Sunday, September 6, 2015

Crossover of the Week

1945
THE SECRET OF THE AERO PLANE

Major Henderson and Captain Cody meet Captain Hercules Hurricane at a bar in Walkabout Creek, Australia. Henderson tells Cody during World War I, a splinter enemy group claimed to be empowered by Thor and the Norse gods. He also says Hitler allegedly lost major expeditions trying to find the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant, and dispatches Cody to meet the enigmatic pilot Captain Aero.
Short story by Erwin K. Roberts at the Planetary Stories website. Captain Cody and Major Henderson will later be known as Commando Cody and Mr. Henderson from the film serial Radar Men from the Moon and the television series Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe. The superhumanly strong Captain Hercules Hurricane appeared in the British comic Valiant during the 1960s and 1970s, though his stories were set during World War II. Walkabout Creek, Australia is from the film Crocodile Dundee. The German splinter group is the titular organization from Roberts’ two-part novella “The Sons of Thor.” The Nazi expeditions to find the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant were seen in the movies Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark, respectively. Captain Aero’s exploits were published by the American comic book company Holyoke during the 1940s.

8 comments:

  1. Considering the connection to "Radar Men from the Moon", are we to assume that the humanoid inhabitants of the moon are natives to the same dimension which Barsoom exists in?

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    1. Speaking of which, you might want to check out "Scarlet Traces" and maybe "Rainbow Mars". They feature a large amount of recognizable alien creatures from across different media.

      You can check it out here, if you're curious: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Traces:_The_Great_Game#Scarlet_Traces:_The_Great_Game

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  2. Win included both Scarlet Traces series in the original Crossovers books. You can find full annotations for them and other works by the same creative team at this link: https://sites.google.com/site/scarlettracesannotations/home

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  3. Both Hercules Hurricane and Captain Aero seem to be relatively obscure characters. Well, Hurricane is obscured to me an American, maybe he's not so much in Britain. I imagine both their names are fictionalizations; just as Sand Sareff from Will Eisner's The Spirit probably wasn't named that.

    From what I read online, the comic never explained the source of Hurricane's supernatural strength. Does this story?

    Some later comics explain is strength as being the result of a super soldier project. While that makes a good deal of sense it does seem kind of easy and bit cliched.

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    1. Roberts' story does not provide an explanation for the source of Hurricane's superstrength.

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    2. I was just wondering.

      The super soldier explanation just seemed a bit obvious. There was a character in the novel/manga/anime Durarara!! that was known for his super-strength and tendency to go berserk. It was theorized that he was born without mental safeguards that keep most of from injuring ourselves. Maybe it was something like that.

      (Durarara!! may or may not be in the CU. It depends if it's sister series Baccano is in. There was a line referencing Professor Moriarity that could be interpreted as about how you look at it. Or not. I had a reference to Baccano in my Arsene Lupin story but it was changed on publication.)

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