One of Reed Richards and his girlfriend Alyssa Moy’s globetrotting exploits involves an encounter with the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Reed Richards will go on to lead the Fantastic Four as Mr. Fantastic. The Giant Rat of Sumatra is from Doyle and Watson’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” This story takes place after Reed’s army service. According to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original run on Fantastic Four, Reed served in World War II, so this likely takes place in the 1950s, which is supported by a police officer asking if Reed is a communist sympathizer. Of course, the Marvel Universe has a “sliding timescale,” where the Fantastic Four’s spaceflight is always about 14 years before whatever the current year is, but in the CU, that’s not the case, and it happened in the early '60s.
This crossover is just one among the hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, in development from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!
I'd never heard of this comic series. Sounds cool.
ReplyDeleteIn Wolverine solo comic "If It Ain't Broke" Wolverine makes reference to Rick's from Casablanca and Hannibal from the A-Team, who he calls an old Army buddy. It is also a crossover with the Hulk in it's Joe Fixit personality. The early issues of Wolverine's solo comic were very pulpy and fit well within the CU.