BURIED TREASURE: Harlan Ellison and Marshall Rogers’ DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND
From The Outer Limits to the printed page… By PETER STONE When the name Marshall Rogers comes up, the first series people mention is his late-’70s run on Detective Comics with Steve Englehart, plus stories written by Len Wein and Denny O’Neil. These are tales that are trendsetting to this day: The wonderful interactions with the gorgeous Silver St. Cloud, the creation of Clayface III, and the infamous Joker Fish! The redesign of Deadshot! It’s one of the best Batman runs in history. But Marshall Rogers did a lot of other comics as well. Harlan Ellison is thought of as one of the greatest science-fiction writers of the 20th (and 21st) century. His work was tremendously influential among novelists and screenwriters alike. He wrote the A Boy and His Dog series, which was made into a cult-favorite film starring a young Don Johnson. He wrote a plethora of teleplays for various shows, like The Outer Limits, The Man From UNCLE, Alfred Hitchcock and Star Trek. (The Trek episode, The City of the Edge of Forever, veered in key ways from Ellison’s original treatment, but is considered one of the series’ best. That treatment was adapted by 13th Dimension’s Scott Tipton, his brother David, and artist J.K. Woodward.) But Harlan Ellison wrote a ton of other things as well. In 1986, Ellison and Rogers were paired for the fifth issue of the experimental DC series Science Fiction Graphic Novel. The ish was an adaptation of Ellison’s 1964 Outer Limits episode, Demon With a Glass Hand. (The book series also featured the likes of Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Gene Colan and Keith Giffen.) Ellison gave the Demon With a Glass Hand teleplay to Rogers, who adapted and expanded it. The TV episode stars Robert Culp as an amnesiac named Trent, who has a hand made of glass and is being hunted by humanoid aliens called the Kyben. It was filmed at Los Angeles’ landmark Bradbury Building (called the Dixon Building in the episode and the Seeleg Building in the graphic novel). Moody and shadowed, the building features an elevator constructed with metal filigree so the interior can be easily viewed from the outside. The chase scenes are vertical, not horizontal, which adds a unique feel to the action, and the roof is made of high, vaulted glass. It is such a...
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