Crossover of the Week

Winter 1967

SATANIC SPIES AND OTHER MUSICALS 

The chauffeur for a cadet branch of the Falsworth family tells his friend about occult investigator Johnny Rich and his own chauffeur, partner, and lover May when they spot them at Lords. May’s mother employs dacoits and has access to poisonous vipers. The duo meets with the controller of British Intelligence and his employee George. One of rock star Bobby Belial’s followers is Helena Gurney, niece of the Earl of Gurney. Belial plays at a club owned by Danny and Tony Driscoll. The Driscolls and Harold Shand each claim the title of London’s boss. May is of Manchu descent. Johnny is a duke, and his late father was a legendary magus. After thwarting Belial, Johnny goes with May to the musician’s home, where they meet a Special Branch officer named Mendel. 

Short story by Frank Schildiner, originally available as an e-book from Pro Se Productions in 2017; reprinted in Johnny Rich, Pro Se Productions, 2018. Johnny Rich is the son of Dennis Wheatley’s occult detective the Duke de Richleau. May is the daughter of Fah Lo Suee and the granddaughter of Dr. Fu Manchu. The Falsworth family includes Montgomery Falsworth and his son Brian, both of whom operated as the masked hero Union Jack, and Montgomery’s daughter and Brian’s sister Jacqueline, aka the speedster superheroine Spitfire. All three are members of the Marvel Comics wartime superhero team the Invaders. Although superteams are rarely included in the CU, it has been established that the Invaders did operate briefly as a commando-style team, notably encountering a member of the Frankenstein family and his monster. Furthermore, Paul Hugli’s “As Time Goes By...” suggests a version of Union Jack exists in the CU. The head of British intelligence is Control, George Smiley’s boss in John le Carré’s spy novels. Inspector Mendel is also from the Smiley books. The Earl of Gurney is from Peter Barnes’ play The Ruling Class and its film adaptation by Peter Medak. Danny and Tony Driscoll are from the television series Only Fools and Horses. By extension, the spin-off The Green Green Grass and the prequel Rock & Chips would also be in the CU. Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby from Fawlty Towers appeared in the Only Fools and Horses episode “Homesick.” Harold Shand is from the movie The Long Good Friday. 

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! 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

Summer 1967

YORKSHIRE STONES AND AMERICAN BARONS 

A Colonel and Sergeant summon Johnny Rich and May. The Colonel says the third Baron Tennington is in danger, but Johnny corrects him, saying that he has been dead for centuries, that one of his ancestors was familiar with the 11th Baron in 1795, and that the Colonel is talking about Stephen Tennington, the third Baron Darrowby. Johnny’s father mentored him in occult matters. May, who is of Manchu and English descent and has a contentious relationship with her grandfather and mother, dons a shooter’s vest with over a dozen small pockets, a smaller version of one worn by one of Johnny’s relatives, an adventurer of some note in the past. Their enemy, Jill Pole, is a Pict who worships the Moon-Woman. Johnny carries a sword cane whose silver blade, supposedly one of several forged by St. Dunstan, bears the inscription, “Sic pereant omnes inimici tui,” or “Thus perish all your enemies.” Johnny and May encounter another of the Moon-Woman's subjects, Thun Bronze Spear, son of Ka-Nu, son of Ka-Nu, who mentions King Bran and Gonar the Ancient. Johnny knows a French Japanese criminal who frequently uses grappling hooks in his thefts. 

Short story by Frank Schildiner in Johnny Rich, Pro Se Productions, 2018. The Colonel and Sergeant are Colonel Ross and Harry Palmer from Len Deighton’s spy novels. George Edward Rutherford, the 11th Baron Tennington, is from Philip José Farmer’s Tarzan Alive. The 11th Baron, who was present at the Wold Newton meteor strike in 1795, has several famous descendants, including Lord Greystoke and Professor Challenger. Darrowby, Yorkshire is from James Herriot’s It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet. Johnny Rich’s father is Dennis Wheatley’s occult adventurer the Duke de Richleau. May’s grandfather is Fu Manchu, and her mother is the Devil Doctor’s daughter Fah Lo Suee. Johnny’s relative is a certain golden-eyed pulp superman. The Moon-Woman is from Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn story “Worms of the Earth.” Ka-Nu is from Howard’s Kull stories. Gonar is from the Bran Mak Morn stories. Two of St. Dunstan’s other silver blades are carried by Manly Wade Wellman’s occult detectives Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone. The French Japanese criminal is Monkey Punch’s manga character Lupin III, the grandson of Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. 

