Dawn Greenwood

Origin

Dawn grew up with her father (Reg Greenwood) and twin sister (Eve Greenwood) in Anchor Bay, located on the New England Coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Her mother abandoned them when Dawn and Eve were very young. While her sister, Eve, went globetrotting as a wayward travel agent for the Greenwood family business, Dawn was more than happy to stay in her idyllic hometown, or so she says. She never thought she wanted adventure until she was forced to go on one with the Silver Surfer at the age of 20.

Creation

Dawn Greenwood was created by Dan Slott and Mike Allred for the Silver Surfer ongoing series but first appeared in All-New Marvel Now! Point One issue 1 (2014).

Major Story Arcs

Early Life

When Dawn was 8 years old, her family's inn was visited by a strange renter, Norville Rappaport. Unbeknownst to her, it was Silver Surfer lost in time. He was from a future where he had met Dawn as an adult, fell in love with her, and watched her die. For years, he would visit the Anchor Bay Inn, getting to know the Greenwood family and even getting to become one of the family. "Norville" would visit every summer until the summer that Dawn was abducted.

Abduction

Dawn was abducted by the The Motivator, a device that scans potential champions and abducts the person they care the most for. Thanks to the existence of the time lost Surfer, this meant Dawn. She was meant to be used as leverage so the Silver Surfer would fight the Never Queen on behalf of the hidden world, The Impericon. Even though the present-day Surfer and Dawn had never met, Surfer still chose to fight the Never Queen believing Dawn to be an innocent and deserved to be rescued.

While Surfer faced the Queen, Dawn worked with the other prisoners to escape. When the Surfer determined the Never Queen was the real victim and came back to stop the Impericon, he immediately ran into Dawn during her escape. Together, they vowed to help each other. Surfer traded places with the Never Queen's heart, which was powering The Impericon. He would keep it running until a full evacuation could happen. Meanwhile, the heart turned into a small toy so that Dawn could keep it safe until they could return it to the Never Queen.

Once they succeed, Surfer takes guardianship of Dawn and brings her home.

Back to Anchor Bay

Surfer brought Dawn home where she reconnected with her father and sister and showed Surfer some hospitality. However, strange things were happening around Greenwood Inn, culminating in the barrier that once kept Surfer on Earth mysteriously re-appearing. Eventually, Doctor Strange and The Hulk showed up to the inn to inform Surfer that the world is sleepwalking thanks to Nightmare. Strange was in his astral form, as his body slept, and Bruce Banner was asleep within the Hulk’s mind, leaving Dawn as the last awake human on Earth. As long as she stayed awake, Nightmare could be stopped from getting a foothold in the waking world.

Strange gifts the Eye of Agamotto to Dawn, temporarily giving her the ability to see the truth in all things. While Strange and Hulk fight off dream demons, Surfer brings Dawn to find Nightmare. They find him in a mysterious new room at the inn, where Nightmare had been sleeping, forcing everyone to experience his own nightmare. With Surfer’s board’s help, they reflect sunlight into Nightmare’s eyes, waking him.

With the newest catastrophe averted, Dawn asks Surfer if she can accompany him in space, now thirsty for adventure.

Heralds of New Haven

After many adventures, Dawn finally got a chance to fly “Toomie” (the name she gave to Surfer’s board), but she flew them right into a planet. It was shielded from Surfer’s cosmic awareness and appeared to have over six billion residents, who were almost all from separate species. The duo would soon learn that they were survivors of Galactus’s hunger, and their fear and disgust with the Surfer is how Dawn found out about his past as The Herald. Dawn joined them in their disgust and rejected Surfer as a companion.

Unfortunately, Galactus had the ability to track Surfer even though he was no longer his herald. He left a trail of power cosmic across space, leading Galactus to this new planet of survivors. To prove himself to Dawn, Surfer confronted Galactus. In their battle, it was learned that Surfer became the herald to spare his world. This led to a planet wide pledge of all residents to be a new herald if he spared this new world. Galactus was uninterested in any of their pledges having already devoured their actual worlds until Dawn made the same pledge. He accepted her offer having never consumed Earth. The transformation was torturous, but the residents were so moved by Dawn’s sacrifice, that they agreed to leave their new home so Galactus could sate his hunger. Thus, Dawn was spared from servitude.

Dawn joined Surfer as the "Herald of Newhaven," pledging to find them a new home planet. Dawn was still regretful of her connection to Surfer. This was made worse by how difficult it was to find a new planet with environmental factors that agreed with all the different species of Newhaven. They did eventually find it though. Dawn buried the hatchet with Surfer seeing how hard he worked to find the Newhaven people a paradise. They decided to stay and live as members of New Newhaven for awhile. Unfortunately, that was because the planet was Euphoria, a sentient world that medicates its settlers so they are always happy. When the planet was found out, Dawn, Surfer, and few of the Newhavens refused the treatment and left, while most of the Newhavens agreed this is exactly what they needed as grief-stricken lone survivors.

