A
sequel to Abrams’ 2009 Star
Trek film,
which takes place in a divergent timeline from the “mainstream”
Trek universe/Crossover Universe. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott and
Keenser visit a bar by the Port of San Francisco where the tables
have a rotating light-up billboard for Slusho, a fictional soft drink
appearing in other Abrams productions, including Fringe,
Super
8,
Cloverfield,
Alias,
and the 2009 Star
Trek film,
as well as the television series Heroes,
which was not created by Abrams.

The Crossover UniverseTM is a companion blog to the books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1-2 by Win Scott Eckert, and the forthcoming Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1-2 by Sean Levin. Material excerpted from Crossovers Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2010-2014 by Win Scott Eckert. All rights reserved. Material excerpted from Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2014-present by Sean Levin. All rights reserved.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Crossover of the Week
Mid
February–October 1931
THE
HUNTERS
Jim
Anthony asks his friend Eddie Phipps if he is coming to the next
meeting of the Baltimore Gun Club. After Phipps is attacked by a
strange man-monster, Jim tells an old man to call Healy in Homicide,
and tell him he said there’s been trouble at the Suydam Building.
Healy refers to “that thing last year with that Yogami fellow—,”
to which Jim replies “Yes. The so-called Werewolf of Red Hook.”
One of Phipps’ murderer’s other victims is named Guster Wooster.
A man who unsuccessfully tries to kill Jim commits suicide by taking
a distillation of Mariphasa Lupinum, the Tibetan Moon Blossom. At the
Gun Club, Jim and his sidekick Tom Gentry meet Count Zaroff, whom a
castaway named Rainsford falsely claimed died on his island a few
years ago. Another Gun Club member, Otto DeLancy, asks Jim if he was
in New York when Bertie Freis left. Jim replies he was in Paris on a
case involving a band of thieves, Les
Vampires. A murderous fiend called Fantômas
was also involved in this case. Jim thinks of a Gun Club member named
Ironcastle. Jim and Tom battle a group of Tcho-Tcho. Zaroff says the
Tcho-Tcho tried to kill him while he was in Tibet, searching for the
elusive Mi-go. The word Leng pops into Jim’s mind. Franklin Pike
reminds Jim of their trip to Maple-White Land, and of someone named
Ki-Gor who was also present. Pike refers to Leng as the Doorway to
the Lost Valley of Carcosa, and tells Jim about a swami in New
Orleans, “Chanda-something.” Jim requests his butler Dawkins have
certain tools from his laboratory delivered to the Freis family
burying ground at New York’s Wildwood Cemetery. A captured
Tcho-Tcho claims to be a member of the royal guard of the King in
Yellow. Jim sees Zaroff speaking to a man called Allardravitch, who,
like Zaroff himself, was once part of the Czar of Russia’s inner
circle. Zaroff invites Jim to hunt with him on an uncharted island,
far west of Sumatra, which is inhabited by prehistoric animals.
Allardravitch sneers at Jim’s use of mercy bullets, which prompts
Jim to tell him not to confuse him for the bronze man. Traveling to
the island, Jim and Zaroff spot a ship in the distance called the
Venture. Zaroff tells
Jim how an old German named Lidenbrock put him up in his lodge during
the Great War, and told him he and his uncle went on an expedition to
the center of the earth many years earlier, where they also
encountered prehistoric animals. Lidenbrock’s uncle told him of a
previous, aborted attempt to enter the earth’s core, through an
opening on the island Jim and Zaroff are visiting. That ingress was
sealed, but not before creatures from the core migrated through it
and settled on the island. Aboard the Venture,
Jim and Zaroff meet filmmaker D. W. Cecil De Cent, his leading lady
Dana Sparrow, the elderly captain of the ship, and Jack the first
mate. Dana grew up in an orphanage, with her father unaware of her
existence. Jim finds a book written by one of the Weta-people, who
sailed to the island from the Gray Havens after the return of the
king, but cannot read it. Zaroff tells Jim there are signs of a giant
anthropoid on the island. Dana refers to “that Doctor Wildman in
the pulps.” The ape’s unveiling in New York draws a lot of
celebrity attention, including that of the Celebrated Feral Child of
Africa, who has a personal interest in apes, giant or otherwise. De
Cent, about to unveil the ape, tells Jim’s Comanche grandfather
Mephito he has filmed the strange monoliths and ruins of the Indians
in Dunwich. The ape escapes thanks to Zaroff’s scheming, and climbs
to the top of the Empire State Building with Dana in his paw, only to
be shot down by airplanes.
