Crossover Cover: Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds

 

On Amtor (Venus), Carson Napier encounters his old friend Jason Gridley and Victory Harben, who have found themselves being repeatedly transported through space. He also finds the body of a four-armed green man. Jason Gridley is a recurring character across Edgar Rice Burroughs’ various series. Victory Harben is the daughter of Nadok of the Voraki tribe of Pellucidar and Gretchen Von Harben from Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins. The green man is a Thark from Burroughs' Mars novels.

Also included is a bonus story by Christopher Paul Carey, "Pellucidar: Dark of the Sun," in which Jason and Victory find themselves transported across space and time. Victory’s father is Nadok of the Voraki tribe of Pellucidar, while her mother is Gretchen Von Harben, sister of Erich Von Harben. When Victory was eleven, she encountered a Mahar queen and decided to go to the outer world to broaden her knowledge. Initially, Victory lived in America with Captain Heinrich Hines of the O-220 and his wife Anna. Gridley previously contacted Victory via the Gridley Wave apparatus at the Greystokes’ Chamston-Hedding estate. The scientists of Barsoom were unable to provide an explanation for the Gridley Wave. Erich Von Harben is from Tarzan and the Lost Empire. Victory’s encounter with the Mahar queen Tu-al-sa (originally from the novel Pellucidar) is depicted in Win Scott Eckert’s Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, which takes place in 1943. Heinrich Hines and the O-220 are from Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. In that book, Hines is the O-220's navigator, but in Russ Manning’s Sunday Tarzan comic strip stories involving Pellucidar, he is the captain. Battle for Pellucidar explains how this happened. The Greystokes are Tarzan and family. The Chamston-Hedding estate is from Jungle Tales of Tarzan.

These crossovers are two of over a thousand included 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 Cover: Swords Against the Moon Men

 

In this novel set in the continuity of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Moon Trilogy, Julian the 7th travels to Va-nah, the Moon’s hollow interior, in 2076 to rescue a Barsoomian ambassadorial expedition, having learned of their peril via a woman using the Gridley Wave. The Wave, invented by Jason Gridley, was once used to relay messages to and from the Earth’s own hollow interior. The leader of the expedition is John Carter, and the woman who alerted Julian was Dejah Thoris. Barsoom, John Carter, and Dejah Thoris are from Burroughs’ Mars novels. Jason Gridley is a recurring character across Burroughs’ various series, including the Pellucidar books. The Moon Trilogy takes place in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Alternate Universe. 

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: The Greatest Adventure

 

A mega-crossover in which many of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ characters—Jason Gridley; Tarzan, Jane, Korak, Meriem, and La; Ulysses Paxton, John Carter, and Dejah Thoris; Billy Byrne (The Mucker); Bridge and the Oskaloosa Kid (The Oakdale Affair); Barney Custer (The Mad King); Victoria Custer (The Eternal Lover); Jim Stone (“The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw”); Townsend Harper and Virginia Maxon (The Monster Men); Julian the Second (the Moon trilogy); Johnny LaFitte (Pirate Blood); the Rider (The Rider); Shannon Burke (The Girl from Hollywood); and Carson Napier—travel around the world in an airship to prevent a group of villains from getting their hands on a gem called the Eye of Judgment to create a death ray. Pellucidar and Poloda (Beyond the Farthest Star) are also seen. Bowen Tyler and Lys La Rue from Burroughs’ Caspak books are still stranded there in this story. In Burroughs’ original trilogy, the duo was shipwrecked on the island in 1916, and rescued a year later. Tarzan did not meet Jason Gridley, who pulls his old acquaintance into this exploit, until the 1927–1928 events of Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, while Carson Napier first visited Venus in 1928. These and other chronological difficulties place this story outside the continuity of Burroughs’ original novels, making it an AU. 

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: John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten

 

John Carter and his daughter Tara are pulled into an adventure that involves a threat dating back to Barsoom’s ancient past. Carter learns of his relative Edgar Rice Burroughs’ death through the Gridley Wave. He later encounters Betty Callwell, aka Loto, and then the Wave’s inventor, Jason Gridley, who has been transported across space since his goddaughter Victory Harben was pulled into a purplish light in Pellucidar. Gridley’s most recent jaunt brought him to Venus, where he met an Earthman named Carson Napier. Jason Gridley, the inventor of the Gridley Wave, connects Edgar Rice Burroughs’ various series. Loto first met Carson Napier in Burroughs’ Escape on Venus, and again in Christopher Paul Carey and Cyrus Mesarcia’s comic book miniseries Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond, which ended with her being transported to another world. Victory Harben is the daughter of Gretchen von Harben from Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins, and the niece of Erich von Harben from Tarzan and the Lost Empire. Jason Gridley and Victory Harben’s journeys across time and space form the basis for the Swords of Eternity Super-Arc running through the new Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe novels. Gridley encountered Carson Napier in Matt Betts’ Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds. Pellucidar is from Burroughs’ series of novels beginning with At the Earth’s Core.

