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What Do Terminator, Hulk, Harlan Ellison, and the Outer Limits have in common?
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Well, what do the Terminator, Hulk, Harlan Ellison, and the Outer Limits all have in common? Let's travel back in time and go forward. First, let's visit the Outer Limits back in the early 1960's when Harlan Ellison wrote two classic episodes of the Outer Limits titled, "Soldier"  and "Demon with a Glass Hand". Both episodes have been said to have given James Cameron his idea for Terminator.  According to E! Online, Terminator production company, Hemdale, and distributor, Orion Pictures, "gave veteran fantasy writer Harlan Ellison an 'acknowledgement to the works of' credit on The Terminator and a cash settlement lest he sue for plagiarism of two episodes he wrote.

Outer Limits the Soldier Meets the Hulk


Hulk 286 click for larger image

The Soldier story in particular seems to have been closest to the Terminator theme. A soldier from the future played by Michael Ansara goes back to the past only to die at the hand of another soldier from the future. In Ellison's Outer Limits story the soldier is intent on one thing and one thing only, to kill the enemy.  His helmet gives him battle instructions. He uses a laser gun that never needs re-loading. He speaks a futuristic broken type of English.

These characteristics were mirrored in the 1983 issue of The Incredible Hulk #286, which also featured a future soldier coming to the past. Coincidentally the actor Michael Ansara also played Kang on Star Trek, and the soldier in the Hulk story worshipped Marvel Comics Kang.

The story in the comic follows like this. It's the 41st Century. War rages everywhere. Everyone is the enemy.

In the Outer Limits story, war was waged by two parties. Each party fought for his government. The Soldier was loyal to the state; he put it something to the effect, "The state is all, all is the state."

The soldier in the comic is struck by  enemy rifle fire and lightning from a gamma storm sends him back to the past, into the laboratory of Bruce Banner, who at this time controls the power of the Hulk while maintaining his own intellect and personality. Through another coincidence involving a gamma storm the Hulk and the soldier are sent to the 41st century. It's at this point the story really becomes it's own and starts to separate itself from the original Outer Limits episode. The Hulk discovers that Kang the Conqueror is dead, but his robotic statue continues to command war for his people. The Hulk destroys the statue and in turn sees the soldier of the future free from his commands to kill, but his enemies fire upon him killing the soldier. The Hulk disappears back into his present time.

Now it's obvious from reading this story the writers were influenced heavily by Harlan Ellison's story. In fact, they used most of his setup. It differs only in that the comic writer Bill Mantlo put a Marvel Comics twist on it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking him or the story. There really isn't anything new under the sun after all. In fact, using great stories from the past to create new exciting versions is a great strategy for creating great entertaining comic book reading.

Interesting how everything is connected in some way or another isn't it? We now return control of your web browser to you. Please stand by.

If you'd like to watch the Outer Limits episodes here are a couple of links from youtube, Demon With A Glass Hand, and the Soldier.

 

 


 


Terminator posters