Jim
Anthony: Super Detective Volume Two,
Airship 27 Productions, 2010, composed of two novellas, “Death in
Yellow” by Joshua Reynolds and “On the Periphery of Legend” by
Micah S. Harris. Jim Anthony appeared in the pulp Super
Detective.
The Baltimore Gun Club seen here is the New York branch of the club
seen in Jules Verne’s From
the Earth to the Moon.
The Suydam Building is named after Robert Suydam from H. P.
Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook.” The Mi-go are a race of
Yeti from Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Leng is a
plateau in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, first described in “The
Hound.” Dr. Yogami and the Mariphasa Lupinum (or Mariphasa Lupina
Lumina) are from the film Werewolf
of London.
Guster Wooster is presumably an American relative of P. G.
Wodehouse’s most famous character, Bertie Wooster. Count Zaroff,
his island, and Sanger Rainsford are from Richard Connell’s “The
Most Dangerous Game.” Xavier Mauméjean’s story “The Most
Exciting Game,” which is set in 1930, also portrayed Zaroff as a
member of the New York branch of the Gun Club. Les
Vampires are
from Louis Feuillade’s 1915 film serial of the same name. Fantômas
is a French pulp villain created by Marcel Allain and Pierre
Souvestre. Hareton Ironcastle is from J.-H. Rosny aîné’s
L’Étonnant Voyage d’Hareton Ironcastle,
as well as
Philip
José Farmer’s translation and adaptation, Ironcastle,
which revealed Ironcastle was a member of the Baltimore Gun Club. The
Tcho-Tcho race were created by August Derleth as part of the Cthulhu
Mythos. These Tcho-Tcho must have been the result of interbreeding
with humans, as they are noticeably taller than the race is described
to be by Derleth and other authors. Maple White Land is from Arthur
Conan Doyle’s The
Lost World.
John Peter Drummond’s jungle hero Ki-Gor’s first adventure must
have actually taken place years before its 1938 publication in Jungle
Stories Magazine.
Carcosa is originally from Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An
Inhabitant of Carcosa,” but also appears in Robert W. Chambers’
The
King in Yellow,
which Lovecraft incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos. The Swami
Chandraputra is an identity assumed by Randolph Carter, the
protagonist of Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, in the story “Through the
Gates of the Silver Key.” He also appears under that alias in
Lovecraft and Hazel Heald’s story “Out of the Aeons.” Wildwood
Cemetery also hosts the grave of the allegedly deceased Denny Colt,
also known as the Spirit. “Allardravitch” is actually the shadowy
hero who was a spy for the Czar during the Great War.. The uncharted
island is Skull Island from the classic film King
Kong.
The Venture
is
also from King
Kong.
“D. W. Cecil De Cent” and “Dana Sparrow” are aliases for Carl
Denham and Ann Darrow, while the captain and first mate are Captain
Englehorn and Jack Driscoll; all four appear in the film. The giant
ape is Kong himself, of course. The bronze man is a famous pulp hero
of the 1930s and ’40s, of whom Rick Lai notes, “Doc wouldn’t
have been using mercy bullets regularly until 1932 (The
Phantom City).
However, Doc might have experimented with mercy bullets like Anthony
in early 1931. Doc would have abandoned them to avenge the deaths of
his father (The
Man of Bronze)
and favorite tutor (The
Land of Terror)
during May–July 1931.” Axel Lidenbrock and his uncle Otto are
from Jules Verne’s Journey
to the Center of the Earth.
The connection between the subterranean world visited by the
Lidenbrocks and Skull Island was first proposed by Micah S. Harris in
The
Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp.
Although that novel takes place in an alternate universe, apparently
the connection is true in the CU as well. According to The
Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp,
Ann Darrow was the illegitimate daughter of Becky herself (from
William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity
Fair)
and Lord Eugenides, an analogue of the jungle lord. Unlike the jungle
lord, Eugenides grew to adulthood during the Victorian era, with his
own counterparts to Jane and La. The Ann Darrow of the CU is probably
the daughter of Becky Sharp and the time-traveling future version of
the jungle lord (aka John Gribardsun) seen in Farmer’s Time’s
Last Gift.
The Grey Havens (aka Mithlond) are an Elvish port from J. R. R.
Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy The
Lord of the Rings.
