Crossover Cover: The Doom Legion

 

Are you a fan of the pulp hero the Spider?

Then you'll love this novel teaming him with his fellow Popular Publications heroes Operator 5 and G-8, with a bonus story showing Robert J. Hogan's heroes the Secret Six's involvement in these events!

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of 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 Covers: Final Phase

 

The Black Bat battles the Black Sun Cult alongside the Phantom Detective, I. V. Frost, the Domino Lady, Nighthawk, Ki-Gor and Helene, Captain Hazzard’s aides, and Jim Anthony. The Phantom Detective listens to a radio broadcast by Diane Elliott. Nighthawk is from Fortier’s novel Nighthawk: Burning Skies. This crossover brings him into the CU. Diane Elliott is Operator No. 5’s girlfriend. In an amusing moment that is more of an in-joke than a true crossover, the Domino Lady tells the Phantom Detective that she’s always thought the use of a spotlight signal to summon him was a great idea, and that she’s surprised some other masked mystery man hasn’t stolen it from him, a foreshadowing of Commissioner Gordon’s use of the Batsignal to summon Batman.

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 of the Week

Autumn 1939

THE GREEN LAMA: CRIMSON CIRCLE 

The Green Lama battles a scientific enclave called the Collective that threatens not only him, but his aides as well, and has recruited several of his former allies and enemies. Lt. John Caraway wonders where Rick Masters is when you need him. The Lama broke the central tenet of his faith when he murdered Karl Heydrich in R’lyeh. The Collective can confirm his work against the Medusa Council in 1935. An unpublished article by Betty Dale of the Herald-Tribune correctly postulates that the Lama is really Jethro Dumont. The hero tells Gary Brown and his wife Evangl Stewart-Brown about his battle with Cthulhu. The Collective is based in Black Rock. Morgue attendant Dan Rohn refers to the Tipton murders. When Dumont left America years ago, there were more pressing matters to deal with, such as whether Wentworth and Van Sloan would ever get married. Not too long before the Green Lama debuted, a predecessor of his encountered a killer matching the description of Collective member Omega. In a flashback, Evangl reminds herself to ask her friend Diane Elliott of the Amalgamated Press about the Lama’s battle with the Medusa Council, and Evangl’s mother says vigilantism “seems to be going around with the bat fellow and that doctor gentleman.” The Lama’s lover Jean Farrell remembers running from a shoggoth in R’lyeh. At the Herald-Tribune offices back in the present, Betty Dale talks to her fellow journalist Luke Jaconetti. Commissioner Woods has an impassioned conversation with former Commissioner turned Governor Kirkpatrick. Detective Crevier says, “When it comes to vigilantes, copycats are a dime a dozen. You remember how many guys we had running around with a black fedora and trenchcoat back in the day?” Dr. Barry Dale, a researcher on atomic energy and Betty’s brother, meets with the President to brief him on the Collective, and tells him the Intelligence Service Command has denied any knowledge of them. Nyarlathotep appears before the Collective. 

Novel by Adam Lance Garcia, Moonstone Books, 2015. The Green Lama is Kendell Foster Crossen’s pulp hero. Rick Masters had his own backup feature in Spark Publications’ Green Lama comic. R’lyeh, Cthulhu, the shoggoth, and Nyarlathotep are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Lama’s battle against the Medusa Council was seen in the anthology Day of the Destroyers, edited by Gary Phillips. The Intelligence Service Command is from the same book. Reporter Betty Dale is Secret Agent X’s girlfriend. Black Rock first appeared in Garcia’s story “The Black Rock Conspiracy,” included in the anthology The New Adventures of Foster Fade, the Crime Spectacularist. Fade appeared in stories by Lester Dent in All Detective Magazine. In “The Black Rock Conspiracy,” Fade battled an unnamed Omega. The Tipton Murders are a reference to Garcia’s other story from that anthology, “Dead Men’s Guns.” Wentworth and Van Sloan are Richard Wentworth, aka the Spider, and his beloved Nita Van Sloan. Governor (formerly Commissioner) Stanley Kirkpatrick is also from the Spider novels. Diane Elliott is Operator #5’s girlfriend. “The bat fellow” is the Black Bat, while “that doctor gentleman” is the pulp hero commonly known as “Doc.” Luke Jaconetti first appeared in “The Black Rock Conspiracy” before appearing in Garcia’s The Green Lama: Scions, as well as Day of the Destroyers. Detective Crevier is referring to the shadowy hero, the Spider, and possibly others. Barry Dale is the alter ego of another Spark Publications hero, Atoman, created by Crossen and Jerry Robinson. His appearance here foreshadows his future superhuman identity. 

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 Covers: Black Pulp

This anthology contains two stories with crossovers. In Gary Phillips' "Decimator Smith and the Fangs of the Fire Serpent," boxer Achilles "Decimator" Smith turns vigilante after the death of his sister. He meets inventor Abe Kaufman, who tells him, "When I was back east, I did some work for a few vigilantes you might say. I belonged to a kind of a loose association of scientists who helped out the best way we could." Abe’s brother Rocco adds, "You heard of that bloodthirsty joker with the weird laugh and the slouch hat in New York? Abe designed a few gadgets for him through his operatives." This is a reference to Walter Gibson's most famous character, of course. Decimator also appears in his boxing days in Phillips' story "Demon Slaves of the Red Claw," a crossover between the Spider and Operator #5. The other story relevant to this blog is Derrick Ferguson's "Dillon and the Alchemist's Morning Coffee." The Alchemist’s Morning Coffee is a method of encoding digital information in human DNA devised by Dr. Alejandro Candu of the Henderson Institute of Alternative Technologies. The nation of Khusra is mentioned. Dillon’s friend Wyatt Hyatt has been hacking into government agencies’ computers since he was a kid, including hacking into CTU’s computer core when he was thirteen. Dillon mentions another friend, Elisa Hill. This story takes place during the eight-month gap between Chapters 1 and 2 of Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira. The head of the Henderson Institute of Alternative Technologies is Dr. Sylvester Henderson, whose brother Mongrel is the protagonist of a series of stories by Ferguson in Airship 27 Productions’ anthology series Mystery Men (& Women). Ferguson’s 1930s adventurer Fortune McCall is a Prince of Khusra’s Royal Family. The CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) is from the television series 24, which features fictional U.S. Presidents and massive terrorist attacks, including a nuclear device being detonated in Los Angeles. Presumably, as with the Spider novels, the true details of Jack Bauer’s adventures have been exaggerated and distorted for dramatic effect. Elisa Hill is the main character of Percival Constantine’s Myth Hunter series.

Crossover Cover: Codename: Action

A government agent teams with Operator 5, the Green Hornet and Kato, the Green Lama, the Spider, Daredevil (the Golden Age comic character published by Lev Gleason, not the Marvel superhero who debuted in 1964), Black Venus, and the American Crusader to battle a plot by the terrorist group Hexagon. At the end of the series, the agent dons the name and costume of Captain Action. This series does not fit with the continuity of the Captain Action comics published by Moonstone, which are already connected to the CU via crossovers with the Phantom, the Green Hornet, and Honey West and Derek Flint. Additionally, the Spider’s look, as with his other incarnations in Dynamite’s titles, is based on the serial The Spider’s Web, rather than the fangs, hunchback, and fright wig described in the pulps.