Harlan Ellison is one of the defining science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and one of the lights on the fuse of his imagination was the comic books he read as a child. He never outgrew them, either, maintaining a huge archive of his comic collection well into adulthood that he called the “living beating heart of [his] house.” He praised Jack Kirby, co-creator of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Avengers, as a “master of the form” for his series, “The Forever People,” at DC.
Ellison’s bibliography is scattered with comic book credits, including and beyond Marvel and DC superheroes. Alongside artist Bernie Wrightson, he devised the story for 1971’s “Batman” #237, a Halloween issue titled “Night of the Reaper.” He also helped author the 1985 Marvel one-shot “Heroes for Hope,” an “exquisite corpse” issue featuring the X-Men with contributed pages from many other writers, including Stephen King and George R.R. Martin, along with Alan Moore (who wrote a chilling three pages X-Men story about Magneto).
Some of the Marvel comics bearing Ellison’s name include two issues of “Daredevil,” No. 208 and 209, that form a loose two-parter. (For reference, #208 is credited to both Ellison and a co-writer, Arthur Byron Cover. #209 only credits Cover for scripting but includes a “From an idea by Harlan Ellison” credit.) The issues were both drawn by another legend in David Mazzucchelli, one of the many artists who has worked on both Daredevil and Batman and made the two characters so similar.
Now, Ellison’s “Daredevil” story came after Frank Miller overhauled “Daredevil” in the style of film noir. However, the comic still reads a bit more like Stan Lee. The story even starts with a robot dressed like a little girl calling for help.
Harlan Ellison’s Daredevil sees Matt Murdock dodging deathtraps
In “Daredevil” #208 (titled “The Deadliest Night of My Life!”), Daredevil is lured into a trap by the aforementioned robot little girl. Locked inside an underground bunker that seems to stretch across the whole city, Daredevil has no choice but to keep moving through rooms designed to kill him. It’s largely an extended action sequence issue that doubles as a great showcase of Daredevil’s acrobatic skills.
While falling onto a spiked floor, Daredevil uses his radar sense to map the floor and contorts his body just right to avoid any of the spikes. He later climbs between two walls lined with literal knives, too.
The comic’s narration doesn’t do much besides keeping you locked inside Matt’s head as he dodges death, but a few flourishes show Harlan Ellison’s influence on the script. When Daredevil is locked in a room and gassed to weaken him, he muses, “This is how they broke Winston Smith in ‘1984.’” (There’s an internal homage on this page, too, when Matt remembers Bullseye killing Elektra back in “Daredevil” #181.)
The villain of “Daredevil” #208 turns out to be Elizabeth Dawes Sterling, old money and mother of the super-villain Death-Stalker/Phillip Wallace Sterling, killed back in “Daredevil” #158. Now dying herself, Mrs. Sterling used her fortune to convert her house into an automated death trap for her son’s supposed killer. Another sign of Ellison’s erudition and background in science fiction prose writing is that the comic name-drops MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky’s theory of “telepresence” to explain how the house and its traps run remotely.
Robots and redemption in Daredevil #209
“Daredevil” #208 could well read like a standalone issue. There’s a nice button of an ending where Matt, who was heading home hoping to get some sleep before a day in court on the opening page, shows up to that court appointment with less than an hour of sleep. But the very last panel of the comic shows two of the little girl robots from the beginning of the issue.
No. 209 follows on from that. It turns out the robots are all rigged to explode, and the issue follows Matt trying to find and neutralize them all before they can do more damage. Within that narrative lies a more human heart to the story in the form of Johnny Squarejohn, a low-level criminal and a former childhood friend of Matt Murdock. The issue’s title, “Blast from the Past,” is a nifty pun on both sides of the story.
Johnny eventually pieces together that Matt is Daredevil, and, after following him to find the last robot, sacrifices himself to save Matt when it explodes. It’s a familiar but effective story for a one-shot character: The former scoundrel who realizes his mistakes and redeems himself with one sacrificial act. “Daredevil” is the most Catholic superhero, and so stories of redemption — especially for the low-level criminals who’ve just made some bad decisions — are always a strong fit.
This two-parter may not be the peak of “Daredevil” as a comic or of Harlan Ellison’s writing career. But it’s a well-crafted adventure that melds two seemingly different stories together with the skill of a greater writer.
