Crossover of the Week

Summer 1940

WALKING ON FOREIGN GROUND, LIKE A SHADOW 

Judex travels to New York at the request of Kent Allard, the Shadow, whose parents were friends with Judex’s mother, Julia Orsini. A gangster named Tony Rico has learned the Shadow possesses the twin jewels of the Russian Czar. Rico received information on the Shadow from his old foe Benedict Stark. The Shadow asks Judex to impersonate him, with Mary Gillespie, the owner of the Gillespie Circus and the daughter of Colonel Gillespie, posing as Margo Lane. Rico is chauffeured by a man named Otero. Learning about Stanford Marshall, aka the Black Tiger, Rico killed him and stole his invisibility belt, invented by a pair of scientists named Stanford and Van Dorn. Rico also targeted Professor Adam Strang, who read Reggie Ogden novels, and was involved in a caper with a criminal engineer called Sparks who created a machine to kill people by radio control, based on television technology invented by a Dr. Houghland. Judex meets with Mary Gillespie at Rusterman’s. Mary has an ex-husband named Jim. “Rainbow” Benny Loomis likes to hang out at Rusterman’s. Loomis tells Judex and Mary that Rico thinks he’s the new Enrico Bandello, and his birth name is Chris Jorgenson. A wounded Mary says her uncle Leonard will treat her. The Shadow saw Judex with his wife Jacqueline, and felt his loneliness deepen. 

Short story by Atom Mudman Bezecny in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 17: Noblesse Oblige, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2020; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 29), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2022. Judex and his wife, the former Jacqueline Aubry, are from Louis Feuillade’s film serial Judex. Arthur Bernède’s novelization of the serial identified Judex’s mother, the Comtesse de Tremeuse, as the former Julia Orsini. The shadowy pulp hero and his companion need no introduction. The vigilante battled Stark, the so-called “Prince of Evil,” in four novels by Theodore Tinsley. Tony Rico is from the 1933 film The Shadow Laughs. Bezecny identifies Rico with Chris Jorgenson from Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man; in the film adaptation, Jorgenson was played by Cesar Romero, the same actor who played Tony Rico. Mary Gillespie, her father the Colonel, her ex-husband Jim Quinn, and the Gillespie Circus are from the 1937 film The Shadow. Otero and Enrico Bandello are from the movie Little Caesar. The Black Tiger is from the 1940 serial The Shadow. Stanley Stanfield and Professor Carl Van Dorn are from the serial The Vanishing Shadow. Professor Adam Anton Strang and Sparks are from the serial The Whispering Shadow. Reggie Ogden is from the 1933 movie The Shadow. Dr. James Houghland is from the movie Murder by Television. Rusterman’s is from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. “Rainbow” Benny Loomis is from the movie Shadow of the Thin Man. Except for the 1940 serial, none of the films with “Shadow” in the title involve Walter Gibson’s pulp hero. Dr. Leonard Gillespie is from Max Brand’s Dr. Kildare stories. Although this case is dated to 1928, the shadowy hero began his crimefighting career in 1929, and his four battles with Stark took place in 1939, and so I would place it in the early 1940s instead. 

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

Late January 1944

THE GLASS LADY 

The Avenger and the Domino Lady meet for the first time as they team up against Benson’s old foes Dr. Ulrich Blau-Montag, aka the Iron Skull, and Werner Konrad. The Domino Lady, as Ellen Patrick, attends a masked ball at the Schildiner mansion, wearing the Spang diamonds. One of the guests, a Marine with white-blonde hair, admires Ellen’s figure. Other guests include the Charleses, who have taken a break from detective work and come to Los Angeles from San Francisco for the party; Dix Steele; an up-and-coming actress named Betty, accompanied by a handsome brown-haired stunt-pilot who works at Chaplin Airfield; Norma; and Veronica Balza. A thief brings down the chandelier, which is compared to the Phantom’s grand chandelier at the Paris Opera House. Ellen calls Cole Wilson’s fiancée Heather Brail at the Chance Theater in New York. Sims, a reporter for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, writes an article about the latest dustup between Cynthia Furnois, socialite daughter of film director Abelard Furnois, and bleach blonde actress Mavis Arden. During Benson’s convalescence following an explosion, the members of Justice, Inc. get a second opinion from Clark. Heather has been offered a starring role in a remake of a Rhonda Terry jungle movie. 