In Doc
Savage: His Apocalyptic Life,
Philip José Farmer revealed an iconic pulp hero’s real name as
James Clarke Wildman, Jr. However, Dana’s reference to Doc Wildman
as a pulp character should not be taken literally, since his pulp
magazine did not begin publication until 1933, two years after the
events of this story. The Celebrated Feral Child of Africa is the
jungle lord. Although Harris places Kong’s unveiling in April,
shortly after Denham and company return from Skull Island, Kong’s
rampage took place in October in the CU. More likely, Kong spent
months in quarantine before being officially exhibited. Dunwich is
from Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.”
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Crossover Covers: Crown of Worms
In
Seattle, Vampirella enters into a temporary alliance with Dracula,
King of the Vampires, in order to defeat a Lovecraftian worm-creature
called Yag-Ath Vermellus.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Crossover Cover: Something's Fishy
Cassie
Hack faces off with Mary Shelley Lovecraft, who compares her to “that
red devil boy with the tail” and claims she’s “compelling,
though maybe not so well loved as the Summers girl,” referring to Hellboy and Buffy, respectively.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Crossover Cover: Urban Gothic
A
group of suburban youths returning from a Monsters of Hip Hop concert
(headlined by Prosper Johnson) become stranded in an abandoned house
in the Philadelphia ghetto and hunted by subterranean mutants. The
kids were present at a Ghost Walk in LeHorn’s Hollow the previous
Halloween, but it was closed down after several people were killed
inside, before the kids could get in. Leo once lived with the Graco
family for two weeks; the father, Timothy, wrote comic books. One of
the mutants wears a shirt with the slogan I GOT CRABS IN
PHILLIPSPORT, MAINE, and another wears a ball cap with the Globe
Package Service logo. One of the mutants, Scug, swears to Ob. Prosper
Johnson is a minor, but important, character in Keene’s mythos,
figuring most prominently (so far) in his story “Slouching in
Bethlehem.” The events behind the massacre at the Ghost Walk are
told in Keene’s novel
Ghost
Walk.
Timothy Graco is the main character of Keene’s novel Ghoul.
Phillipsport, Maine, first appeared in Mark Williams and J. F.
Gonzalez’s novel Clickers;
that series (the latter books being cowritten between Gonzalez and
Keene) takes place in an alternate universe, but there must be a
version of Phillipsport in the CU. Globe Package Service appears in
several Keene works, including “Scratch” and
Kill
Whitey,
and is a branch of the Globe Corporation. Ob is one of the Thirteen,
and is the main villain of Keene’s The
Rising
series.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Crossover Cover: A Dozen Black Roses
The
heroic vampire Sonja Blue encounters the vampire sect known as the
Camarilla. The
Sonja Blue series is already in the CU via a mention of the
Aegrisomnia,
an occult tome from that series, in Collins’ Cthulhu Mythos story
“The Land of the Reflected Ones,” among other crossovers.
The
Camarilla are from White Wolf’s role-playing game Vampire:
The Masquerade.
The game presents a very different take on the nature of vampires
than most accounts set in the CU, as well as a version of Dracula
that is difficult to reconcile with most stories involving that
infamous nosferatu.
Therefore, this story must feature the CU version of the Camarilla,
and does not import the continuity of Vampire:
The Masquerade wholesale.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Crossover Cover: Death Comes to Pemberley
In
1803, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife Elizabeth become involved in
the mystery of the murder of Elizabeth’s sister Lydia’s husband
George Wickham. Mr. and Mrs. Knightley (from Jane Austen’s novel
Emma)
are described as the most important people in Highbury, and Wickham’s
last employer is identified as Sir Walter Elliot (from Austen’s
novel Persuasion).
Miss Caroline Bingley is still alive at the time of the novel’s
events, which does not fit with her death in 1795 in Win Scott
Eckert’s story “The Wild Huntsman,” and therefore I consider this novel an AU.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Crossover Cover: The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
This collection features occult detective Simon Feximal and his biographer and lover, Robert Caldwell. In "The Caldwell Ghost," Feximal
says the Third Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual, on which he and his
fellow ghost-hunter Carnacki had done such perilous research. The
Saaamaa Ritual and Carnacki are from William Hope Hodgson’s
Carnacki
the Ghost-Finder. In "Remember, Remember," Mr.
