Crossover Cover: The Duelist

 

Are you a Jonathan Maberry fan?

Then you'll love his story in this anthology, which has a nod to his Pine Deep trilogy!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer 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!

Crossover Covers: Aliens/Vampirella

 

Vampirella helps with Earth’s colonization of Mars, but slumbering Xenomorphs are awakened. The Alien films have been established as a possible future for the CU.

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer 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!

Crossover Covers: The Big Bleed Out

 

Private eye and monster killer Cal McDonald briefly teams up with Larry Van Helsing, another member of the line of monster hunters.

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 Covers: The Blood of Carthage

 

A portrait of Hellboy hangs in Giles’ apartment. The painting of Hellboy, seen in #23, provides further proof a version of Hellboy exists in the CU, although not all his solo exploits or crossovers with other characters can be included. 

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! 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!

Crossover Covers: Wonder Woman/Conan

Conan encounters an amnesiac Wonder Woman (Princess Diana of Themyscira), whom he believes to be his first love from his childhood, and together they battle a pair of evil sorceresses. At one point, Conan says Diana reminds him of a certain redhead of his acquaintance. This is Red Sonja, of course.

This crossover is one among hundreds to receive a writeup in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3! Just as with its predecessors, this book is an AUTHORIZED companion to Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 by Win Scott Eckert and will be published by Meteor House!

Alternate Universe: Dark Horse's Captain Midnight

Captain Midnight, comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics, featuring the Captain returning in the 21st century after being trapped in the Bermuda Triangle during World War II. He has not aged since then. This version of the Captain is based on the Fawcett Comics series. The Captain Midnight radio show began in 1938 and ended in 1949. Therefore, the radio version of the Captain, which is the version that is in the CU, was still active after the war. Furthermore, Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.’s story “Any You Walk Away From” has the Captain active in 1971. This series is part of Dark Horse’s Project: Black Sky imprint, which also includes the series Blackout, Brain Boy, Ghost, The Occultist, Skyman, and X, all of which are set in the same universe as Captain Midnight.

Crossover Covers: Conan/Red Sonja and Red Sonja/Conan

Crossover Cover: The Goon Meets Hellboy

Hellboy gets knocked on the head, and upon regaining consciousness finds himself at a different location, where he meets a zombie-killing palooka known as the Goon. After another knock on the head, Hellboy finds himself back where he was when he received the first blow to the head. The exploits of Powell's adventurer the Goon take place in the present day, but in a very surreal world with 1930s trappings, and therefore likely occur in an alternate reality to the Crossover Universe. Hellboy must have somehow been transported to the Goon’s universe from the CU. The two would later cross paths again at the end of the one-shot Criminal Macabre/The Goon: When Freaks Collide. Cal McDonald recognized Hellboy, so they must have both come from the CU, and other crossovers in the Criminal Macabre comics and prose stories support this.

Crossover Cover: Hellboy: Oddest Jobs

As I've stated before, I take Hellboy crossovers on a case-by-case basis, as some fit easily into CU continuity, and some don't. This particular anthology of prose stories contains four stories with crossovers that do fit, in my opinion. In Brian Keene's "Salamander Blues," Hellboy encounters a group of mermen who are holding people hostage, and concludes the National Guard is not coming, and neither is the army or the FBI or Black Lodge or any of the other alphabet-soup agencies. Black Lodge is a covert occult organization that exists across Keene’s multiverse, including several works that have been incorporated into the Crossover Universe. In Barbara Hambly's "Repossession," set in the summer of 1962, Hellboy battles a demon hunter who is seeking notes left behind by Abdul Alhazred, author of the Necronomicon. In Gary A. Braunbeck's "In Cupboards and Bookshelves," Hellboy’s latest case brings him to Cedar Hill, Ohio, a town featured in a series of short stories, novellas, and novels by Braunbeck. "Feet of Sciron" by Rhys Hughes is particularly crossover-heavy. Hellboy recruits Foggy Dicks, a porn star that can generate ectoplasm, for a sex magic ritual in order to prevent the planet Nekrotzar from colliding with Earth, battling King Sciron in the process. Nekrotzar was drawn towards Earth by Marvin Carnacki, the current director of the Carnacki Institute, founded by his ancestor to rid the natural world of paranormal threats. Hellboy says most people think the original Carnacki was William Hope Hodgson’s fictional creation, just as many other authors pretended their subjects were fictional: Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Jules Verne with Phileas Fogg, H.G. Wells with Dr. Moreau, M.P. Shiel with Prince Zaleski, and Maurice Richardson with Engelbrecht. He also says Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien are at Mount Snaefell in Iceland. Foggy replies that he remembers Verne wrote a book about two explorers. Hellboy simply smiles in response. In Nekrotzar, the monster-hunting demon receives a riverboat ride from writer Philip José Farmer, who has been resurrected there after his death. Hellboy reveals to Foggy that billions of years ago Nekrotzar actually did collide with the Earth, which was merely a cloud of stardust then. Earth congealed around Nekrotzar, trapping Sciron’s palace in what would become the younger planet’s crust, forty miles under what is now Iceland. This Carnacki Insitute is clearly a separate group from the one seen in Simon R. Green’s Ghost Finders series. Engelbrecht is from Maurice Richardson’s book The Exploits of Engelbrecht. The subterranean world Sciron’s palace inhabits is the one seen in Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Philip José Farmer, of course, revealed the existence of the Wold Newton Family to the world, and wrote several chronicles of events in the CU. Farmer’s appearance here evokes his Riverworld novels, albeit as homage rather than a true crossover. This story must take place after Farmer’s passing in 2009, although it was published earlier than that.

Crossover Cover: Viva Las Buffy!

Wesley Wyndam-Price reads a book on demonology that has a picture of Idpa. The demon Idpa is from Scott Allie, Paul Lee, and Brian Horton’s comic The Devil’s Footprints, also published by Dark Horse, bringing that miniseries into the CU.

Crossover Covers: The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde

Inspector Thomas Adye releases Henry Jekyll, alias Edward Hyde, from his imprisonment beneath Scotland Yard headquarters to help him track down Jack the Ripper. Jekyll’s friend Moreau appears in a flashback and Jekyll refers to his experiments on his pet beasts. At the conclusion of this tale, Adye begins investigating reports of an invisible man. The implication seems to be that Adye is the Colonel Adye seen in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. However, Wells’ Adye was the chief of police for Port Burdock, rather than being based in London. According to this story, Hyde was arrested five years ago for his crimes, and Scotland Yard allowed the public to believe him dead. Also, Jekyll’s former friend Gabriel Utterson is identified as the Ripper. These details conflict with CU continuity, and therefore I place this series in an AU.

Crossover Cover: The Death of Buffy

Spike drops in on Rupert Giles to borrow a shear of Cytorrak, which he needs to finish off an acid demon he’s knocked out behind the Sunnydale Municipal Building. Despite the different spellings, this is clearly a reference to Cyttorak, a god from the Marvel Comics Universe, best known for creating the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, the power source for the X-Men’s foe the Juggernaut. Although the X-Men’s adventures do not fit into CU continuity, the Crimson Gem was mentioned in Kim Newman’s story “The Adventure of the Six Maledictions,” and therefore we have independent verification that Cyttorak has a CU counterpart. This storyline takes place between Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.