Crossover Cover: Picking Up the Pieces

 

The members of Caballistics, Inc. discover their teammate Jenny Simmons is demonically possessed. Jenny asks exorcist Lawrence Verse if he’s going to use the Ceremony of Seven Daggers or the Merrin Rite on her. The Ceremony of Seven Daggers refers to the Seven Daggers of Megiddo from The Omen films. The Merrin Rite is named after the late Father Lankester Merrin from William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. 

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered 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

Autumn 2004

HELL ON EARTH 

Caballistics, Inc. battles the living dead and a fallen angel in the North Yorkshire village of Boswell. Appearing or mentioned are: the Templars Resurgent; the Starry Wisdom; Delta Green; the Cult of the Black Sun; Arkham University; the Quist Foundation; Doomwatch; the Carnacki-Silence Spectrum; Motley Hall; Yuggoth; the Lamp of Alhazred; the Merrin Ritual; the Karras Ritual; Hobb’s End; Florizel Street; Totters’ Lane; the Brigadier; “a similar facility that stored such material in the U.S.”; Ringstone Round; jaunting bracelets; the eighth Dagger of Megiddo; a chameleon circuit; an owl named Ozymandius; Department 7; Omega; a water tower undergoing a sweep for medieval magic residue; Exham Priory; Watchers; “certain subterranean mouths”; Nephren-Ka; Kadath in the Cold Waste; Irem; Kiran; Sarnath; Ib; Hali; Raccoon City; Umbrella; Mr. Phelps; the Jones/Brody archives at Barnett College in New York; Nyarlahotep; the Yeti incident; Drax Industries; the British Rocket Group; Saknusem’s Swallow; Leidenbrock’s Ledge; Wenley Moor; Sir Rufus Folkes; Templar; Harold Pelham; “something Straker Estates”; and the Mayflower Project. 

Novel by Mike Wild, 2000 AD, 2006. The Templars Resurgent are the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. The Starry Wisdom Church and Nephren-Ka are from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.” Arkham University must be in Lovecraft’s recurring setting of Arkham, Massachusetts. Yuggoth is another name for Pluto in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Exham Priory is from Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” Kadath in the Cold Waste, Sarnath, and Ib are mentioned in several Lovecraft stories. Irem is from Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City.” Kiran is from Lovecraft’s “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” “Nyarlahotep” is a misspelling of Lovecraft’s god Nyarlathotep. Delta Green is from the eponymous supplement for the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The Cult of the Black Sun is a CU version of the group seen in Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's superhero comic book Zenith. The Quist Foundation and Doomwatch are from the TV series Doomwatch. The Carnacki-Silence Spectrum is named after Thomas Carnacki and John Silence, occult investigators created by William Hope Hodgson and Algernon Blackwood, respectively. Motley Hall is from the TV series The Ghosts of Motley Hall. The Lamp of Alhazred is from August Derleth’s titular Cthulhu Mythos story. The Merrin Ritual and the Karras Ritual are named after the late Fathers Lankester Merrin and Damien Karras from William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. Hobb’s End is from the movie Quatermass and the Pit. Ringstone Round is from the television serial Quatermass. Professor Bernard Quatermass heads the British Rocket Group. Florizel Street was the original title for the long running British soap opera Coronation Street. Totters’ Lane and chameleon circuits are from Doctor Who. The Brigadier is Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart from that series. The Yeti incident is a reference to the serial “The Web of Fear.” Wenley Moor is from the serial “Doctor Who and the Silurians.” The “similar facility that stored such material in the U.S.” is the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones’ friend Dr. Marcus Brody appears in both that film and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The latter is the source of Barnett College. Jaunting bracelets are from the television series The Tomorrow People. The eighth Dagger of Megiddo is a nod to the Seven Daggers of Megiddo from the movie The Omen. Ozymandius (or Ozymandias) is from the TV series Ace of Wands. Department 7 and Omega are from the show The Omega Factor. The water tower is Castle Saburac from the TV series Catweazle. The Watchers and “certain subterranean mouths” (Hellmouths) are from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hali is from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation are from the Resident Evil video game series. Mr. Phelps, who is given a “mission, should [he] choose to accept it,” is apparently related to the late Jim Phelps from the TV series and movie Mission: Impossible. Drax Industries is from the film version of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Moonraker. Saknusem’s Swallow and Leidenbrock’s Ledge refer to Arne Saknussemm and Otto Lidenbrock from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Rufus Folkes (or ffolkes) is from the movie North Seas Hijack. Simon Templar is Leslie Charteris’ adventurer the Saint. Harold Pelham is from the movie The Man Who Haunted Himself. Ffolkes and Pelham were both played by Roger Moore, who also played Simon Templar on the 1960s The Saint TV series. “Something Straker Estates” refers to Richard Throckett Straker, vampire Kurt Barlow’s minion in Stephen King’s 'Salem’s Lot. The Mayflower Project is from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

