It depends a bit really I guess. Some people have asked Annihilation Silver Surfer writer Keith Giffen and Tom Brevoort about Silver Surfers upgrade, the former was ambiguous and the latter said the upgrade was not really that significant. Though you ask a random person on CV and they might tell you that Silver Surfer's new super upgrade means he can beat Thor, Thanos and Galactus and everyone ever!! Okay some will just say Thor. So I remember when Beta Ray Bill had his mini written by Kieron Gillen and that he had a fight with Stardust and wait? He had a fight with Stardust before Silver Surfer? I mean like he had a fight against a Herald of Galactus before his confrontation with Silver Surfer? Can you remember that time Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman and then Joe Frazier right after his fight with George Foreman? I mean he beat Foreman but Frazier beat him. I'm sure his fight against another guy before his second fight meant absolutely nothing at all.
Okay less sarcastically. Thor and Beta Ray Bill aren't exact equals. So they don't actually have the same powers, I mean its about how accurate you want to be? I mean they are close enough in power that some official handbooks will have them at similar rankings in things like strength and durability, then again Surfer is in that same category as well, so as far as accuracy... then again again, some official stats put Thor and Surfers power as higher than Beta Ray Bills. Which makes sense, in the sense that while Thor probably considers Beta Ray Bill his equal, its probably more in the way a brother considers his other brother his equal. Its more about respect than actual power/powers. Thor is more popular, Thor has an ongoing, Thor has been around a lot longer, Thor has more feats, Thor has better feats, except for the first few times they fought which required Beta Ray Bill to be impressive in order to be credible and interesting Thor has proved the superior of the two and as more time goes by this will probably become more and more apparent, the same way Wonder Man was introduced as punching as hard as Thor's hammers but 10 years later struggled to lift Thor's weights...
Wonder Man is still strong though, Beta Ray Bill is still really powerful, but neither are really Thor. Not if you want to get super accurate. So you could look at this a lot of ways. Creatively its feasible that Silver Surfer possesses a lot more raw power than Thor now and should be able to beat him? This is comics though, perceived story value matters before consistency, which means both characters powers will be ignored a bit top ensue whatever the writer wants. Silver Surfers upgrade is superficial creatively and his victory over Beta Ray Bill was circumstantial. His non victory over Thor was also circumstantial. Beta Ray Bill and Thor are more peers by respect than peers by sheer raw power, so Surfers victory against Beta Ray Bill isn't any kind of good gauge for how well he should do against Thor, all a combination of al 3, or a combination of what I said and the people above me and below me. Or even more random hypotheticals.
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