The Last Days of Silver Surfer

On their way back to Dawn’s home, they travelled through the Impericon, where they saw a dying Never Queen. She warned them that the future was dying, referring to the events leading to Secret Wars. To outrun the destruction of the universe, Surfer and Dawn had to travel to the past. They ended up outside of existence where Eternity had been shaped into the Will of Doom thanks to Dr. Doom’s creation of Battleworld. There, they were approached by Glorian with an offer to partner up and make a new universe. Glorian needed Surfer’s power cosmic to create a whole universe for his master, the Shaper of Worlds, but he also needed Dawn’s heart and imagination to re-create her own homeworld.

Unfortunately, all Dawn knew of the world is from her sister’s postcards. She couldn’t properly fix the world and accidentally created a second Silver Surfer to help her. The Shaper of Worlds did not approve. The Shaper also did not approve of Surfer’s duplicates (having recreated his friends on both New Newhaven and their original planets) and gave him guidance on purging the anomalies. With only Dawn’s duplicate Surfer as the final anomaly. Surfer, Glorian, and the Shaper return to Earth and tell Dawn to un-make the other Surfer. Due to her indecisiveness, she can’t.

Glorian becomes impatient and slays the Shaper, his plan all along. Without the Shaper, Glorian ascends to the Shaper's position and demands Dawn choose one of the Surfer’s to remain. The original Surfer thinks there must be another way. When Dawn chooses neither option, she creates a new future, which manifests the Never Queen. She shows them that there are still two universes, the original and the new one they created. The heroes had won the Secret Wars, and Eternity was no longer serving the will of Doom. So, Dawn chooses the original, regrets and all.

Dawn of Time

After its return to existence, Dawn returns to Earth to check on her loved ones. Her sister was married and pregnant, and Dawn was saddened about how much she missed. Around this time, there was an attempted invasion of Earth by Zenn-Lavians, Surfer’s people. Fighting off the invasion caused an identity crisis within Surfer. He ultimately sacrificed his memories of Zenn-La and chose Earth and Dawn as his new home. As a thank you, he located Libby, the absent mother Dawn never met. It didn’t go well, so Dawn asked Surfer to take her away from Earth.

They traveled through space and had many adventures, when suddenly Dawn realized Eve was giving birth, through a “twin thing.” Surfer gets her there as fast as possible. She misses the birth of her niece but takes much joy in getting to hold her for the first time. Less so when she finds out she also missed the death of her father. After the funeral, Dawn goes back to Euphoria to work through her grief.

A few Earth months later, Dawn continues her adventures in space with Surfer, but she makes a special request. She wants to talk to her dad one last time, and Surfer reluctantly agrees to time travel for her. Unfortunately, Surfer overshoots their destination, and the two of them end up on Taa, Galactus’ homeworld in the Sixth Cosmos before the Big Bang occurred, creating the Seventh Cosmos (Surfer and Dawn's known universe). They were stuck. There was no way for Surfer to travel back beyond the destruction of this universe and the creation of their own.

Even though they were forced to stay, Dawn and Surfer were happy to be together. They went on adventures to planets Surfer has never even had the chance to explore before. They had a life together. They married. Dawn grew old, and Surfer at least made it seem like he was aging along with her. Dawn spent her golden years listening to tales from Surfer he had never told her before. She died quietly in her bed by Surfer’s side.

Refusing to let this dying universe be her final resting place, Surfer transformed her matter into energy and carried it with him through the heat death of the Sixth Cosmos and the Big Bang into the Seventh. When he released the energy on the other side of the Big Bang, she became the first light at the “dawn” of time and is honored every day with morning's first light.

Character Profile

• Height: 5'10"
• Weight: 150 lbs
• Eye Color: Green
• Hair Color: Black
• Citizenship: American
• Place of Birth: Anchor Bay, Massachusetts, USA
• Marital Status: Married to Silver Surfer
• Occupation: Adventurer; formerly innkeeper
• Known Relatives: Silver Surfer (husband), Reg Greenwood (father, deceased), Libby Windham (mother, estranged), Eve Prado (sister), Costas Prado (brother in law), Regina Prado (niece)
• Distinguishing Features: Commonly wears red with black spots

Powers

Human Earthling: Dawn is a regular human and has no powers.

• Silver Ring: She was given a ring by Silver Surfer that would allow him to find her in the deepest and darkest parts of space.
• Eye of Agamotto: Briefly given possession of the Eye of Agamotto by Doctor Strange

VIP: Mysteriously, she is the most important person in the universe:

• She was considered the Silver Surfer's closest companion despite never meeting him.
• She was the last human awake during the Lunar Alignment Prophecy.
• She accidentally found a planet cloaked from the power cosmic.
• She sensed a disruption in the time-space continuum resulted from Silver Surfer using the power cosmic.
• Ultimately, she was responsible for the first light in her home cosmos.