Crossover Cover: The Adventure of the Proper Comma

 

Solar Pons’ best friend and biographer Dr. Parker returns “from Thorndyke and Polton with an analysis of the capsules Mrs. Buxton had carried with her.” Thorndyke and Polton are R. Austin Freeman’s sleuth Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke and his lab technician Nathaniel Polton.

This crossover, and hundreds more like it, are 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 volumes, this one is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

June 1968

PASSENGER 

Chief Inspector Thursday’s daughter Joan tells him she and her mother Win are going to buy a new lamp and have lunch at Burridges. During his investigation, Detective Sergeant Morse visits the Crossroads Motel in Kings Oak, where a cleaner called Mrs. T is mentioned. Several train stations are referenced, including Chadwick, Hamingwell Halt, Pudham, Whimperley, and Norborough. A Hammond & Sons Hauliers truck appears. 

Episode of Endeavour broadcast February 18, 2018. Burridges Department Store is from the movie Trouble in Store and has been mentioned on Endeavour previously. The Crossroads Motel and Kings Oak are from the TV series Crossroads. Amy Turtle was the motel’s cleaner. Chadwick Station is from August Derleth’s Solar Pons story “The Adventure of the Lost Locomotive.” Hamingwell Halt and Pudham Stations are from the movie The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery. Whimperley Station is from Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novella “Dead Man’s Mirror.” Norborough Station is from The Avengers episode “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station.” Hammond & Sons Hauliers is a reference to the 1972-1976 TV series The Brothers. In the show, the Hammond family’s business was called Hammond Transport Services, but it’s not unlikely that they could have changed the name in the intervening years. 

I chose to highlight an Endeavour episode because the series finale, "Exeunt," airs today in the U.K. In nine seasons, this show racked up a truly impressive number of shout-outs to other works. Major props to show creator Russell Lewis and his team for their role in expanding the rich tapestry that is the Crossover Universe!!!

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! Like its predecessors, the new volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

December 25, 2003
DR. DOA 
Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf go after the assassin known as Dr. DOA, who has poisoned Eddie. Appearing or mentioned are: the Wood Between the Worlds; Strangefellows bar, in the Nightside; the Walking Man; the Adventurers Club; Shadows Fall; the Unholy Grail; Baron Frankenstein; Castle Frankenstein; Dead Boy; Larry Oblivion; the Ghost Finders; tanna leaf; a woman with something moving inside her back; a woman smoking a cigarette through a hole in her throat; Cthulhu; Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar; Black Heir; Persecution Psmith; the Necronomicon; the Book of Eibon; the Mysteries of the Wurm; Harry Fabulous; Dorian Gray; Martian red weed; MI Thirteen; a Maltese falcon; the Organization; the Hydra’s teeth; and Hadleigh Oblivion. 
Novel by Simon R. Green. The Wood Between the Worlds is from C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew. Strangefellows bar, the Walking Man, the Adventurers Club, the Unholy Grail, Dead Boy, Larry and Hadleigh Oblivion, and Harry Fabulous are from Green’s Nightside series. Shadows Fall is from Green’s novel of the same name. Baron Frankenstein and Castle Frankenstein are from Mary Shelley’s novel. The Ghost Finders are the subject of another series of novels by Green. Tanna leaves are from Universal Studios’ Mummy film series. The woman with something moving inside her back is Karen Tandy from Graham Masterson’s novel The Manitou. The thing inside her back is Misquamacus, originally from August Derleth’s The Lurker at the Threshold. The woman smoking through a hole in her throat may be Juno from the movie Beetlejuice. Cthulhu, shoggoths, the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon and the Mysteries of the Wurm are from the Cthulhu Mythos. Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar is from Neil Gaiman’s story of the same name. Black Heir and the Organization are from Green’s Ishmael Jones Mysteries series. Persecution Psmith, an immortal Puritan adventurer, is a thinly veiled version of Robert E. Howard’s Puritan hero Solomon Kane. Matthew Baugh also portrayed Kane as long-lived in his story “The Heart of the Moon.” Dorian Gray is from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Martian red weed is from H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. MI Thirteen is the CU version of the British intelligence organization of the same name in the Marvel Comics Universe. The Maltese Falcon is from Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel. The Hydra’s teeth are from the movie Jason and The Argonauts. 
This write-up 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 volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: The Green Lama Unbound

