The Elf With a Gun

[cyberghostface]

The Elf With a Gun was a reoccurring character in The Defenders created by Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema.

The Defenders #25...



The Defenders #31...



The Defenders #38...



The Defenders #40...



The Defenders #46...



According to Steve Gerber, the Elf With a Gun was "nothing but a metaphor for the chaotic and inexplicable nature of existence, the 'beast in the jungle' that you spend a lifetime planning for but which still comes as a surprise or maybe never comes at all."

Comments

[metadronos]

Huh. And here I'd been assuming he was going to be revealed as a professional assassin hired by... whoever was the big bad of the story at the time. Look, I never even heard of this Marvel series, let alone read i-- Now who could be knocking at the door at this hou-- *BLAM*

(Metadronos will return in The Avengers real life)

[blues32]

I demand the return of the Elf with a Gun.

[numeronone]

There was the short-lived tribute Ghost With A Knife in "Defenders: The Best Defense".

[blues32]

You know, I vaguely remember something that may have been his return. A elf or something trying to get his hands on Ringmaster's hypnosis disc. And Savage Dragon was in it. He had the disc.

[jkcarrier]

Later on, J.M. DeMatteis brought the Elf back and retconned in a "logical" reason for his actions -- Elf was a time-traveler from the future, and the seemingly-random killings were calculated attempts to alter the timeline. Which sounds like a Terminator rip-off, but the comic actually pre-dates the Schwarzenegger movie by a year or so. But still, boo on the writer for trying to explain something that didn't need explaining.

[full_metal_ox]

Oh, come on. The Elf’s real underlying Doylist purpose is Executioner Of People The Writer Finds Annoying.

“DIE, JOHN DENVER EXPY, OBNOXIOUS TOURISTS, PROTESTERS I DISAGREE WITH, VISION-QUESTING WHITE PEOPLE, AND PAPERBOY WHO CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO AIM!”

[cyberghostface]

Peter David apparently retconned it so that explanation was a hoax.

[beyondthefringe]

I like that the retcon of the retcon was just to reforge the random pointlessness of it all. DeMatteis’ explanation, which also served to break up the original four Defenders, was a bleak, weird story indeed.

[mastermahan]

It makes sense that PAD would have appreciated the Elf with a Gun. He did a similar running gag in early X-Factor with the inept Chalker family as enemies who never actually meet the main character. The last Chalker even dies the same way, hit by a truck.

[blues32]

...did that include Number One Fan?

[mastermahan]

It did!

[michael_ellis_day]

One small correction: that last appearance in Defenders #46 was written by David Anthony Kraft and/or Roger Slifer. Steve Gerber left the book with issue #41 so this had nothing to do with him.

(That said, I'm pretty sure the idea of "the comic should never reveal who the Elf is, and just leave those pages completely unexplained" had been floated in comics fandom before then, because I have the distinct impression of reading that issue when it came out and thinking "huh, they actually did it!")

[mister_terrific]

When I first read that years ago, I laughed my ass off for ten minutes! What a great payoff!

[blueprintstyles]

The fact that it's a realistic gun makes it so much funnier.