Part I of Hunt the Avenger by Win Scott Eckert, Moonstone Books, 2019. The Domino Lady appeared in stories by Lars Anderson in the “spicy” pulps. The Avenger first battled the Iron Skull in Ron Goulart’s novel The Iron Skull. The villain escaped to battle Benson again in Goulart’s story “The Return of the Iron Skull,” escaping Benson’s clutches once more in the conclusion. Werner Konrad, a Nazi spy, battled Benson in Goulart’s novel The Glass Man; like the Iron Skull, he was still at large at the end of the book. The Spang diamonds are a reference to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever. The Marine is Richard S. Prather’s future private eye Shell Scott. Nick and Nora Charles are from Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. Dixon “Dix” Steele is from Dorothy B. Hughes’ novel In a Lonely Place. Betty and her boyfriend are Betty Page and Cliff Secord from Dave Stevens’ comic book The Rocketeer and subsequent comics and prose stories from IDW Publishing. Norma Desmond is from the movie Sunset Boulevard. Balza and Ms. Terry are from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Lion Man. The Furnoises are from Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. The Phantom is Erik from Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera. The Chance Theater is owned by George Chance, also known as the Green Ghost. Fred Sims is a friend and contact of G. G. Fickling’s female private eye Honey West. Mavis Arden is from the movie Go West, Young Man. Clark is the bronze man. 

This crossover write-up is one of hundreds found in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! As with the first two volumes, this one is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win's books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

September 4, 1935

THE TIME TRAVELERS’ EX-WIFE

In Kingsport, the former Alice Peaslee is wished a happy sixtieth birthday by her son Wingate, who has just returned from an expedition in Australia with his father. Alice is brought cake and lemonade by her grandson John, the son of her daughter Hannah and Samuel Beckett. Looking in a photo album, she sees a picture of herself in London on June 5, 1931, alongside author Olaf Stapledon and the latter’s young protégé, the poet Paul Tregardis. Another picture, taken on September 2, 1924, shows the members of Hannah’s wedding party. Among them is Hannah’s husband’s supervisor at Brooklyn’s Museum of Fine Arts, Dr. Halpin Chalmers, a graduate of Miskatonic University, with whom Alice reminisces about the faculty and Arkham. Chalmers is friends with a private detective named Charles. Alice marries Chalmers, and on weekends and holidays they travel to Partridgeville where he was raised. In 1910, Alice divorces her husband, Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, having experienced strange visions of the past and future when she touched him. In 1912, her son Robert finds the notebooks in which she described her visions. Robert takes large portions of the text and reorganizes them into narratives, which Alice rewrites and has published in Whispers magazine. The periodical forwards her a letter of praise from a man named Randolph Carter. Alice spent six years with a distant relative named Alice the Elder, wandering time and space, having breakfast in Hyperborea, dancing in Irem, and reading books in Celeano.

Short story by Pete and Mandy Rawlik in The Lovecraft eZine #29, Mike Davis, ed., February 2014. Kingsport, Miskatonic University, Arkham, and Randolph Carter appear in a number of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. Alice Peaslee; her husband, Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee; and their children, Wingate, Hannah and Robert, are from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Out of Time.” Irem is from Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City.” The magazine Whispers appears in Lovecraft’s “The Unnamable”; it is believed by many Lovecraft scholars the Carter that narrates that story is Randolph Carter. John Beckett is the father of time traveler Sam Beckett on the television series Quantum Leap. Paul Tregardis is from Clark Ashton Smith’s story “Ubbo-Sathla.” Hyperborea appears in “Ubbo-Sathla” and many other works by Smith. Dr. Halpin Chalmers and Partridgeville are from Frank Belknap Long’s story “The Hounds of Tindalos.” Chalmers’ private detective friend is Nick Charles from Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. Celeano (or Celaeno) is mentioned in several Mythos stories by August Derleth.

Crossover Cover: Bitter Fruit

The beginning of a story arc running from issues 19-23. Near the beginning of this issue, a friend of Margo Lane’s asks her when she plans to finally marry Lamont Cranston, saying “You think that marriage means the good times are over, don’t you? But look at Nora! Has she slowed down any since she got hitched?” Margo replies, “What about Dian? She and her beau are thick as thieves. Does the fact that she doesn’t have a ring on her finger make a bit of difference?” Nora is heiress Nora Charles, who investigates crimes alongside her husband Nick, a former private investigator, as seen in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Thin Man and the subsequent film series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Dian is Dian Belmont, the girlfriend and companion of Wesley Dodds, aka the Sandman, whose exploits appeared in Adventure Comics in the 1940s.

The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror

In this miniseries, Cliff Secord battles the evil Otto Rune, who is apparently attempting to unleash a Lovecraftian monster, though it ultimately turns out that the creature is a fake. Cliff is helped on this adventure by a married couple who used to be detectives and have a dog named Asta. These two are meant to be Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, as well as the films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. An unnamed Ham and Monk attempt to retrieve the Cirrus X-3 rocket pack from Cliff, but Doc Savage ultimately decides to let Cliff keep it. Cliff briefly comes in contact with two paperhangers, one of whom is named Jeff. These are the title characters of Bud Fisher's comic strip Mutt and Jeff. A friend of Cliff's girlfriend Betty who had fallen victim to Rune meets two desert hillbillies, who are meant to be Snuffy Smith and his wife Loweezy from Billy DeBeck's strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. In Hollywood Horror, the Smiths appear to be living in California, but in the comic strip, they lived in the Appalachians. Perhaps they were on vacation.