I covered the original version of this novel some time ago. Since then, a revised and expanded version has been published by Moonstone Books. The Green Lama battles Cthulhu. Cthulhu; Nyarlathotep; R’lyeh; the Great Old Ones; the Outer Gods; the Necronomicon; the Deep Ones; Abdul Alhazred; Glyyu-Uho; Vhoorl; flying polyps; the Great Race of Yith; shoggoths; Arkham, Massachusetts; Innsmouth; the Miskatonic River; Miskatonic University; Professor Randolph Carter; and Zkauba are from the works of H. P. Lovecraft. This novel also makes use of characters and places from Cthulhu Mythos tales by August Derleth (the Elder Gods); Brian Lumley (Chthonians and Shudde M’ell); Ramsey Campbell (Baalbo, Yifne, and Tond); Walter C. DeBill, Jr. (Ogntlach); Lin Carter (Xoth); and A. A. Attanasio (Yaksh). Rick Masters and Twin Eagle had their own feature in Spark Publications’ Green Lama comic book series. “That guy who lives in the Empire State Building” is a well-known bronze-skinned pulp hero. Arnold Toht is from the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, while Colonel Ernst Vogel is from the third film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Neville Sinclair is from the film version of Dave Stevens’ comic The Rocketeer. Since the comic book has already been incorporated into the Crossover Universe, the Sinclair mentioned here must be the CU counterpart of the Sinclair from the film, which follows a different continuity than the comic. The phrase “klaatu barada nikto” appears in both the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films. Foster Fade, “the crime spectacularist,” appeared in three stories by Lester Dent in All Detective Magazine in 1934. Richard Knight appeared in the pulp magazine Flying Aces in stories by Donald E. Keyhoe. The Black Bat was created by Norman Daniels and appeared in Black Book Detective. The Lama’s old detective friend in London is Sherlock Holmes. Elisha Pond is a false identity used by Secret Agent X, who appeared in a titular magazine. The original version of the novel has a few references that were deleted from the revised version, such as a rampaging ape (King Kong), Captain Hazzard (a one-shot pulp hero created by Paul Chadwick), Dan Fowler (an FBI agent appearing in the pulp G-Men Detective), Lance Star (a Canadian pulp hero recently revived by Bobby Nash and other writers), and Jim Anthony (who appeared in the magazine Super Detective).

Crossover of the Week

1881

THE WAR SHAMAN

The Merkabah Rider gives his ally Kabede a pistol with the Elder Sign imprinted on its side. Kabede refers to their conflict with the Great Old Ones. The two of them, along with the Rider’s old friend Dick Belden, are visited by Shar-rogs pa, the blue abbot of Shambhala, aka Faustus Montague. The monk Chaksusa told the Rider of the abbot when he’d battled Shub-Niggurath, the Yiggians, and the Black Goat Man. Faustus’ brother is Mun Gsod. Faustus tells the Rider, Kabede and Belden of stories that are true: a whaler with an Indian figurehead pursuing a pale leviathan to the doom of her crew and her scarred captain; a young boy putting his hand on a sword and drawing it lightly from a stone, becoming the greatest king the world has ever known; and thirteen heroes with two hearts between them, who set themselves between an insignificant world and all the evil that time and space can muster. He further states a word Chaksusa taught to the Rider, when combined with the Star-Stones of Mnar, is doubly detrimental to the Great Old Ones. The Apache Piishi has seen the Rider’s old acquaintance Misquamacus. Ten of Faustus’ disciples died battling Adon’s Creed on a mesa at a place called Stallions Gate in New Mexico. Among the allies of the Merkabah Riders are the Kun-Sun-Dai and the Watchers. Faustus thinks Misquamacus may be serving Nyarlathotep. The Rider’s own claustrophobia reminds him of his boyhood friend Aloysius Monkowitz’s many phobias. The Rider and Piishi faced Shub-Niggurath and the Cold Ones together. Misquamacus has manipulated the Billington family in the past. The geometric patterns in sand-images made by a group of skinwalkers remind the Rider of the diagrams in the Book of Zylac. Misquamacus summons Ossodagowah.

