My good friend Frank Schildiner has had his first novel published by Black Coat Press, featuring Gouroull, the version of Frankenstein's Monster that appeared in novels by Jean-Claude Carriere. As one can see from reading the plot synopsis and the excerpt, Herbert West appears, as does Rondo Hatton's villain the Creeper. Frank assures me that there are a number of other crossovers in the book. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Frank will have copies available for sale at Pulpfest/FarmerCon. Congrats to Frank, who has been kind enough to always put likes on my posts here when I've shared them on Facebook. :)
This anthology of new stories featuring Norman Daniels' pulp hero Jeff Shannon, aka the Eagle, has two stories with crossovers. In Bobby Nash's "Lights! Camera! Sabotage!," Agent Palmer of the FBI assigns Shannon to go undercover on the
set of a film directed by a suspected saboteur. Agent Palmer also
appears in Nash’s comic book Lance Star: Sky Ranger – One-Shot! (illustrated by James Burns)
and the upcoming novel Lance Star: Sky Ranger – Cold Snap. His grandson
is FBI Agent Harold Palmer, the protagonist of Nash’s novel Evil Ways,
as well as its forthcoming sequel Evil Intent. Both novels are part of a
series of thrillers set in Sommersville, Georgia. Since Lance Star and the
Eagle are both in the CU, so are the two Agent Palmers. In Teel James Glenn's "The Coming Storm," Secret Service agent Rex Bennett assigns Shannon to
rescue a kidnapped scientist. Shannon has read a series of articles about
German Bunds by “that Donovan guy at the Daily Star.” Shannon’s
friend Lefty Kovaks tells the disguised hero that he looks like a regular man
of bronze, to which Shannon responds that that name is taken. Shannon consulted
with an old instructor of his in New York, Andrew Mayfair, a noted biochemist,
to create an antidote to any truth serums or sedatives he may face. Rex Bennett is from the film serials G-Men vs. the Black Dragon and
Secret Service in Darkest Africa. Donovan is Moxie Donovan, an original
character created by Glenn who appears in the collections Deadline Zombies:
The Adventures of Maxi and Moxie and Headline Ghouls: The Further
Adventures of Maxi and Moxie. The man of bronze is Doc Savage, of course;
Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair is one of Doc’s five assistants.
In
a flashback to France in 1985, Atomic Robo battles his old foe Heinrich von
Helsingard, whose brain has been placed in a
cybernetic body, alongside Roadblock, Scarlett, and Bazooka, from the toy line G.I. Joe: A Real American
Hero. The Joes’ British counterpart,
Action Force, is already in the CU through references to Fu Manchu and Denis
Nayland Smith. The Joes will also later meet the DangerGirl team.
John Dortmunder
literally steals a bank guarded by the Continental Detective Agency, from Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories. Since the Op is in the CU, so
is Dortmunder. The guards would pop up several more times in the Dortmunder
series.
Ghostbusters Egon Spengler and Peter Venkman discuss the inclusion of a
flux capacitor in the Ecto-3, which may be of use “if Godzilla came to call.” Flux capacitors are originally from Back to the Future, thus bringing that film
and its sequels into the CU, though clearly all the timeline tampering in the
CU has averted that series’ version of the year 2015. Although the massive
destruction seen in the Godzilla films does not fit in with Crossover Universe
continuity, Emmanuel Gorlier’s story “Twilight” and Nick Pollotta’s novel Doomsday Exam establish that Godzilla
does have a Crossover Universe counterpart, though he appears to have spent
most of his existence in captivity.
