Oddly enough, this very thing came up at work a few days ago. We decided to kick around the idea of redoing Fantastic Four #48-50 with the Crimebusters. It's not even a fight; Dr. Manhattan takes the Silver Surfer apart molecule by molecule, then he does the same to Galactus.
[LEFT]Sad to say, this could be the Surfer's last stand. However, there is no evidence that Jon could take Galactus.[/LEFT]
Dr. M. He's basically got the powers of Secret Wars Beyonder, and Beyonder kicked Galactus' ass.... don't see what a being with only a portion of that power would do. Then again, separate universes, apples and oranges and all that.
Surfer wins, and I'll tell you why. It would be like a video game boss fight where Dr. Manhattan is immune to every weapon The Surfer has. However there is but one little spot where he can be hurt. That's right - the dick. One, solid, cosmic dickpunch and it's over.
The problem is that Silver Surfer and Dr. Manhattan both have the Power of Plot. Both gain and lose power as the plot demands. The good Doctor is at least consistent, due to the fact that he's in a single story written by one person, but even within the frame of that story he's a little odd. What he should be able to do and what he can do are different things. Silver Surfer, on the other hand, fluctuates so wildly you'd have totally different fights depending on who is writing him and when. The most powerful versions of the Surfer would defeat Manhattan handily. The weakest would be challenged by Rorschach.
I remember Black Panther beating Silver Surfer just a few months back. That was after Silver Surfer got his power upgrade from Galactus btw.
*Puts on Comicbook Geek Hat* Dr. Manhattan biggest weakness are he is still lead by human nature, emotion and he hasn't matured as a God. Moore's Manhattan is basically a sex-ed up version of DC's Captain Atom, a guy who was out played and out thought by many DC villains. Surfer would take Manhattan while he's still immature but maybe not for long. Surfer's greatest weakness is there is no such thing as 'Canon' in Marvel, he gets weaker and weaker as the years roll on and Marvel continuity sucks. When the Silver Surfer was introduced he was basically a God like creature that could not be defeated and a symbol of apocalyptic nuclear annihilation. However as powerful as surfer was his master Galactus was even more powerful since he basically ate planets for breakfast. Almost nothing stops Surfer/Galactus, they have eaten thousands and thousands of worlds. Then this ancient cosmic dude who records everything called Watcher, ends up saving Earth by telling the Fantastic Four about this UltimateNullifier, a weapon that just anti-matters everything into non existance and the only thing that can defeat Galactus/surfer. Since those days its become a lot easier to defeat Surfer, I remember one comic where Namor defeats Surfer with one punch. It was absolute junk, I ended up throwing the comic in the bin Surfer has been diluted over the years on a good Marvel day owns the Green Lantern, Superman and everyone else in DC. http://vu.morrissey-solo.com/moz/perez/info/sssm1.htm Surfer on a bad day gets owned by Joker, Robin or someone really insignificant A Manhattan/OzymandiasVeidt combo might defeat Surfer/Galactus since Ozymandias might have the brains to re-design a Nullifier and Manhattan the muscle to build it Surfer Vs Manhattan mathematically Surfer fight record WINS DRAW LOSSES -Owned 600 billion alien planets -Owned Green Lantern -Owned Hulk -Owned Fan4 -Owned Thor -Owned Dr Doom -Owned Darksied (helped by Supes) -Owned Xmen -Owned Superman -Owned Ironman Draw Hulk Draw Thor Draw Green Lantern Lost to BlackPanther Lost to Dr Doom Lost to Hulk Lost to Watcher Lost to Fan4 Lost to Namor -Owned Iceman -Owned Doc Strange -Owned Adam Warlock -Owned Nova -Owned all Mutants Surf Wins 600,000,000,111? D: 200? L: 300? 99 . 9999999998% fight record ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Manhattan fight record WINS DRAW LOSSES -Owned 3 million Vietcong -Owned Rorschach -Onwed Mars -Owned bla bla Draw Ozymandias?/Russia's nukes? Lost Ozymandias? Manhattan W: 3,000,003 D: 1? L: 1? 99 . 999993% fight record Surfer owned thousands of Worlds and Alien Empires, Dr Manhattan on the other hand got himself owned by his very first world (although it could be considered a stalemate) 99.9999999998% vs 99.999993% = Surfer Wins
Forget the dick punch go for the nut buster, I say Surfer turns his board into one giant cosmic nut cracker This is how much of a comic geek I am, I saw this very discussion at comicvine battles a week ago I quote a guy named HighRevolutionary in support of a Surfer win
The thing about Surfer though is that he seem much more vulnerable to physical force than Manhattan. Even in his first appearance, the Surfer got knocked for a loop by the Thing. Jon wouldn't have even felt that and, considering that Jon was basically disintegrated and came back, he seems essentially indestructable.
I'm talking about Silver Age and Bronze Era comics, not the guy from the stupid Fox movie and I never bothered with any of that Marvel retconed re-imagined zombie junk. Marvel Silver/Bronze era then Surfer is a God. Silver Surfer's skin alone makes him invulnerable so he can survive pulsars, red giants, supernova etc Forget any zombie storylines. Surfer vs Hulk isn't even a contest, he moves as fast as Flash, with the fighting spirt of Superman and the power of Lantern. If you look at the history of Surfer vs Hulk its win, win, win for the Surf board. Surfer b!tch slapped Hulk so many times he turned the green giant into a green wimp. Manhattan can feel like a God because he's up against wee VietCong with AKs, Surfer earned his God reputation with epic battles across both the Marvel and DC universes. put Dr Manhattan against Lantern, Thor, Galactus etc and he'll be knocked down to size.
I'm not a gigantic fan of either character, but it seems that if we're talking straight one-on-one fisticuffs, Manhattan wins, hands down. As in, no bookie in Vegas would lay odds on Surfer winning. When your powers work at the quantum level, it doesn't really matter if the other guy can generate black holes at will or not, because you can evaporate them just as quickly. If we're talking more of a Joker/Batman fight, where victory is defined not by who's conscious/alive, but where the defeated suffers the greater loss, the playing field becomes much more level. I still give the edge to Dr. Manhattan though. While Manhattan is out of touch with the world, he doesn't seem nearly as dense as the Silver Surfer does on an alarmingly regular basis.
If we're talking about the original surfer, whose skin is nothing more than solidified Power Cosmic that exists solely to give shape to his vast god-like energies, then he wins or it's a draw. Manhattan's ability to atomize things at will would be pretty useless against him. Instead, the fight would occur on the Astral Plane, or something similar. Manhattan's disembodied mind was able to reconstruct his body using sheer force of will, but he has no experience fighting with other disembodied minds who also wield god-like power. Surfer would be able to attack Manhattan's astral form directly using the Power Cosmic, obliterating him in a way that he would never be able to recover from. And if we're dealing with Uni-Lord Surfer, he'd just eat Manhattan's soul and use it to make himself even more powerful.