Lownie, editor of the Chronicle,
tells Caldwell that Feximal is at Hartley House "with
Miss Kay and Dr. Berry. Carnacki’s in Ireland chasing some
haunting, else he’d be there too, I hear." According to Robert, "that list encompassed the best-known ghost-hunters in England,
with the exception of the reclusive Dr. Silence." Dr. Silence is the title character of Algernon Blackwood's collection John Silence. In "Devils on Horseback," Feximal is a member of the Diogenes Club, to which he had been
nominated by one of his more peculiar acquaintances, a Government man
whose intellectual capacity is matched only by his corpulence. Both
Simon and Caldwell are members of a
club called the Remnant, whose members include Dr. Silence, Thomas
Carnacki, and Dr. Nikola. The Diogenes Club and the corpulent Government man (Mycroft Holmes) are from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Nikola
is a supervillain created by Guy Boothby. In "The Writing on the Wall," Feximal and Caldwell encounter
the occultist Karswell. Dr. Silence appears, and the Saaamaaa Ritual
and John Watson are mentioned. Karswell
is from M. R. James’ story “Casting the Runes.” Dr.
John Watson is Sherlock Holmes’ best friend and biographer.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Crossover of the Week
2003
THE
BIG GAME
John
Taylor battles Sir Francis Varney, the King of the Vampires, who is
trying to turn the Nightside into a homeland for the undead.
Appearing or mentioned are: Tsothagua Tequila; Jack Drood; the Street
of the Gods; Kor; Julien Advent; Something from a Black Lagoon; the
withered and mummified arm of the original Grendel monster, presented
to the Adventurers Club by Beowulf himself, back in the sixth
century; an ex-Ghost Finder; some kind of Boojum; the Suicide Club;
Dracula; and Rassillonn’s Restorative.
Novella
by Simon R. Green in Tales
from the Nightside,
Ace Books, 2015. Sir Francis Varney is from James Malcolm Rymer’s
penny dreadful serial Varney
the Vampire.
Tsothagua Tequila is a reference to Tsathoggua, a Great Old One
created by Clark Ashton Smith as part of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu
Mythos. Jack Drood is from Green’s Secret
Histories novels;
his appearance here places this story before the short story
“Question of Solace.” The Street of the Gods is from Green’s
Hawk
& Fisher novellas
Winner
Takes All and
The
God Killer.
Kor is from H. Rider Haggard’s novel She.
Julien Advent is an alias for the titular hero of the 1960s British
television series Adam
Adamant Lives! Something
from a Black Lagoon is a reference to the Universal horror film
Creature
from the Black Lagoon.
The original Grendel monster and Beowulf are from the Old English
epic poem Beowulf.
The ex-Ghost Finder must have been a former member of the Carnacki
Institute from Green’s Ghost
Finders series.
The Boojum is from Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the
Snark.” The Suicide Club is from Robert Louis Stevenson’s story
of the same name. Dracula needs no introduction. Rassillonn’s
Restorative is a reference to the Time Lord Rassilon from the
long-running British science fiction television series Doctor
Who.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Crossover Covers: Blood Communion
Private
investigator Harry D’Amour joins forces with the Female Cenobite to
prevent Pinhead from remaking the world in his own twisted image. This
crossover links Barker’s P.I. Harry D’Amour to the Cenobite
Pinhead from Barker’s story “The Hellbound Heart,” as well as
the film Hellraiser
and
its sequels.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Crossover Covers: Batman '66 Meets the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Batman, Robin, and Batgirl join forces with Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin when THRUSH has several of the Caped Crusader's foes broken out of Arkham in exchange for their joining the organization. Mr. Freeze and the Siren steal a ray gun called a “moleculator” from a facility in London. One of the scientists at the facility is named Dr. Quatermass. Dr. Bernard Quatermass is from the British science fiction television serial The Quatermass Experiment and its sequels.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Crossover Cover: Tangled June
Dave
Garrett, a disbarred lawyer turned private investigator in
Philadelphia, contacts a fellow P.I. named Saxon to do some
background work on a case. Les
Roberts’ actor and private eye Saxon is in the CU through Robert
Randisi’s Miles Jacoby novel Stand-Up.
This crossover brings in Neil Albert's eye Dave Garrett.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Crossover TV Series: The Middleman
Javier
Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine's comic The
Middleman
features the title character and his sidekick Wendy Watson battling
threats to the world for the Organization Too Secret to Know (O2TSK).