Appearing as a backup is a "Quantum Interlude" entitled "Where Angels Fear..." In Pellucidar, Janson Gridley, the son of Jason and Jana, the Red Flower of Zoram, receives a message via Gridley Wave from Victory Harben, whose signal Abner Perry traces from the direction of globular cluster NGC 7006. Perry has been speaking over the wireless with young Moritz about his ideas of energy-matter transmission. The mention of NGC 7006 suggests Victory is transmitting from somewhere near Poloda, the planet featured in Burroughs’ Beyond the Farthest Star. Stanley Moritz is from John Eric Holmes’ Mahars of Pellucidar.

These crossovers are only two 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: Carson of Venus/Warlord of Mars: The Princess in the Tower

 

Are you an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan?

Then you'll love this crossover between two of his characters, Carson Napier of Venus and John Carter, Warlord of Mars!

For more information, be sure to purchase a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Covers: Lords of Mars

The jungle lord and and his wife are transported to Mars, where Lord Greystoke is manipulated by one of the planet’s many sentient races into battling the planet’s warlord. Events from the comic book series Lord of the Jungle and Warlord of Mars, which only loosely follow the events of Burroughs’ books, are mentioned. Also, the jungle lord is uncharacteristically naïve here, accepting a Martian ruler’s claim the warlord is evil with little evidence, apparently because he feels he fits in more on Mars than on Earth. Therefore, I consider this series an AU.

Crossover Covers: Swords of Sorrow

A crossover event from Dynamite Entertainment featuring various heroines and anti-heroines. The Kato seen in this series is Mulan Kato from Dynamite’s Green Hornet comic, which ignores the continuity of NOW Comics’ version of the Green Hornet. Masquerade is the version of the Golden Age comics heroine Miss Masque seen in the comic Project Superpowers, which features a vast number of Golden Agers being freed from their decades-long imprisonment in Pandora's Urn. Lady Zorro first appeared in Dynamite’s Zorro ongoing series, which portrays Zorro as half-Native American, a conflict with numerous other accounts of his background. Therefore, this series has to take place in an AU.

Crossover Covers: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

This anthology of new stories featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' characters has three stories with crossovers. One is "Tarzan and the Land That Time Forgot" by Joe R. Lansdale. Traveling back to civilization in the O-220 zeppelin after another visit to Pellucidar, Tarzan and the ship’s crew find themselves shipwrecked on the island of Caprona. Tarzan first traveled to Pellucidar in the O-220 in Burroughs’ Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. The destruction of the O-220 in Lansdale’s story must be an exaggeration, as Tarzan used it to travel to Pellucidar again in both 1960 and 1986, as seen in the Sunday Tarzan comic strip stories "Dead Moon of Pellucidar" (aka "The Jewel of Pellucidar") and "Back to Pellucidar," respectively. Tarzan will make at least two more trips to Caprona (aka Caspak) in the future, as seen in the comic book Tarzan in the Land That Time Forgot and the Sunday Tarzan strip story "Return to the Land That Time Forgot." In F. Paul Wilson's "The Dead World," David Innes refers to the Minunians, the Ant Men of Africa. Innes discovers Pellucidar was created by an alien race called the Fashioners. The Minunians are from Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Ant Men. The description of the Fashioners makes it clear they are meant to be the Great Race of Yith from H. P. Lovecraft’s "The Shadow Out of Time," thus connecting Burroughs’ Pellucidar series to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Peter David's "Moon Maid over Manhattan" is a sequel to Burroughs’ The Moon Maid. Barsoom and John Carter are mentioned. This story takes place in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Alternate Universe, or ERB-AU for short.

Crossover Comic Strip: Wrestlemania

This Sunday Tarzan strip from 1992 reveals that Jane is related to John Carter. The relationship is most likely through her mother, who Farmer identified as the former Jane Carter Lee.

Crossover Cover: The Tides of Kregen

This series of novels features Dray Prescot, an Earthman who has been transported several times to the planet Kregen by alien super beings known as the Star Lords. While there, he has had many swashbuckling adventures and married a princess. In this novel, after rebelling against the Star Lords’ dictates, he is sent back to Earth for twenty years as punishment. He spends time in America fighting for the Union in the Civil War. At the end of the war, he meets a man from Virginia who he believes would like a life like his. This man is clearly meant to be John Carter. Kregen may be in the same alternate universe as the Mars/Barsoom to which Carter was transported.

