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.
Then you'll love this novel, which features a number of fictional books from the works of authors such as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac, Rudyard Kipling, and more!
For more information, consult my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! Like its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover, and hundreds more, are covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! Like its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Winter 2011
BLOOD AND MAGICK
Occult bounty hunter Deacon Chalk must protect three weredog children from a trio of witches known as the Wrath of Baphomet. One of the witches, Athame, summons a “soulsword” by casting a spell backward. Deacon and his allies confront another of the witches, Ahriman, at a movie theatre: “Tiff and I had seen Guilty Pleasures here a month ago. We had both liked it. Hollywood had taken some liberties and picked their Jean-Claude based on star power instead of acting, but they were spot-on in their choice to play Anita. She probably didn’t agree, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since it had been released.” An earlier incarnation of the coven included a Russian warlock called Chernobog, who was killed by a Puritan named Solomon Kane who later went to Africa. Deacon tells were-rabbit Josh about his current exploit, and Josh replies, “Just another Tuesday night in Sunnydale?” Deacon’s friend Kat shows him a prophecy about the witches in the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, written in Kandarian. Deacon’s ally Father Mulcahy gives him Durendal, the sword of Roland, and claims the Holy See has Excalibur.
Novel by James R. Tuck, Kensington Books, 2012. The soulsword may be a reference to the sword of the same name wielded by Illyana Rasputina, aka Magik, a member of the Marvel Comics mutant superteams the X-Men and the New Mutants. If so, this is the CU version of the sword. Casting spells backward is the preferred method of magic for DC Comics’ mystic heroine Zatanna Zatara, and her father Giovanni “John” Zatara before her. Anita is Laurell K. Hamilton’s vampire hunter Anita Blake, while Jean-Claude, a vampire himself, is one of her love interests. Guilty Pleasures was the title of the first Blake novel. Although the Anita Blake novels take place in a world where the public is aware that the supernatural is real, various sources, such as the first Deacon Chalk novel, Blood and Bullets, establish that a version of Anita exists in the CU distinct from Hamilton’s version. Solomon Kane is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer. While the mention of Sunnydale (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) could be interpreted as a pop culture reference, Blood and Bullets establishes that Buffy is a contemporary of Deacon Chalk, so it is more likely a genuine crossover. The Necronomicon Ex Mortis and the Kandarian language are from the Evil Dead films. Durendal and Roland are from French epic literature. Excalibur has appeared in several CU texts. Its status and location vary from story to story; for instance, in The Librarian TV movies and the subsequent series The Librarians, the Library has the sword, which Flynn Carsen calls Cal. Perhaps someday a dedicated creative mythographer will reconcile the myriad, seemingly conflicting takes on Arthurian lore in the CU.
This crossover write-up is only one of hundreds which will be included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are official and AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this The Man from U.N.C.L.E. tie-in novel by Peter Leslie, which has an appearance by a character from Leslie's Secret Agent novel Hell for Tomorrow!
More information can be found in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are official and AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's indispensable tomes Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This film is one of hundreds of works covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this episode, which has shout-outs to Doctor Who and Back to the Future!
For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
The twentieth and final volume of Tales of the Shadowmen is coming out in December. Eighteen years is an impressive run, and they've assembled a massive array of great authors for the swan song. Although it's not listed on the site yet, I can verify that there will be at least one additional author. That author is Sean Lee Levin, also the author of Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1-3, and his story pits Irma Vep of Louis Feuillade's classic 1915 silent serial Les Vampires against the eponymous femme fatale from Mario Roncoroni's 1915 silent film Filibus. :D Of course, since this is me we're talking about, there are other crossovers in the story as well. I've been wanting to contribute to Shadowmen for years, and I'm delighted to be in at the last hurrah. This is my first published fiction, as opposed to Crossovers Expanded, which is more reference and metafiction, and I am extremely excited!
This crossover is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you may enjoy this pastiche, which also serves as a sequel to Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone!