There have been several Middlemen throughout history. In the story
"The League of Professional Jealousy," Dr. Van Helsing and
Jonathan Harker set out to destroy Dracula, only to find they have
been beaten to the punch. Soon after, Phileas Fogg returns to the
Reform Club after finishing his eighty-day trek around the world,
only to find out his time has been beaten by the same person who
stole Van Helsing’s thunder: the Middleman. Van Helsing enlists
Nikolai Tesla to help him and Fogg get their revenge, which involves
Van Helsing spreading rumors of a demonic hound in the moors of
Devonshire. However, Tesla actually helps the Middleman outwit Van
Helsing and Fogg. Learning there are now reports of a seemingly real
"Hound of the Baskervilles" in Devonshire, the Middleman
later sends a letter to Holmes and Watson telling them he has already
solved the mystery, and he is off to the high seas, where a maniac
has been ramming cargo ships with a submarine. This story is a
parody, and Van Helsing and Fogg are both out of character.
Additionally, the year is given as 1897, whereas in the CU Dracula
took place in 1887, Around
the World in Eighty Days
in 1872, The
Hound of the Baskervilles
in 1888, and 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea
in 1866–1868. Therefore, I place the comics in an AU. However, the
comic does have a TV adaptation with crossover references of its own,
which fits much better into the CU. The O2TSK is also mentioned in
The Librarians
episode "The Librarians and the Apple of Discord."
In "The Sino-Mexican Revelation," the Middleman and Wendy visit Schlermie Beckerman Memorial Square and Alfred Necessiter Memorial Hospital. Beckerman and Necessiter are from the movie The Man with Two Brains. In "The Manicoid Teleportation Conundrum," the Middleman has a rendezvous with Wendy at Lyon Estates. Wendy discovers a bomb is hidden at Twin Pines Mall. Ida, the Middleman’s android assistant, says a headless murder victim lived at Eastwood Ravine Drive. Lyon Estates and Twin Pines Mall are from the film Back to the Future. Eastwood Ravine Drive is named after the Eastwood Ravine from Back to the Future Part III. In "The Ectoplasmic Panhellenic Investigation," Eleanor Draper’s honors include the Egon Spengler Memorial Award and the Ivo Shandor Medal. Both individuals are from the movie Ghostbusters. In "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol," a NASA employee is named Lethbridge-Stewart. A "Zygon-Rated" containment box appears. The Nakatomi Protocol expands the vents in Middleman HQ to human size, allowing the Middleman to crawl through them in case of an emergency. A Clotharian bomb has writing on it in Aurebesh. Lethbridge-Stewart is probably related to the CU counterpart of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart from Doctor Who. The Zygons are an alien race also seen in Doctor Who. The Nakatomi Protocol appears to have been inspired by John McClane crawling through the vents of the Nakatomi Plaza building, as seen in the movie Die Hard. The Aurebesh language is from the Star Wars film series. In "The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome," the Middleman and Wendy investigate the theft of a Beryllium Sphere and an Oscillation Overthruster. A collection of stolen doll eyes is made of polydichloric euthimal. The Middleman has a phased polaron cannon in his weapons archive. Beryllium spheres are from the movie Galaxy Quest, while the Oscillation Overthruster is from the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. Polydichloric euthimal appears in the movies Outland, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Relic, based on Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s novel Relic. Outland must take place in an alternate future. The future seen in the Terminator movies is also an alternate timeline to the established future of the CU. The novel Relic has already been established as taking place in the CU, so the events of the movie must occur in an alternate reality as well. Phased polarons are from Star Trek.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Crossover Cover: Django/Zorro
Django
Freeman teams up with the aging Don Diego de la Vega to battle the
self-styled “Archduke of Arizona.” This story takes place after
the events of Tarantino’s film Django
Unchained, which occurred in 1858–1859.