Short story by Edward M. Erdelac in Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel, Damnation Books, 2011. The Elder Sign, the Great Old Ones, Shub-Niggurath, and Yig are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Star-Stones of Mnar are from August Derleth’s The Lurker at the Threshold. Misquamacus is from both The Lurker at the Threshold and Graham Masterton’s Manitou novels. The Lurker at the Threshold mentions both Misquamacus’ devotion to Nyarlathotep and his conjuring of Ossodagowah. The Billington family is also from The Lurker at the Threshold. “Shar-rogs pa” and “Mun Gsod” are Tibetan approximations of “Darkness Slayer” and “East-helper,” the English translations of the names of the blue wizards Morinehtar and Rómestámo from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This story reveals Rómestámo and Misquamacus are the same being. The whaler is the Pequod from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The boy who drew the sword from the stone is King Arthur. The thirteen heroes with two hearts between them are the various incarnations of the Doctor, of Doctor Who fame. While most of the Doctor’s exploits take place in an alternate universe, it has been established the Doctor has a CU counterpart, who often goes by the name of Doctor Omega. Stallions Gate, New Mexico, is the future site of Project Quantum Leap, from the television series Quantum Leap. The Watchers (more properly the Watchers’ Council) are from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while the Kun-Sun-Dai (whose full name is the Order of the Kun-Sun-Dai) are from the “Awakening” and “Calvary” episodes of the Buffy spin-off Angel. Aloysius Monkowitz is an ancestor of obsessive-compulsive private investigator Adrian Monk from the television series Monk. The Cold Ones and Zylac appear in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Clark Ashton Smith. Zylac’s book, The Wisdom and Sacred Magic of Zylac the Mage, appears in stories by Joseph S. Pulver.

Crossover Cover: From the Notebooks of Dr. Lyndon Parker

A Praed Street Dossier is a collection of short stories, essays, and marginalia by August Derleth dealing with Solar Pons, his detective patterned after Sherlock Holmes. One of the stories is "The Adventure of the Snitch in Time" by Derleth and Mack Reynolds, which Win included in the original Crossovers. Another story, authored by Derleth alone, is "From the Notebooks of Dr. Lyndon Parker," which describes the early days of Pons and Parker's partnership, and will be included in Crossovers Expanded. On November 21, Mr. Howard Robinson, a potential client, tells Pons, “I looked in on Thorndyke, but he was in Scotland. I took the liberty of coming to you without an appointment.” This reference confirms Pons exists in the same universe as R. Austin Freeman’s sleuth, Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke.

Crossover of the Week

May 25–September 23, 1882

MERKABAH RIDER: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEIRD WEST

The Merkabah Rider and his allies set forth to at long last prevent the Hour of Incursion, in which the Great Old Ones will be unleashed upon the world. Appearing or mentioned are: the Dreamlands; the Liber Damnatus Damnationum; Delirium Tremens; the Scroll of Thoth; Misquamacus; Azathoth; Faustus Montague; an African witch-doctor; a Christian adventurer; the Drucker and Dobbs Mining Company; Professor Spates; Miskatonic University; Arkham; Warren Rice; the Tsath-yo language; New Valusia; Yoth; Yig; Tsathoggua; the Elder Sign; Nyarlathotep (aka the Abhorred Dread); Ossadagowah; Stallions’ Gate; the Book of Zylac; the Cold Ones; Shub-Niggurath; the Star Stones of Mnar; Pnakotus; the flying polyps; the Aklo language; Picaro Jake Gonnoff; the Hyperboreans; the Black Lotus; a barefoot man, possibly a Chinaman, playing a bamboo flute; Dunn & Duffy; the Flying Graysons; Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show; Noah Whateley; Yog-Sothoth; Dunwich; the shoggoth; Zorro; Gallo del Cielo; Slim Reezer; Jesse McLaughlin; Oscar Diggs; Richard Wilkins III; Lin McAdams; High Spade; Freddie Sykes; Dog Kelly; John Russell; an “electricista y aventurero”; Danny Caine; a masked gunman; the Pnakotic Manuscripts; the Seven Books of Hsan; the History of G’harne; the Naacal language; and the Elder Script.

