:
OK, let me see if I understand this: a being which can travel interstellar distances in almost no time at all (which implies, like his comic book counterpart, that he can move at faster-than-light speeds) can be closely tailed by the Human Torch when he's flying around the planet? Yeah, that makes total sense.

4. The Surfer's Preparation Of Earth For Galactus:
All the Surfer would do once he'd deemed a planet worthy of Galactus's hunger was announce his master's approach. After that, he'd just, I don't know, hang out or something until the big purple guy showed up and started pigging out on the planet. There was none of this "I'm going to dig giant holes around the earth for no apparent reason" nonsense. It also bears noting that the craters he creates in the movie are never explained, other than showing the Galactus Cloud (more on that nonsense later) sending some of its tendrils into them towards the end of the film.

5. The Surfer's Board and Powers:
Despite what the movie implies, the Surfer's surfboard is not the source of his powers. Separating him from his board does not, in any way, deplete him of his powers. In the comics, he has no problems getting off his surfboard and wandering around unaffected. Case in point:

Galactus exiled the Surfer to Earth, his means of imprisonment was linked to the board. When Surfer and the Fantastic Four realized this, Surfer put it to the test by leaving the board planet-side and entering space in the Four's spacecraft. Once he was free of Earth, the Surfer remotely converted the board to energy, recalled it to him, and reformed it in space.

So, let's be clear about this: knocking the Silver Surfer off his board will not, ever, get rid of his powers. This was nothing more than a plot twist to make Dr. Doom's schemes lengthen the movie past the 90 minute mark, which it barely managed.

6. The Silver Surfer Never Looks Like Doug Jones In A Crappy Rubber Suit:
Never. Never. Never. Ever. Shame on you, Tim Story, for trying to pull that one off.

7. The Silver Surfer's Durability:
Up until he loses his powers in the movie, the Surfer seems invulnerable and manages to shrug off various attacks with no ill effects. This is in keeping with the comics. However, when he's separated from his board, the U.S. Army manages to torture him with what looks like a power drill. I might've been willing to entertain the possibility that it was a Power Cosmic Power Drill, but the extension cord leading off camera implies otherwise.

8. The Surfer's Crush On Susan Storm:
Yet another thing that never happened in the comics. Namor The Submariner, another nemesis-turned-ally of the FF, did actually harbor feelings for Invisible Woman that she partially reciprocated. Norrin Radd did have a love interest on his homeworld named Shalla-Bal who resembled Sue Storm in absolutely no way at all. At least, there doesn't seem to be any resemblance to me, but I'll let you decide...

...you don't see it either, do you? Yeah, I didn't think so.

9. The Final Discrepancy: Galactus
This was what really pissed me off about the movie. Galactus is not a giant goddamn cloud conveniently referred to as "he" so that audiences will hopefully identify it as a character instead of a stupid visual effect. No, in the comics, he is one of the primary beings in the Marvel Universe who happens to bring balance to the cosmos. Over the past forty years, he has evolved from some random space-y villain into a deeply-nuanced character who just happens to see such a big picture that he is incapable of actually acting out such selfish things like emotions. Also, there's no way in which his heralds could actually destroy him because they're simply not powerful enough:

Wielders of the Power Cosmic are imbued with only a fraction of the amount possessed by Galactus. To date, Galactus' control of the Power Cosmic has dwarfed that of its other users. In fact, so complete is Galactus' mastery of the Power Cosmic that he has been shown on repeated occasions to have the ability to strip the power itself entirely from another wielder. No other user has exhibited this feat.

So, that final bit in the movie where Norrin Radd flies up into the center of the Galactus Vortex and just randomly blows it up? Yeah, that would never happen in the comics. If anyone at Marvel actually tried it, a legion of die-hard Surfer fans would riot.

I guess the main thing that irked me about Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (aside from making me sit through a preview for Underdog; fuck you very much for that, Walt Disney Studios, fuck you so hard) was that it took epic characters and put them in a story that was anything but. My suspicion is that Avi Arad (damn you, man, damn you to Hades for all the crappy movies you've thrown at us) and Tim Story felt they needed a plot that was more in keeping with the cerebral and cosmic action so often found within the comics the movie was based upon. What they failed to realize was that in those stories which they tried -and once again failed- to emulate, those larger-than-life adversaries like Galactus and his herald are simply impossible to overcome with ordinary violence, no matter how grandly you dress it up. Instead, the comics show that the heroes oftentimes realize that there's simply no easy way for them to overcome the odds stacked against them; in order to triumph, they have to think outside the box. That last bit is a technique that Hollywood should start employing when they adapt comics into film, because I can't be the only one getting sick of seeing the same idiotic drivel thrown at me again and again while my childhood memories are bastardized in the name of making a buck.