Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Crossover Cover: From a Drood to a Kill


Eddie Drood takes action when his beloved, Molly Metcalf, is abducted by the Powers That Be to take part in the Big Game. Appearing or mentioned are: the Merlin Glass, the London Knights; MI 13; the London Knights, Kayleigh's Eye, the Nightside, Saint Jude's Church, Strangefellows, Walker, Dead Boy, the Night Times, Castle Inconnu, Harry Fabulous, John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie, and the Hawk's Wind Bar and Grill (all from Green's Nightside series); Area 52 (probably the same one seen in the titular Image Comics miniseries); an old 1930s Hirondel (the same fictional car driven by Simon Templar, the Saint); Queen Mab (from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); King Oberon and Queen Titania, and Puck (from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream); the original Fantom of the Paris Opera (from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera); Charlotte Karstein, the Wilderness Witch (possibly a relative of Carmilla Karnstein from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire tale "Carmilla"); Castle Frankenstein (from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its many adaptations and sequels); the Ninteen Sixties Black Beauty (from the 1960s Green Hornet television series); a shocking pink Rolls-Royce (Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's car, FAB 1, from the Supermarionation show Thunderbirds, which takes place in the 2060s; presumably the Droods acquired the car through time travel, and possibly dimensional travel as well); the only occasionally successful Lotus submersible (from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me); Julien Advent (from the Nightside books, but a thinly-veiled version of the title character of the television series Adam Adamant Lives!); Shadows Fall, Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat, and Old Father Time (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); the Carnacki Institute and Catherine Latimer (from Green's Ghost Finders series); Deathstalker (the protagonist of another series of novels by Green, which take place in an alternate future); Jason Royal (a thinly veiled version of the main character of the British television series Department S and Jason King); Lady Gaea (aka Gayle), Carrys Galloway, the Waking Beauty, and Bradford-on-Avon (from Green's novel Drinking Midnight Wine); the Doormouse and his House of Doors (from the Nightside series, though the Doormouse is a member of a group of hippies turned into mice first seen in Drinking Midnight Wine); Robot Archibald (meant to be Robot Archie, who appeared in the British weekly comic book Lion); knock-off Hyde (Dr. Henry Jekyll's formula from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, used as a drug); Martian Red Weed (from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds); and smoked black centipede meat (from William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.)

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