However, the film The Mask of Zorro (which
is referenced in Jess Nevins' "A Root That Beareth Gall and
Worms" and John Allen Small's "A Fate Cast in Silver")
has Don Diego definitively dying in 1842. Therefore, I consider this
particular story an AU.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Crossover Covers: Black Pulp
This anthology contains two stories with crossovers. In Gary Phillips' "Decimator Smith and the Fangs of the Fire Serpent," boxer
Achilles "Decimator" Smith turns vigilante after the death of his
sister. He meets inventor Abe Kaufman, who tells him, "When I was
back east, I did some work for a few vigilantes you might say. I
belonged to a kind of a loose association of scientists who helped
out the best way we could." Abe’s brother Rocco adds, "You
heard of that bloodthirsty joker with the weird laugh and the slouch
hat in New York? Abe designed a few gadgets for him through his
operatives." This is a reference to Walter Gibson's most famous character, of course. Decimator also appears in his boxing days in Phillips' story "Demon Slaves of the Red Claw," a crossover between the Spider and Operator #5. The other story relevant to this blog is Derrick Ferguson's "Dillon and the Alchemist's Morning Coffee." The
Alchemist’s Morning Coffee is a method of encoding digital
information in human DNA devised by Dr. Alejandro Candu of the
Henderson Institute of Alternative Technologies. The nation of Khusra
is mentioned. Dillon’s friend Wyatt Hyatt has been hacking into
government agencies’ computers since he was a kid, including
hacking into CTU’s computer core when he was thirteen. Dillon
mentions another friend, Elisa Hill. This
story takes place during the eight-month gap between Chapters 1 and 2
of Dillon
and the Pirates of Xonira.
The head of the Henderson Institute of Alternative Technologies is
Dr. Sylvester Henderson, whose brother Mongrel is the protagonist of
a series of stories by Ferguson in Airship 27 Productions’
anthology series Mystery
Men (& Women).
Ferguson’s
1930s adventurer Fortune McCall is a Prince of Khusra’s Royal
Family. The CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) is from the television
series 24,
which features fictional U.S. Presidents and massive terrorist
attacks, including a nuclear device being detonated in Los Angeles.
Presumably, as with the Spider novels, the true details of Jack
Bauer’s adventures have been exaggerated and distorted for dramatic
effect. Elisa Hill is the main character of Percival Constantine’s
Myth Hunter series.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Crossover of the Week
July 1996
EXPLOSIVE
JUSTICE
Former
police officer Bowen Chadwick (secretly the superpowered vigilante
known as the Blaster) watches a news story on National News Net, a
part of Havens International Media, delivered by Curtis Van Loan. In
a flashback to the circumstances under which Chadwick gained his
powers, Sergeant Sampson Jones tells Special Agent Simmons, “I do
not care if the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover comes up to me with a
request signed by the ghosts of Eliot Ness, Wyatt Earp, and Sherlock
Holmes; I will not relinquish control of this environmental
travesty.” Van Loan later introduces Chadwick to another vigilante,
the Voice, who needs his help against a right wing militia. The Voice
says, “If it weren’t for the women and children in the compound,
I’d be sorely tempted to use my honorary Uncle Dick’s scorched
earth methods. Go Mack Bolan on ’em.” After the militia is
defeated, a helicopter picks up the Voice and Chadwick; the crew of
the aircraft refers to the pilot as String.
Short
story by Erwin K. Roberts in Casebook
of the Voice,
Modern Knights Press, 2014. Havens International Media is an
outgrowth of the Daily
Clarion newspaper
owned by Frank Havens, an ally of the Phantom Detective (aka Richard
Curtis Van Loan). The Detective’s girlfriend in the pulp stories
was Muriel Havens, Frank’s daughter; Curtis “Curt” Van Loan is
their son. Sergeant Jones is almost certainly mistaken about Sherlock
Holmes being deceased, and was probably fooled by Holmes faking his
death in 1957. The Voice’s honorary Uncle Dick is Richard “Dick”
Wentworth, better known as the Spider. Mack Bolan, the Executioner,
is the protagonist of a series of novels by Don Pendleton and others.
It has been suggested Bolan is Wentworth’s son. The helicopter
pilot is Stringfellow “String” Hawke from the television series
Airwolf.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Crossover Covers: Gaslight
These
three anthologies contain stories of Sherlock Holmes encountering the
supernatural or other remarkable cases. The first anthology, Gaslight
Grimoire, included many crossovers, most of
which Win included in the original volumes. The only one not
included, which will be in the new volumes, is "Red Sunset"
by Bob Madison. A private investigator asks an elderly, decrepit
British consulting detective to assist him in a case involving a
missing man, who upon being discovered by the American detective
attacked him, forcing the detective to fire three bullets into him,
which had no effect. The British sleuth deduces the younger detective
works for either the Chandler or Continental agencies. The person
responsible for the man’s strange condition is a Romanian Count,
who mentions the Dutch doctor. The elderly British detective is
Holmes. The Continental Detective Agency is from Dashiell Hammett’s
Continental Op stories, and the American detective is the Op himself.