Novel by Edward M. Erdelac, Damnation Books, 2013. The Great Old Ones, the Dreamlands, Azathoth, Miskatonic University, Arkham, Warren Rice, Yig, the Elder Sign, Shub-Niggurath, Pnakotus, the Great Race of Yith, the flying polyps, Yog-Sothoth, Dunwich, the shoggoth, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan are from the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. Nyarlathotep is also from Lovecraft’s Mythos; Erdelac conflates him with Sauron (aka the Abhorred Dread) from J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. The Tsath-yo and Naacal languages are from Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.” Yoth is from Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop’s “The Mound.” The Aklo language originally appeared in Arthur Machen’s “The White People,” and was also used by Lovecraft in his stories “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Haunter of the Dark.” Noah Whateley is meant to be Old Whateley from “The Dunwich Horror”; his first name was given as Noah in the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The Liber Damnatus Damnationum is from Richard L. Tierney’s Mythos novel The House of the Toad. The Scroll of Thoth is from Tierney’s tales of Simon of Gitta. The town of Delirium Tremens appears in several works by Erdelac, including the film Meaner Than Hell. Picaro Jake Gonnoff is also from Meaner Than Hell. Misquamacus, Ossadagowah, and the Star Stones of Mnar are from August Derleth’s short novel The Lurker at the Threshold; here, Misquamacus is conflated with the Blue Wizard Rómestámo from The Lord of the Rings. Faustus Montague is meant to be Rómestámo’s fellow Blue Wizard Morinehtar. The Christian adventurer is Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, while the African witch-doctor is Kane’s ally N’Longa. New Valusia is named after the kingdom of Valusia from Howard’s King Kull stories. The Black Lotus is from Howard’s stories of the barbarian Conan and police detective Steve Harrison. The Drucker and Dobbs Mining Company alludes to gold prospector Fred C. Dobbs from B. Traven’s novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and its film adaptation; since both versions of the story take place in the 1920s, the Dobbs who co-owns the mining company must be a relative of Fred’s. Professor Spates is based on a reference to “Spates’ catalog” in the movie Ghostbusters. Tsathoggua, Zylac, the Cold Ones, the Hyperboreans, and the Elder Script appear in fiction by Clark Ashton Smith. Stallions’ Gate, New Mexico is from the television series Quantum Leap. The Book of Zylac (aka The Wisdom and Sacred Magic of Zylac the Mage) appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Joseph S. Pulver. The barefoot Chinaman is Kwai Chang Caine from the television series Kung Fu; Danny Caine is his older half-brother. The Dunn & Duffy Combined Circus is from the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Flying Graysons are a family of acrobats that died out in the 1940s when young Dick Grayson’s parents were murdered, resulting in his adoption by Batman and becoming the first Robin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show is from Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. It is worth noting Green Town, Illinois, the setting of Something Wicked This Way Comes, is also the town in which Bradbury’s books Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, and Summer Morning, Summer Night take place. Gallo del Cielo is from Tom Russell’s song of the same name, as is Zorro. Both are roosters, and therefore this Zorro is no relation to any of the many heroes that have used that name. Slim Reezer and Jesse McLaughlin are from the movie House II: The Second Story. “Electricista y aventurero” is Spanish for “electrician and adventurer,” which is how the character Bill Towner describes himself in House II. Oscar Diggs is better known as the Wizard of Oz. The immortal Richard Wilkins III is the Mayor of Sunnydale, California on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lin McAdams and High Spade are from the film Winchester ’73. Freddie Sykes is from the film The Wild Bunch. Dog Kelly is from Sam Raimi’s Western The Quick and the Dead. John Russell is from the film Hombre. The masked gunman is the Lone Ranger. The History of G’Harne (aka the G’harne Fragments) appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Brian Lumley.

Crossover Cover: The Weird Western Adventures of Haakon Jones

This collection of Weird Western stories has several crossovers. In "Stuff of Dreams," set in March 1875, Haakon Jones is lured into a blizzard by a beautiful red-golden haired girl. It is suggested that Ithaqua may have caused the blizzard. The girl is clearly Atali, the title character of Robert E. Howard’s Conan story "The Frost Giant’s Daughter." It is possible that the frost giant and Ithaqua (from August Derleth’s Cthulhu Mythos story of the same name) are the same being. In "Belfry's in Your Bats!," set in August 1876, Jones thwarts a bizarre plot on the life of President Grant. He is assisted by a Secret Service agent named Jim who dresses in a tight suit and vest, and carries an explosive material in his boot heel. Jim is Jim West from The Wild Wild West. In "A Knight Does Not  a Pawn Make," set in 1877, Jones finds himself on the opposite side of a range war from an expensive hired gun. The man is unnamed, but dresses all in black, has a holster decorated with a silver chess knight, charges $1000 for his services, quotes classical authors, and gives his address as the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco. The hired gun is Paladin from the television series Have Gun – Will Travel. In "Surf City, Here I Come," set in 1889, Jones is a passenger aboard a ship that encounters the island of R’lyeh in the South Seas. Haakon fights the Deep Ones and briefly glimpses Cthulhu. In "The House of a Thousand Mirrors," also set in 1889, Jones nearly loses his soul to a witch’s enchanted mirrors in Deadwood. The mirrors are clearly meant to be those seen in Robert E. Howard’s Kull story "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune." In Howard’s story, Tuzun Thune is assisted by a girl. Rick Lai speculates that the witch who encountered Haakon Jones is an older version of that same girl. In "Action on Arkham's Boot Hill," set in 1904, Jones visits Arkham, Massachusetts, where he meets Miskatonic University student Ward Phillips. A character named Ward Phillips appeared in H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price’s "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." Phillips was based on Lovecraft himself, whose full name was Howard Phillips Lovecraft. If Lovecraft and Price’s Phillips is the same person as the Phillips who encountered Haakon Jones, he must be a few years older than Lovecraft, who was only fourteen years old in 1904.