How Marvel's Daredevil Got Caught in a Real Fight Between Celebrity Magicians

A 1976 issue of Daredevil put Marvel into the middle of a war of words between two famous magicians, Uri Geller and James Randi.

Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.

In October of 2020, James Randi passed away at the age of 92. Randi was a longtime stage magician known as The Amazing Randi who gained greater fame later in his life due to his commitment to skepticism. As a brilliant stage magician, Randi could identify all sorts of the tricks of the trade and as a result, he would seek out to debunk (he preferred the term "investigate") those people who claimed to not just be stage magicians, but to actually have supernatural powers. Randi co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and later founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), which famously does the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, where they will award anyone who can prove that they have paranormal abilities one million dollars. They have not awarded the money yet.

One of Randi's biggest targets over the years was Israeli magician Uri Geller. Geller claims to have supernatural powers and Randi obviously disagreed. Randi was a regular guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Carson, as a former stage magician himself, was quite sympathetic to Randi's skepticism. This led to the iconic 1973 episode of The Tonight Show where Geller was a guest and Randi filled Carson in on how to prevent Geller from doing any sort of legerdemain and the results were, well, pretty rough for Geller...

URI GELLER TEAMS UP WITH DAREDEVIL

Three years later, Geller co-starred in Daredevil #133 (by writer Marv Wolfman and artists Bob Brown and Jim Mooney). He was prominently featured on the cover of the comic...

Later in the issue, we see Daredevil meet Geller and discover the strange origin of Geller's supernatural powers...

Note that that is actually a TONED DOWN version of what Uri Geller ACTUALLY TOLD PEOPLE about how he got his powers. In 1971, he said (under hypnosis) that he "was an ambassador sent by extraterrestrials (from a spaceship called Spectra located some fifty-three thousands light years away) to prepare Earthlings for the conquest of the their planet." Yep.

Anyhow, Geller and Daredevil fight the villainous Mind-Wave and his awesome Think Tank (which, okay, IS pretty darn cool) and Geller and Mind-Wave face off in some epic thinking at each other...

MARV WOLFMAN PROMOTES GELLER SOME MORE

The promotion of Geller didn't stop there, as Marv Wolfman wrote an editorial in the letter column of the issue promoting Geller...

Before one of our Marvel Armadillos takes over the letter column, I'd like to say just a word or three about this issue of DAREDEVIL. It began a few months ago; Stan Lee called, asking me to come up to his spacious, luxurious, carpeted office, so I picked myself off my milk-box, tripped over the file cabinets lining my broom-closet, and headed up to our ninth floor offices.

Stan said he'd like to use Uri Geller in one of our comics, and that I should find a place for him. At that time, I had heard of Geller - he was some sort of a metal-bender. That's all I had heard, and frankly, I wasn't too keen on the idea, and so I said I'd use him in DAREDEVIL (easier for me to do this than to assign it to another writer, I thought). Cut to a week or so later - I was at a party up at Paty (Cake) Greer's upstate New York home and I happened to see a copy of "Uri Geller, My Story" in her bookstand. Asking if I could borrow it for background information, I began reading it, and getting more and more involved with the reading. It was a fascinating story - and, yes, I was hooked - though still a total cynic.

It was then that Uri called, asking if he could come up to the offices to speak with me, to discuss the story. I said sure, hoping that this would be a chance to find out some things not in the book. He did come up the next day, and I found him to be a very likeable person, an avid Marvel fan, and not at all what one would expect a person with "special powers and abilities" to be like - in other words, the furthest thing from an egomaniac that you could hope to find. During the course of our talk, he asked for a key, which I gave him, then asked me to hold his fingers to see if he was pressing on the key. They were loosely around the heavy metal key, and slowly, as I held his fingers with mine, I watched the key bend.

Yeah, I may be a cynic, but I don't ignore facts - the key had bent - I was holding his fingers so I know he couldn't bend them with his hand, and it was my key. Whatever powers he had - were real. At that point, he asked me to draw a picture and not show it to him. He then began drawing his own picture, and as you can see from our two illustrations reproduced on this page, the sketches are very similar. Considering the rough drawing style from which Uri was trying to receive his psychic impressions, he was able to come very close to my own illustration - even duplicating the bizarre front view of the face on the side view of the body.

Afterwards, Uri bent another key for Sparklin' SCOTT EDELMAN, with virtually the entire Marvel staff watching. We also took a few publicity pictures; the best printed here.

As for me, I began a cynic, and now I'm a believer - of whatever abilities Uri has, and if there are any super heroes in this world, we should hope they are all as nice as Uri.

Take care, enjoy the story, and now, back to the Armadillo.

Wolfman noted years later that since Marvel cut a deal with Geller to do the promotional appearance and Wolfman was the Editor-in-Chief at the time, he felt obligated to be the one who did the actual promotional tie-in comic book.

JAMES RANDI OBJECTS

Anyhow, James Randi wrote a disappointed letter to Marvel that ran in Daredevil #137...

Dear Mr. Lee,

I was shocked to find an episode in DAREDEVIL that featured the Israeli conjurer, Uri Geller. Such exposure of Geller only helps to promote the impression that he has genuine supernatural powers, and I am sure the Marvel folks do not wish to perpetuate the myth that he has built up around himself by means of his sleight-of-hand tricks.

Uri Geller claims to be a man with divine powers. In my book, The Magic of Uri Geller, I have shown beyond doubt that he is employing a simple magician's tricks to hoodwink the world. In his own country, he was convicted in court of the same kind of thing we here in the USA have been paying him fortunes to fool us with.

Magic, as profession, is an honorable one that I have pursued with distinction for several decades. I resent the Gellers who take money for the performance of supposedly supernatural feats which are only common tricks. I believe that Marvel should set the record straight on this matter.

James Randi

Rumson, NJ

The issue had a rebuttal from Geller and then another letter by comic book writer Mark Evanier, ALSO ripping the appearance of Geller.