The Romanian Count is Dracula, while his Dutch foe is Doctor Abraham
Van Helsing. This story takes place during World War II, and the P.I.
claims Holmes was smuggled out of London when the Blitz began, his
continued existence being considered vital to British morale. This
conflicts with the events of Anthony Boucher’s story "The
Adventure of the Illustrious Impostor" and Manly Wade Wellman’s
"But Our Hero Was Not Dead," both of which portray Holmes
as still residing in London in 1941. References to Marshal
Antonescu’s overthrow in Rumania would seem to place this story in
1944. However, Holmes says he is over a hundred-years-old. Since
Holmes was born in 1854, he would be only 90 in 1944. The feebleness
and brittle bones displayed by Holmes in this story are inconsistent
with references in several pastiches set in the CU to his discovery
of a Royal Jelly elixir that arrests the aging process. Given all
these factors, this story cannot take place in the CU.
The
second anthology is Gaslight Grotesque.
In William Patrick Maynard's "The Tragic Case of the Child
Prodigy," Holmes and Dr. Watson attempt to rescue young violin
virtuoso Arthur
Tremayne’s mother from the influence of occultist William Frawley.
Back in Baker Street, Holmes tells Watson he will fetch Billy the
page and see if young Mr. Pons is interested in learning the proper
way to play the violin. Watson is married to Mary Morstan, which
places this story before the Great Hiatus. August Derleth’s sleuth
Solar Pons studied the art of detection under Holmes, who must have
taught the ten-year-old Pons how to play the violin as well. In Neil
Jackson's "Celeste," Holmes and Watson investigate the
salvaged ship Mary Celeste
alongside Dr. Joseph Jephson, whose father Habakuk was
one of those who disappeared from the ship in 1872. Jephson says a
diary allegedly written by his father is a hoax. The diary is a
reference to Arthur Conan Doyle’s story "J. Habakuk Jephson’s
Statement." Both Doyle’s and Jackson’s stories offer
different solutions to the mystery of the historical Mary
Celeste than Philip José Farmer’s The
Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and therefore
neither can take place in the CU. Doyle’s story also takes many
liberties with the known true facts of the case. In Stephen Volk's
"Hounded," Dr. Watson attends a séance where the Hound of
the Baskervilles is conjured up. The late Sherlock Holmes forced
Watson to write a mostly fabricated account of their encounter with
Hound, including the false claim the beast was not in fact
supernatural in origin. The spiritualist’s house contains a
painting of a unicorn by Harvey Deacon and books by, among others,
occultist Paul Le Duc; both individuals are from Arthur Conan Doyle’s
short story "Playing with Fire." Professor George
Challenger is mentioned as a believer in spiritualism. A reference to
Rudolph Valentino places this story sometime between the 1914 events
of "His Last Bow" (1914 also being the year Valentino began
acting) and the star’s death in 1926. This story must be an AU.
The
third anthology is Gaslight Arcanum.
I covered Kim Newman's "The Adventure of the Six Maledictions"
in a previous post. The other crossover stories are all AUs. In "The
Comfort of the Seine" by the aforementioned Stephen Volk, Holmes
recounts his time in Paris, where he learned the art of detection
from the supposedly deceased Edgar Allan Poe, then living under the
name Dupin. Among the cases they investigated were the affair of the
so-called "phantom" of the Paris Opera and the case of the
horla and its
tragically afflicted seer. These are references to Gaston Leroux’s
The Phantom of the Opera and
Guy de Maupassant’s "The Horla." Dupin is portrayed as a
completely fictional character created by Poe. In Lawrence Connolly's
"The Executioner," Frankenstein’s Monster revives
Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty after their fatal battle at
Reichenbach Falls. In Kevin Cockle's "Sherlock Holmes and the
Great Game," Holmes, discussing his
fictionalized exploits with Watson, refers to "Challenger’s
nonsense." This story portrays Holmes as having been granted
insights by a mystic Zulu dagger given to Watson in Afghanistan
rather than being a natural deductive genius.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Crossover Cover: Heart-Shaped Box
Things
take a paranormal turn for the worse when aging rocker Judas Coyne
purchases a ghost online; other items among his collection of the
strange and macabre include books by Aleister Crowley and Charles
Dexter Ward. Ward
is the main character of H. P. Lovecraft’s The
Case of Charles Dexter Ward,
linking Joe Hill’s interconnected works to the Cthulhu Mythos, and
thus the CU.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
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