Crossover of the Week

May 26, 1846

THE LAMENT OF THE DUKE AND THE KING 

The so-called Duke of Bridgewater and King of France hop a train, and in the process meet Doctor Omega and his companion Miki. The Doctor gives the conductor a Hynerian sixteen harzmo gold piece. They are joined by the Doctor's other companion, the Steel General. The King says he is the long-lost Dauphin of France, and that he used to be visited by a woman named Madame LaFarge. The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge allegedly tried to rescue the King’s mother. An artist named La Salle was sent by the Baron de Batz to rescue the Dauphin and replace him with a lookalike. When he nearly drowned, a man named Moreau rescued him. The General claims he incited Moreau’s animal people to revolt, but the Doctor clarifies that the King means Andre-Louis Moreau, who he and Miki saw costar with Marguerite St. Just in a play called Don Juan Triumphant in 1791. De Batz was working with the Scarlet Pimpernel, who the Duke claims was the Prince-Regent’s butler, Mr. Edmund Blackadder. The Pimpernel turned the Dauphin over to a smuggler dressed as a scarecrow, who handed him off in turn to an American named Bumppo. The Doctor refers to Miki’s colossal, radioactive, reptilian friend, and says General Santa Anna has the services of an evil scientist named Dr. Campos, who has uncovered a mind control device left on Earth centuries ago by an alien named Kukulcan. 

Short story by Matthew Baugh in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 12: Carte Blanche, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2015; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 20), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2017. The Duke of Bridgewater and the King of France are from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Doctor Omega is the title character of Arnould Galopin’s novel. Miki Saegusa is from the Godzilla movies. Although the massive level of destruction seen in the films does not fit into the CU, other crossovers indicate a version of Godzilla exists in the CU whose exploits are much less Earth-shattering. The Hynerian Empire is from the television series Farscape. The Steel General is from Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness. Madame LaFarge (or rather DeFarge) is from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge is from Alexandre Dumas’ eponymous novel. Florence de La Salle is from Rafael Sabatini’s The Lost King. The Baron de Batz is a historical figure who appears in both that book and Sabatini’s Scaramouche, whose title character is really Andre-Louis Moreau. The other Moreau and his animal people are from H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. Marguerite St. Just is the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney, aka Baroness Orczy’s hero the Scarlet Pimpernel. The play Don Juan Triumphant is the basis for the opera of the same name penned by the title character of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera. Edmund Blackadder is from the television series Blackadder the Third. The smuggler dressed as a scarecrow is Russell Thorndike’s Dr. Syn, aka Captain Clegg and the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. Natty Bumppo is from James Fenimore Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales. Dr. Campos is from the movie Santo Contra Hombres Infernales. Kukulcan is from the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” and the Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle episode “Tarzan and the Space God.” 

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand appearing 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 of the Week

1766

THE DARKNESS IN THE WOODS

Doctor Joseph Balsamo travels to New Orleans, where he is asked by Louisiana’s acting governor to investigate a rash of murders of local Indians. Some of the natives say the killings are the work of the Jibbenainosay, which translates as “Spirit That Walks.” Balsamo questions a little girl named Atala who survived one of the killer’s attacks. Atala was named after a woman with whom her ancestor was deeply in love. Two potential suspects are a pirate captain named Clegg and a Quaker called Wandering Nathan. Clegg’s ship is called the Imogene. Clegg, whose true name is Christopher Syn, claims to have killed Black Satan. The killer turns out to be Wandering Nathan, whose last name is Slaughter. The watch commander on duty when Balsamo and Clegg captured Slaughter was named Childress. Balsamo and Clegg discover a makeshift man made of twigs, branches, and a human skull, dressed in a pale, yellow cloak. They realize there was a second killer.

Short story by Nathan Cabaniss in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 11: Force Majeure, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2014. Joseph Balsamo, Count Cagliostro, is an historical figure who also appeared in novels by Alexandre Dumas, and was identified as the founder of a villainous branch of the Wold Newton Family in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Nathan Slaughter (aka the Jibbenainosay) is from Robert Montgomery Bird’s novel Nick of the Woods. Atala is a descendant of the Natchez Chactas, whose love for the earlier Atala was chronicled in François-René de Chateaubriand’s novel named for the latter. The Reverend Doctor Christopher Syn (aka Captain Clegg), the Imogene, and Black Satan appear in novels by Russell Thorndike. Childress, implicitly the second killer, is the ancestor of serial killer Errol Childress from the television series True Detective, who was connected to the Yellow King of Carcosa from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow.

Crossover Cover: Daemons are Forever

The second novel in the Secret Histories series. Eddie Drood, now leading the Drood Family, must find a way to drive out the Loathly Ones, demons that were brought to Earth during World War II to help fight the Nazis, before they summon the Hungry Gods to destroy the world. Appearing or mentioned are: a Hirondel sports car (from Leslie Charteris' Saint novels); Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); Merlin’s Glass (from Green's Nightside series); Vril Power, Inc. (a reference to the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race); Harry Fabulous (also from the Nightside books); a ghost named Ash (Leonard Ash from Shadows Fall); a minor Norse godling (Jimmy Thunder from Green's Drinking Midnight Wine); the Many-Angled Ones (a term originally used by Grant Morrison to describe the Lloigor of the Cthulhu Mythos in the superhero comic book Zenith, which must take place in an AU, but it has been adopted by other Mythos authors over the years); the Celestials (an alien race with untold cosmic power appearing in various series published by Marvel Comics); Renfield’s (named after Dracula's zoophagous servant, of course); a couple of Baron Frankenstein’s more successful creations; Melmoth the Wanderer (from Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name); Dracula; a French demon hunter named Mallorie (possibly a reference to the French horror film Bloody Mallory); the Kandarians (from the Evil Dead films); Dr. Syn’s Fly by Night Delivery Service (a reference to Russell Thorndike's Dr. Syn novels); “this American gentleman and his giant rabbit” (Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey from the movie Harvey); Giles Deathstalker (from Green's Deathstalker series, which takes place in one of many potential futures for the CU); a giant mechanical spider confiscated from an American mad genius in the Wild West (from the film version of The Wild Wild West); the Kessel run (from the Star Wars films); and an Old One (from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.)

Crossover Cover: The Slype

Some residents of the city of Dullchester find a letter written by Mr. Mipps to Captain Collyer in 1805, which supposedly gives the location of a treasure, and engage in their own treasure hunt until they discover it is a fraud. This novel by Russell Thorndike is connected to his Doctor Syn novels, and therefore to the Crossover Universe. Mr. Mipps is Doctor Syn’s assistant, while Captain Collyer was the villain of the book Doctor Syn.