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! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Underland

Vampire Victor Renquist travels to “the Hollow Earth,” actually a series of underground caverns that can be reached from various points on Earth. Renquist spent time in England during World War II monitoring an occult warfare unit working out of Ravenkeep Priory under the command of the Duke de Richleau. Marcus De Reske’s attempts to raise Cthulhu are mentioned. Pelucidar is another of the Hollow Earth’s names. A member of a serpentlike race called the Dhrakuh tells Renquist, “the English eccentric, Professor Challenger, had made it into one of the subsidiary caves, but never discovered a major underground city, unlike the Norwegian, Nielsen, and two years later, the Prussian, Erich von Stalhein, who had come with a well-equipped expedition funded by the Krupp family.” The Duke de Richleau is from novels by Dennis Wheatley. Cthulhu is, of course, one of the Great Old Ones in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. Marcus De Reske was prevented by Renquist and his nosferatu coven from releasing Cthulhu in the second novel in the series, Darklost. The name “Pelucidar” is a variant on that of the world at the Earth’s core from the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The land seen in Underland is clearly not Burroughs’ world, but both this novel and Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop’s story “Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole” indicate there are many inner worlds. Professor Challenger appears in The Lost World and other works by Arthur Conan Doyle. Nielsen is not a pre-existing character, but Erich von Stalhein is the archenemy of W. E. Johns’ heroic aviator Biggles.

Crossover of the Week

1970

SAINT AND SINNERS

            A mysterious woman hires private eye Teddy Verano (accompanied by the succubus Mephista, who possesses the body of actress Edwige Hossegor) to rescue her nephew Simon, whom Satanist Steven Marcato and his wife wish to use to resurrect a master of dark magic named Morcata, Steven’s uncle, who died many years ago in battle with the Duc de Richleau. Verano’s father helped the Duc and his friends deal with the remainder of Morcata’s cult. Verano says that the Phantom is back and controls the Paris Opera House again.

            Short story by Frank Schildiner in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 11: Force Majeure, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2014. Teddy Verano, Mephista, and Edwige Hossegor are from French horror novels by Maurice Limat. The original Teddy Verano series by Limat, which began in 1936, portrayed Teddy as a somewhat mundane private eye, though some of the threats he faced were exotic. In 1963, Limat revived Verano as a full-fledged occult detective who frequently battled Mephista. This story reveals that the Teddy Verano of the ‘60s onward is the son of the original Teddy Verano of the 1930s-1950s. Simon Sinestrari is from the movie Simon, King of the Witches. Steven Marcato and his wife Minnie are from Ira Levin’s novel Rosemary’s Baby. Morcata (originally spelled Mocata) died in battle with the Duc de Richleau in Dennis Wheatley’s novel The Devil Rides Out. The Phantom is from Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera.

Crossover Cover: To the Devil a Daughter

Lieutenant-Colonel William “Conky Bill” Verney (also known as C.B.) tricks the Satanist Canon Copely-Syle into believing that they have met before. The Canon concludes that they must have met at a house at Lord’s used as a headquarters by a man named Mocata, who had a conflict with a White Magician of greater power than himself while searching for the Talisman of Set, and was later found dead outside a house called Cardinal’s Folly in Worcestershire. Mocata died in battle with the Duke de Richleau, as recounted in Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out. Cardinal’s Folly is the Duke’s home. Since the Duke de Richleau’s exploits take place in the CU, so do the events of this novel. C.B. tells the Canon, “…to people like ourselves, it is common knowledge that it was their magicians producing large numbers of homunculi which led the White Powers to destroy the whole continent of Atlantis by fire and flood.” The version of Atlantis’ destruction described by C.B. is depicted in another Wheatley novel, They Found Atlantis. After the events of this novel, C.B. married Molly Fountain, and the couple appeared as main characters in Wheatley’s The Satanist.