This crossover writeup 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 Movie Poster: The Dragon Lives Again

After his death, Bruce Lee finds himself in the underworld, where he teams up with Popeye, Caine (from Kung Fu), and the One-Armed Swordsman (the protagonist of a Hong Kong film series) to battle “the Exorcist,” “the Godfather,” James Bond, Emmanuelle (the main character of a series of erotic films), Clint Eastwood (dressed as the Man with No Name), Zatoichi, and Dracula (who leads an army of zombies that look suspiciously like guys in skeleton costumes.) This film was part of the “Bruceploitation” subgenre that had actors playing Bruce Lee after his death in unauthorized martial arts films. The film explains the difference in Lee’s appearance (and, one presumes, the other characters’) via a character stating that human beings’ features change when they die and enter the underworld. In the CU, James Bond was still alive in 1977, when this movie was made. Therefore, it obviously takes place in an AU.

Crossover Cover: The Ninth Configuration

Among the U.S. Army soldiers being treated by Colonel Vincent “Killer” Kane at an insane asylum based in a castle is astronaut Billy Cutshaw, who has a fear of dying in space. Cutshaw is meant to be the same unnamed astronaut who is told by a possessed Regan MacNeil that he will die in space in Blatty’s novel The Exorcist. Since The Exorcist takes place in the CU, so does this novel.

Crossover of the Week

May 2006

BLACK MAGIC WOMAN

            Supernatural investigator Quincey Morris and white witch Libby Chastain battle a practitioner of black magic who is continuing her family’s vendetta against the descendants of the woman who exposed her ancestress as a witch during the trials in Salem. Quincey owes a debt to a man named Jack, whose crew travels in semis and four-wheel-drive jeeps. Quincey thinks that none of the experts who have written about the vampire’s nature, such as Van Helsing, Blake, and Tregarde, have been able to explain why the undead are vulnerable to certain natural substances. A flashback details Quincey’s namesake and great-grandfather’s death while helping to kill Dracula, as well as the aftermath of those events. Morris once spent an hour in a townhouse in Washington’s Georgetown section where two Jesuit priests died performing an exorcism to save a young girl. Quincey and Libby visit occult investigator Barry Love, whose bookshelves hold two different editions of the Bible, Stone’s Practical Demon-Hunting, the Bhagavad-Gita, Newman’s The Vampire in Victorian England, Wellman’s biography of John the Balladeer, books by Hegel and Sartre, Black’s Approaching the Millennium, and the third edition of Investigating the Occult: Principles and Techniques by Scully and Reyes. Later, the black witch uses her magic to force the driver of an SUV to attempt to run over Quincey and Libby. The SUV smashes through the front of Del Floria’s Tailor Shop. After Libby is hospitalized, a pair of N.Y.P.D. detectives question Quincey about the “accident.” One is named Clark, while the other’s last name is something that ends with “witz.”

            Novel by Justin Gustainis, 2008. The modern-day Quincey Morris is a descendant of the courageous Texan of the same name in Stoker’s Dracula. The original Quincey’s wife died in childbirth, thus explaining his bachelorhood in the original novel. Jay Lindsey notes, “There is some conflict with Quincey Morris, Vampire, by P.N. Elrod. In Gustainis’ book, Morris is survived by his parents and one son. In Elrod’s account, Morris claims his parents died long before. I think we can get around that, though. Given that the Morris family picked up a generational monster hunting legacy, it’s obvious that at some point the original Quincey, in his new state of undeath, attempted to make contact with his parents and son, and it did not go well. A century later, while relating his account to Elrod, vampire Quincey chose to gloss over those painful memories.” Jack is vampire hunter Jack Crow from John Steakley’s novel Vampire$. Van Helsing needs no explanation at this point. Blake is a reference to the protagonist of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. However, Blake’s exploits take place in a world where the existence of the supernatural is widely known. The Blake referenced here must be her CU counterpart, whose exploits are vastly different from the “Blake-verse’s” Anita. Diana Tregarde appears in a series of novels by Mercedes Lackey. The two Jesuit priests are from William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist. Stone is Ezekiel Stone from the television series Brimstone. Newman is doubtless the CU counterpart of Kim Newman. The exploits of Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer, aka Silver John, are well-established as part of the CU. Black is Frank Black from the television series Millennium. Scully and Reyes are FBI Agents Dana Scully and Monica Reyes from The X-Files. Earlier in the book, Special Agent Dale Fenton refers to The X-Files as a television series; presumably, this was a spin-off of the movie starring Garry Shandling and Téa Leoni. Del Floria’s Tailor Shop houses the secret entrance to the headquarters of U.N.C.L.E. The N.Y.P.D. detectives are John Clark, Jr. and Andy Sipowicz from the television series NYPD Blue.