Monday, December 29, 2014

The Librarian(s) in the CU

In the 2004 TV movie The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, genius Flynn Carsen is kicked out of college, and receives a job offer from the Metropolitan Public Library. He soon discovers that he has been appointed to act as "the librarian," the guardian of historical and often magical items found in a hidden section of the library. When the evil Serpent Brotherhood steals one of three pieces of the Spear of Destiny, which when combined can be used to control the world, Flynn must go on a quest to prevent them from acquiring the other two pieces. He finds the last spear piece in Shangri-La. After defeating the Brotherhood, Flynn learns that the Death Scorpion Cult has stolen H.G. Wells’ Time Machine. The connections to Shangri-La (from James Hilton’s Lost Horizon) and the Time Machine (from H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name) bring Flynn Carsen into the CU. Various accounts set in the CU have portrayed different parties as possessing the Spear of Destiny. It has yet to be determined which, if any, of these stories features the true Spear.

In the 2006 TV movie The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines, Flynn and archaeologist Emily Davenport strive to prevent a thief from plundering the treasures of King Solomon’s Mines. While traveling to the mines, they pass the Breasts of Sheba and Three Witches Mountain. Both landmarks are from H. Rider Haggard's first Allan Quatermain novel, King Solomon's Mines. Solomon’s treasure must have been returned to the African mines from the Pacific island where it was kept for a time, as seen in the Tales of the Gold Monkey episode "Legends Are Forever."

In the 2008 movie The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice, Flynn battles the vampire Vlad Dracula, who has rejuvenated himself by drinking from the Judas Chalice. Supposedly, Dracula was left crippled and stripped of most of his power after drinking from the corpse of a cholera victim hundreds of years ago. This “Dracula” is most likely a “soul-clone” of the true Count.

In 2014, the TV series The Librarians debuted, featuring a new team of Librarians hand-picked by Flynn. The group's greatest foe is the Serpent Brotherhood, led by an immortal named Dulaque. Last night's episode, "The Librarians and the Apple of Discord," continued the pattern of crossovers in the franchise. The World Crime League is named as one of the factions that sent a representative to a conclave of supernatural beings. The League is from the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Jenkins, the group's caretaker, refers to the amendment to the Wold Newton bylaws at a prior conclave. The conclave involving the Wold Newton bylaws may have been part of a larger conclave that happened in Wold Newton, Yorkshire on December 13, 1795, as originally revealed by Philip José Farmer in Tarzan Alive, and elaborated on by Win in “The Wild Huntsman.” The O2STK is also mentioned. The O2STK (Organization Too Secret to Know) is from Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine’s comic book The Middleman.


3 comments:

  1. It's cool that they actually mentioned Wold Newton. I believe the meteor crash was mentioned in The Shadow: Midnight in Moscow.

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  2. Also the library houses the Ark of the Covenant which was in the first movie and the pilot of the TV Series connecting The Librarian to Indiana Jones.

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  3. I wonder how they got the Ark away from the government.

    There was a Mack Bolan novel also dealing with the Ark, but it was the Ark that the Ethopian Christian Church really does claim to have in their possession. The novel leaves it up to the reader if it is the real ark so there isn't any contradiction to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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