What is the Connection Between the Terminator, the Hulk, and the Outer Limits

What Do the Terminator, Hulk, Harlan Ellison, and the Outer Limits have in common?

Kang the Conqueror

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.  Orion Pictures gave sci-fi fantasy writer Harlan Ellison a credit on the The Terminator for plagiarism of two episodes he wrote.

From the Outer Limits 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.

Hulk 286

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 a Klingon Kang on Star Trek, and the soldier in the Hulk story worshipped Marvel Comics Kang. Weird huh?

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. 

Lightning is a variable in the time travel element of this story just as it was in the Outer Limits and the Terminator.

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.

Terminator Similarities

In the Terminator released in 1984, we have a lot of elements that similar to the Outer Limits Harlan Ellison story. A soldier from the future, time travel through lightning, both soldiers are captured by the police, both have never known love, both come from bad scary futures with laser beams shooting through the air, and both get psychiatric treatment at the police station.

In regards to the Terminator lawsuit I have to wonder though just how close or far away does a story have to be to another to be eligible for a lawsuit? I get there are times when it is completely clear a story has been stolen where a writer deserves credit and pay as it is clearly their story. Would having a soldier from the future in your story be enough to warrant a lawsuit? That in itself seems pretty common place. I mean, do you have to change it to a dog catcher from the future to be safe, and who would want to read that? Obviously, there were a lot of similarities between the Terminator and the Outer Limits episode, but then there's also a whole lot of difference such as a completely different script of dialogue for two hours in the Terminator movie. Did James Cameron watch the episode and then say, now, "I think I'll use that idea and that idea", or was it coincidence? Did he watch it years earlier and only bring out these ideas later on subconsciously not knowing where they came from?

The credits were added only to the home video releases of Terminator and read simply, "Acknowledgment to the Works of Harlan Ellison".

James Cameron emphatically denied Ellison's allegations and was opposed to the settlement, stating "For legal reasons I'm not suppose  to comment on that, but it was a real bum deal, I had nothing to do with it and I disagree with it."

Interesting how everything is connected in some way or another isn't it? Now what if we could get a movie where the Hulk traveled to the future to fight Terminator robots? I think that would be awesome. We now return control of your web browser to you. Please stand by.