Crossover Cover: And Such Small Deer

 

In this story by Chris Roberson, Abraham Van Helsing battles the Giant Rat of Sumatra on a plantation owned by the Netherland-Sumatra Company and run by Baron de Maupertuis. Culverton Smith and the ship Matilda Briggs also appear, as do Dr. Moreau, Frédéric Lerne, and Max Havelaar. Abraham Van Helsing is from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Giant Rat of Sumatra and the Matilda Briggs are from Doyle and Watson’s Sherlock Holmes tale “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” The Netherland-Sumatra Company and Baron Maupertuis are from “The Adventure of the Reigate Squire.” Culverton Smith is from “The Adventure of the Dying Detective.” Dr. Moreau is from H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. Frédéric Lerne is the title character of Maurice Renard’s Doctor Lerne. Max Havelaar is from the eponymous novel by “Multatuli” (Eduard Douwes Dekker).

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!

Crossover Cover: Codename: Action

A government agent teams with Operator 5, the Green Hornet and Kato, the Green Lama, the Spider, Daredevil (the Golden Age comic character published by Lev Gleason, not the Marvel superhero who debuted in 1964), Black Venus, and the American Crusader to battle a plot by the terrorist group Hexagon. At the end of the series, the agent dons the name and costume of Captain Action. This series does not fit with the continuity of the Captain Action comics published by Moonstone, which are already connected to the CU via crossovers with the Phantom, the Green Hornet, and Honey West and Derek Flint. Additionally, the Spider’s look, as with his other incarnations in Dynamite’s titles, is based on the serial The Spider’s Web, rather than the fangs, hunchback, and fright wig described in the pulps.

Crossover Covers: Masks

A very loose adaptation of the Black Police Trilogy from the Spider pulp novels, featuring the Spider himself, the Shadow, the Green Lama, the Green Hornet and Kato, the Black Bat, the Black Terror, Zorro (Rafael Vega, a descendant of the original Zorro) and Miss Fury. The leader of the Black Legion turns out to be Brian O’Brien, formerly the Clock, a masked vigilante appearing in stories published by Centaur Publications and Quality Comics in the 1930s and ’40s. The heroes visit a penthouse at the Empire State Building, where the Shadow remarks that it is too bad that the occupant of the penthouse is out of the country, as he would be a valuable ally to them in this mission. This is a reference to Doc Savage. Britt Reid meets with reporter Steve Huston, who mentions Old Man Havens. Steve Huston and Frank Havens are from the pulp exploits of the Phantom Detective. The events of this comic differ greatly from the Black Police Trilogy, including factors such as the identity of the mastermind being changed and Nita Van Sloan’s role being omitted (indeed, she is never even mentioned.) The Spider is wearing a version of his outfit from the movie serial The Spider’s Web rather than the costume from the pulps. The Black Bat is given a different origin story than in the original pulps. The Green Hornet is out of character, calling criminals “mooks,” and is stated to be from Chicago rather than Detroit. All these factors serve to place this story outside CU continuity.

Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes

The crew of the starship Enterprise and the Legion of Super-Heroes find their worlds merged into one ruled by a tyrannical government known as the Imperial Planets. They find out that the ruler of this world is the man known in the Enterprise crew’s universe as Flint and in the Legion’s universe as Vandal Savage. A time-traveling Q was captured by the immortal caveman, diverging and combining both timelines. This story once again confirms that the DC Universe is an alternate reality to the CU. The Legion seen here appears to be the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of the team, at some point after the “Great Darkness Saga” storyline. Vandar the Stone, as Savage/Flint is now known, shows his captives several time machines once belonging to those who tried to topple his empire. The time machines include: Lazarus’ capsule from the Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor”; the Atavachron from the Star Trek episode “All Our Yesterdays”; Berlinghoff Rasmussen’s time pod from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “A Matter of Time”; an Epoch-class timeship from the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Future’s End”; the data disk from Enterprise; the Doctor and the Master’s TARDISes from Doctor Who; the phone booth from the films Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey; the Rocket Sled from the film Timecop; the DeLorean from the Back to the Future film series; the Cosmic Treadmill used by the DC Comics superhero the Flash; the Lazarus Pit, the source of immortality for Batman’s foe Ra’s al Ghul; the Dagger of Time from the Prince of Persia video game series; a time bubble from the Legion of Super-Heroes stories; H.G. Wells’ machine from the film Time After Time; the stopwatch from the TV series Voyagers!; the time sphere from the DC comic Rip Hunter, Time Master; and the titular conveyances from the films Hot Tub Time Machine and Stargate, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and the television series The Time Tunnel. Presumably, at least some of these devices existed in the CU and/or the DCU before Vandar altered time.