Crossover Covers: Warriors of Mars

In this miniseries, John Carter meets Gullivar Jones, who has been transported to Carter's time from Barsoom's past, where he was brought in turn from post-Civil War Earth by a flying carpet. In the CU, Gullivar was transported to Mars in the 1890s, not the 1860s or 1870s. Also, the writer takes liberties with the events of Edwin L. Arnold's novel in order to fit it in with Burroughs' Barsoom, such as making the Hither people Red Martians and identifying Princess Heru as Dejah Thoris' mother. Therefore, I'm treating this series as an AU.

Crossover of the Week

Hey, all. I know I haven't posted anything since Thursday. I was at FarmerCon/Pulpfest, and having a blast with my buddies. Today marks my triumphant return. First of all, before I give you my belated Crossover of the Week post, I wanted to share this picture of me and my dear friend, co-publisher, and predecessor as custodian of the Crossover Universe, Win Scott Eckert (I'm on the left):

July 1917

THE HUNTERS OF MARS

            Leo Saint-Clair (aka the Nyctalope) takes a transport to the Martian city of Helium, where his assistance has been requested by John Carter, Warlord of Mars (aka Barsoom.) Carter managed to convince two other Martian races, the Sorns and the Hither People, to join forces with his to drive the invading Cephales from Mars. The Cephales fled to Earth, where they crushed England’s armies before falling prey to the planet’s bacteria. The surviving members of the colony returned to Mars, where Leo and Oxus prevented them from attacking the newly-created French colony. After the Cephales’ defeat, the duo learned of other races on the Red Planet such as the Tharks and the Red Men of Helium. Oxus believes that the radium used by the people of Helium might be able to revive an ancient capsule he has discovered in one of the nearby Martian ruins, which apparently contains secrets that could advance the cause of space travel by light years, and end the Great War within a few months. Leo meets with a group consisting of the Thark Tars Tarkas, Carter, and the latter’s wife, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium. Reports are mentioned of a warrior resembling Carter in ancient Phoenicia, as well as a 13^th century “Outlaw of Torn.” Carter wishes Leo to investigate the mutilations of several Tharks. Kantos Kan and other Martians gather around the bodies of two murdered palace guards. Leo tells Carter that the killer does not operate under the ethical codes of the Tharks, the Sorns, the Hross, the Hither People, or any other known race on Barsoom. He theorizes that the killer is a hunter from another world collecting trophies. Leo is well versed in the hunting techniques of Quatermain and Roxton. The hunter, or Predator, is blown up by a device in its gauntlet after being killed, destroying a Thark incubation chamber in the process. Carter says that he will take the sole surviving infant to Sola, who will care for him.

            Short story by Matthew Dennion in The Nyctalope Steps In, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2011; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 8), Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2011. The Nyctalope, and Oxus appear in French pulp novels by Jean de La Hire. Helium, John Carter, Barsoom, the Tharks, the Red Men, Tars Tarkas, Deja Thoris, Kantos Kan, and Sola are from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars novels. The Sorns and the Hross are from C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet. The Hither People are from Edwin Arnold’s Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation. The Cephales (or Kephales) are from de La Hire’s The Great Adventures of a Scout; here, they are conflated with the Martians from H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. George Alec Effinger’s story “Mars: The Home Front” proposed that Wells’ Martians (aka the Sarmaks) came from Barsoom, while The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II depicted John Carter’s alliance with the Sorns and the Hither People to drive off Wells’ Martians. The Nyctalope and Oxus encountered Wells’ Martians in de La Hire’s The Nyctalope on Mars. The capsule is from the British television serial Quatermass and the Pit. The Phoenician warrior is the title character of another Edwin Arnold novel, Phra the Phoenician, whom Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan conflated with John Carter in their essay “John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams (An Examination Into the Theories that John Carter was Phra the Phoenician and Norman of Torn)” (Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, Win Scott Eckert, ed., MonkeyBrain Books, 2005.) The Outlaw of Torn is from the novel of the same name by Burroughs; Philip José Farmer conflated him with John Carter in his speech “The Arms of Tarzan,” also reprinted in Myths for the Modern Age. Quatermain is H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain, while Roxton is Lord John Roxton from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger tales. The Predator race is featured in a series of science fiction films. The Predators have appeared in several crossover tales in comic books; however, only those crossovers involving Crossover Universe mainstays such as Tarzan or Mycroft Holmes are incorporated into CU continuity.

Crossover Covers: Tarzan/John Carter: Warlords of Mars

This miniseries is one of a few crossovers in literature and comics between Edgar Rice Burroughs' two most famous creations. Most recently, last Sunday, the Tarzan comic strip identified John Carter as a distant relative of Tarzan's wife Jane, which fits in rather well with Farmer's identification of her mother as the former Jane Carter Lee.