For more information, check out the appendix on alternate universes in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when it is published by Meteor House! Like its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Autumn 1926
WRATH OF N’KAI
Countess Alessandra Zorzi, a professional thief-for-hire, comes to Arkham, Massachusetts to steal a mummy found in Oklahoma. Two years ago, Alessandra stole a gargoyle from the cathedral of Vyones. A month after that, she pilfered a copper ring crafted in the shape of a serpent from a house in Mayfair. Philippa “Pepper” Kelly, who works as a cab driver in male disguise, has as her head dispatcher a short, fat man named De Palma. At the unveiling of the mummy at the Miskatonic Museum, Alessandra runs into her old acquaintance Tad Visser, a New Yorker, who says the crowd includes bigwigs from Miskatonic, Harvard, Yale, and even representatives from his alma mater, Empire State. Alessandra knows of others in her profession who are violent or lacking in restraint, such as “that charlatan, Lampini.” Her teachers included an elderly Englishman with an inordinate fondness for cricket, a melancholy albino who smoked opium-soaked cigarettes, and the incomparable Mr. Nuth. Alessandra tells Pepper, “As a gentleman of my acquaintance once said, one cannot make bricks without clay.” Alessandra and Visser discuss Arkady Cottonwood’s book The Oldest Rite, a single copy of which Alessandra has stolen five times for three different clients. She also once procured a book on horology for a fat man in New York with a fondness for orchids.
An Arkham Horror novel by Josh Reynolds, Aconyte, 2020. Vyones is from Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne stories. The gargoyle is a reference to Smith’s “The Maker of Gargoyles.” The copper ring is the Serpent Ring of Set from Robert E. Howard’s Conan story “The Phoenix on the Sword.” De Palma is likely the father or grandfather of Louie De Palma, head dispatcher for the Sunshine Cab Company in New York, from the TV series Taxi. Empire State University will later be attended by Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man. Lampini is Bruno J. Lampini, who appears in his own series of stories by Reynolds. Lampini is named after Professor Bruno Lampini from the movie House of Frankenstein. The elderly Englishman is E. W. Hornung’s amateur cracksman A. J. Raffles. The melancholy albino is Sexton Blake’s archenemy Zenith the Albino. Nuth is from Lord Dunsany’s story “How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles.” The gentleman of Alessandra’s acquaintance is Sherlock Holmes, who said “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay” in Doyle and Watson’s “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.” Arkady Cottonwood is from Reynolds’ story “Corn Wolf.” Cottonwood’s book The Oldest Rite is mentioned in several of Reynolds’ works. The fat orchid enthusiast is Nero Wolfe, although Alessandra’s acquisition of the book for him must have happened before he officially hung up his shingle as a private eye in 1930. Professor Tyler Freeborn mentions his expedition to the Great Sandy Desert with Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee and Professor Ferdinand Ashley from “The Shadow Out of Time” as a past event. This reference must be disregarded, as that expedition took place in 1935, nine years after the events of this novel.
This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Are you a Sexton Blake fan?
Then you'll love this novel, the first of several team-ups between Baker Street's second most famous detective and John Hunter's character Captain Dack!
For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when it's published! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 and are published by Meteor House!
This novel is one of hundreds of crossovers covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this novel, which has them teaming up to solve a mystery, and also has connections to other books by Kim Newman!
For more information, consult my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which is going to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Shi encounters Angel Fire, who is being auctioned to various mobs. Angel Fire is Anastacia Pizer, who volunteered for an experiment to be made into a cybernetically and genetically enhanced warrior. Her meeting with Shi brings her into the CU.
This crossover is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three books are official and AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this anthology of new stories about his pulp scientific detective Professor I. V. Frost, which includes encounters with the likes of Doctor Satan, the Moon Man, the Phantom Detective, and the Green Ghost!
