Crossover of the Week

Autumn 1940

THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF 

Private eye Steve Donnelly, investigating his partner’s murder, becomes involved in the struggle between worshippers of the Great Old Ones called the Olde Fellowes over a statue of Cthulhu. One of the Olde Fellowes, Constantine Garland, names various objects that, like the statue, can bestow upon the bearer unimaginable power and are being sought by the Nazis, including the Scroll of Thoth, the Lament Configuration, the Ark of the Covenant, the Eye of Agomotto, and the Spear of Destiny. A mysterious barman comes to Steve’s rescue, and says he knows his granddaughter. Steve, befuddled, says he’s thirty-three, but the barman replies he won’t always be. 

Short story by Peter Atkins in The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting, Pegasus Books, 2017. Steve Donnelly is the grandfather of Atkins’ modern lesbian P.I. Kitty Donnelly. The Scroll of Thoth is from the 1932 film The Mummy. The Lament Configuration is from the Hellraiser films, based on Clive Barker’s “The Hellbound Heart.” Not coincidentally, Atkins wrote or co-wrote the scripts for Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, and Hellraiser: Bloodline. The Ark of the Covenant is from the Book of Exodus, but given the other references, this is probably a specific allusion to the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Eye of Agamotto (to use the correct spelling) is one of the mystic talismans wielded by Marvel Comics’ Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. The barman is Atkins’ character Dr. James Arcadia, who has been described as somewhat akin to an occult version of Doctor Who. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be released by Meteor House! 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!

Crossover Cover: Collinwood Possessed

During his previous conflict with Barnabas Collins, Viking wizard Morath battled the embodiment of his good side, resulting in his being thrown into a bizarre limbo, where he encounters a caterpillar-like creature playing chess with a man with white hair. The caterpillar recommends he use the Eye of Agamotto, a doorway to the dimensions which is floating overhead, to escape. Morath says that somewhere on Earth is the Orb of Agamotto, the key to those dimensions. Traveling through the eye, he emerges at the Greenwich Village dwelling of a practitioner of mystic arts, where a woman cries out, “Stephen!” “Stephen” is Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum is in Greenwich Village. The Eye and Orb of Agamotto are both from the Doctor Strange comics. The caterpillar is Agamotto himself, who took the form of a caterpillar in the opening storyline of Strange’s second ongoing series. Though drawn differently than in Marvel Comics’ accounts, the white-haired man is meant to be the villainous Silver Dagger from the same storyline, while the woman is Strange’s paramour Clea.

Crossover Cover: Of Spiders and Serpents/A King Comes Riding