For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which is to be published by Meteor House! As with its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
February 1944
THE CURSE OF KUKULKAN
In Mexico, the Avenger battles his old foe Sun Koh, who is impersonating the Mayan god Kukulkan, and the Sons of the Feathered Serpent, who are trying to get their hands on the Aztec gold that finances Benson’s crimefighting activities. Cole Wilson drives an open-topped Hirondel Roadster. Cole’s fiancée Heather is headed to Hollywood to talk to producers about starring in a remake of a Rhonda Terry jungle movie. General Leslie Groves, impressed by Benson’s imposture of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, says “I don’t think even Basil Karlo or Lon Chaney, Sr. could have fooled my men.” Benson names others capable of remarkable disguises, such as a Japanese criminal called Kaijin Niju Menso. Smitty asks if he should contact “the usual archaeology types”: Smith, Jones, and Littlejohn. In Central Asia, Benson once met an elderly Norwegian explorer named Sigerson, who had a brilliant deductive mind. The archaeologists connect Rosabel Newton with a retired criminologist in New Jersey named de Grandin, who says the Sons of the Feathered Serpent are strongest in Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Hidalgo, and Nicaragua, and that they were united in the nineteenth century by a revolutionary named Don Ignatio. There was a string of feathered serpent killings in London in the '20s, and a “Quetzal” spy ring in the States a few years ago. Rosabel also contacted a friend of Professor Smith’s, Sir Lionel Barton, as well as Professor Rolfe at the University of Arizona, who told her about a series of Yaqui uprisings in the 1820s instigated by an individual called Don del Oro. Don Manuel Garcia, brother of Juan, tells Benson that Satan, Iblis, Mara, Erlik Khan, Ravana, Loki, Angra Mainyu, Tezcatlipoca, and many more are all reflections of the first evil figure, Kathulos of Atlantis, also known as Baal Seepa, the Lord of the Dark Face. He also claims that Mithras, Jesus, Horus, and Buddha are all pale shadows of Assurah, the Phoenix. Besides Uxmal and the cache used by Benson and discovered by Nellie Gray’s father, the Seven Cities of Gold include Cibola in Arizona, near the Lake of Fire, Omoxotl in Guatemala, el Valle de los que desaparecieron in Hidalgo, and Tucumai in Brazil. The Plumed Serpent cult was revived in 1923 by a wealthy landowner named Don Ramón and his compatriot General Viedma. Sun Koh’s aide Dr. Peters, the inventor of the katascope, refers to vril rods. Garcia says Sun Koh knows all the hidden places built by the Atlanteans, including Uxmal, Opar, Thule, and the realms of Prester John. Hal Mervin is another of Sun Koh’s aides. Inspector Madero works with Justice, Inc. on this case.
Story by Matthew Baugh in The Avenger: Double Feature 2, Moonstone Books, 2020. Sun Koh appeared in the German pulp magazine Sun Koh – Die Erbe von Atlantis, written by Paul Alfred Müller. Don Manuel Garcia, his brother Juan, Dr. Peters, his katascope, and Hal Mervin are from the Sun Koh novels. The Sons of the Feathered Serpent are from the first Doc Savage novel, The Man of Bronze. Littlejohn is one of Doc’s aides. The country of Hidalgo and el Valle de los que desaparecieron (a Spanish translation of its English name) are also from the Doc Savage novels. The Hirondel is the car driven by Leslie Charteris’ character Simon Templar, the Saint. Ms. Terry is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Lion Man. Heather’s offered role is also referenced in Win Scott Eckert’s novel Hunt the Avenger. Opar is from the Tarzan novels. Actor Basil Karlo is better known as Batman’s foe Clayface. “Kaijin Niju Menso” is Japanese for “The Fiend with Twenty Faces,” the alias used by the archenemy of Edogawa Rampo’s detective Kogoro Akechi. Professor Horatio Smith is from the movie Pimpernel Smith. Jones is Indiana Jones. Sigerson is an alias used by Sherlock Holmes during the Great Hiatus, as revealed in Doyle and Watson’s “The Adventure of the Empty House.” Jules de Grandin is Seabury Quinn’s occult detective. Don Ignatio is from H. Rider Haggard’s novel Heart of the World. The feathered serpent killings in London in the 1920s are a reference to Edgar Wallace’s novel The Feathered Serpent. The Quetzal spy ring is from the Shadow novel Quetzal. Omoxotl is the home of the Xinca Indians who served the shadowy vigilante. Sir Lionel Barton is from Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. Professor Rolfe is meant to be the adopted son of Dr. James Rolfe and Paviva from the movie The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold. Cibola is the eponymous city in that film. Don del Oro is the villain of the movie serial Zorro’s Fighting Legion. Kathulos is from Robert E. Howard’s “Skull Face.” Baal Seepa is from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Maracot Deep. Assurah, the Phoenix is from Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis story “Beyond the Phoenix.” Tucumai is from Fritz Leiber’s novelization of the movie Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, which has been declared canon by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Don Ramón and General Viedma are from D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Plumed Serpent. The vril is from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race. Inspector Madero is José Manuel Madero, the protagonist of “Geoffrey Homes’” (Daniel Mainwaring) mystery novels The Case of the Mexican Knife (aka The Street of the Crying Woman) and The Hill of the Terrified Monk (aka Dead as a Dummy).
This writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! Like the first two, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love John L. French's story in this issue, which teams her with French's hero the Nightmare, with a few more pulp characters making cameos or being mentioned along the way!
For more information, make sure to buy a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Zorro’s hunt for a band of outlaws leads him into battle with servants of Cthulhu. Dagon and Azathoth are mentioned.
This crossover, and hundreds more like it, are covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this entry in her Vicky Bliss series, which reveals that one of the recurring characters in those books is a descendant of Amelia and her husband Radcliffe Emerson!
For more information, be sure to purchase a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are official and fully AUTHORIZED companions to Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 by Win Scott Eckert!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! As with its predecessors, this book is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Then you'll love this episode, which refers to Stephen King's Shawshank Prison as a real place!
For more details, check out my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
Autumn 1928
MATTHEW HENSON AND THE ICE TEMPLE OF HARLEM
Matthew Henson must stop the would-be dictators of the Medusa Council from getting their hands on a meteor fragment he brought back from the Arctic. Henson’s friend Professor Henrik Ellsmere spent some time in a sanitarium called Dunwich. At the Cotton Club, a wealthy man flirts with a woman named Myra, who spent time in Asia, where she learned to speak Chinese. As he does this, Jimmie Dale, aka the Gray Seal, burgles his home. The Challenger’s Club, a club for explorers and hunters, has portraits of Allan Quatermain, Phileas Fogg, and Gertrude Bell. Henson disguises himself as a deliveryman for B. Jonas Freight.
Novel by Gary Phillips, Agora Books, 2020. Matthew Henson was a real person. The Medusa Council also appears in the Moonstone Books anthology Day of the Destroyers, edited by Phillips, as well as his collection Astonishing Heroes: Shades of Justice. Dunwich Sanitarium is likely located in the titular Massachusetts town from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.” Myra is a future agent of the shadowy vigilante. “B. Jonas” was the name on the door of the office where that pulp hero’s agents submitted reports to him. Perhaps he met Matthew Henson shortly before the 1929 events of The Living Shadow and heard from him about his battle against the Medusa Council, inspiring his own use of the B. Jonas cover. The Gray Seal is from Frank L. Packard’s novels. Allan Quatermain is from H. Rider Haggard’s books and stories. Phileas Fogg is from Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. According to this novel, the Challenger’s Club was already in existence during the historical New York draft riots of 1863, so it was not named after Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger, who was born in the same year.
This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3! Much like the first two volumes, this one is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 and will be published by Meteor House!
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Then you may enjoy this storyline, which has appearances by not only Mandrake the Magician and company, but also Mary Worth!
For more information, be sure to read my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when it's published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by the cool cats at Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 by my good friend Win Scott Eckert!
Then you'll enjoy this comic, which has the Mystery, Inc. gang encountering the crime-solvers from several other Hanna-Barbera cartoons!
For more information, see my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are official and AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
