Crossover of the Week

January 1936

THE REPLACEMENT 

Bruce Wayne is staying at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, which he thinks of as a missing link between Gotham and Metropolis. Bruce’s father Thomas told him that before they came together to start the hotel, the Waldorf and Astor families had invited him to their individual hotels several times. Bruce’s butler Alfred Pennyworth answers a phone call from “Miss Lane.” Bruce thinks this is Lois Lane, but Alfred says it was her eldest sister, Margo, who has connections to the Cobalt Club and Lamont Cranston. In the 1920s, Cranston was an advisor to General Cho Tsing, then studied under Marpa Tulku in Tibet, along with Shiwan Khan. Cranston’s other identities include Clifford Gage and Kent Allard. Officially, Bruce is in New York to launch WayneTech, a scientific subsidiary of his family’s business empire, which he seeks to expand. In doing so, he has met with Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards, whose son Reed is also a potential genius. Alfred drives Bruce to a meeting at the Empire State Building, where they are greeted by a man who is one of the world’s top chemists, despite his apelike appearance. On the 86th floor, they meet an elegantly dressed Brigadier General, who tells Bruce his friend Harvey Dent shows promise to be an outstanding attorney, and a tall, extremely thin man who wears a monocle over a damaged eye. Bruce is ushered in to meet Clark and Kent, who know he was motivated by the tragedy of Park Lane, also known as Crime Alley. During his stay in England, Bruce spent some time with an old beekeeper in his cottage on the South Downs of Sussex. Clark asks Bruce to escort his cousin Patricia next time she’s in Gotham. Getting on the elevator, Bruce runs into Britt Reid, the publisher of the Daily Sentinel, and his valet Kato. Kent asks the latter if he spent any time in Tibet studying with the Sâr Dubnotal. 

Short story by Xavier Mauméjean in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 16: Voir Dire, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2019; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 26), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2020. Bruce Wayne will soon become Gotham City’s most famous vigilante, Batman. Bruce’s parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha, were murdered by Joe Chill in Park Row (to use the correct name), later known as Crime Alley. Alfred Pennyworth is the Dark Knight’s butler. WayneTech is the research and development branch of Bruce’s company, Wayne Enterprises. Harvey Dent will later become Gotham’s District Attorney, until his face is scarred by an acid-wielding criminal, leading to him becoming the gangster known as Two-Face. Metropolis is Superman’s hometown. Lois Lane is the Man of Steel’s coworker at the Daily Star (later renamed the Daily Planet), and later his wife. Her sister is an agent of the shadow-cloaked vigilante. Philip José Farmer jokingly proposed the relationship between the two in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. The shadowy hero frequently impersonates a wealthy globetrotter, often seeking information at the Cobalt Club. The General is from the Shadow novels The Fate Joss and The Teeth of the Dragon. Tulku is from another entry in the series, Masters of Death. Khan battled the vigilante in that book and three others before it. Gage is another of the slouch-hatted crimefighter’s aliases. Howard Stark is the father of Tony Stark, better known as Marvel Comics’ armored hero Iron Man. Nathaniel Richards’ son, Reed, will later be known as Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the Marvel hero team known as the Fantastic Four. The 86th floor of the Empire State Building is the headquarters of the bronze man. The apelike chemist, the Brigadier General, and the thin man are three of his aides. The old beekeeper is Sherlock Holmes. Doc’s cousin is from Lester Dent’s pulp novels. Britt Reid is also known as the Green Hornet. Kato is Reid’s chauffeur and his partner in his war on crime. The Sâr Dubnotal is an occult investigator from the French pulps. Although this story is dated January 1938, Bruce Wayne’s debut as Batman has been placed in Early May 1936, since the first Batman story, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” was a swipe of the Shadow novel Partners of Peril, which Rick Lai placed in that period in his book Chronology of Shadows: A Timeline of the Shadow’s Exploits. Therefore, I am instead placing it in January 1936. 

This crossover writeup is one 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 Covers: The Lone Ranger/Green Hornet: Champions of Justice

 

In June 1938, Britt Reid becomes the Green Hornet and fights a new incarnation of the Cavendish gang with the aid of his great-uncle John, who comes out of retirement to don the mask of the Lone Ranger once more. John gets a ride from a cab driver, who is meant to be one of the shadowy vigilante’s agents. In a flashback, a Sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police appears; this is meant to be Sergeant Frank Preston from the radio series Challenge of Yukon. John and the Sergeant discover they are related through their mutual ancestors, the Waynes. In other words, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, and Sergeant Preston are all related to Batman. In another flashback to 1896, John Reid gives a nine-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of his trademark silver bullets, an event first mentioned in the miniseries The Shadow/Green Hornet: Dark Nights, also written by Michael Uslan. The Ranger gets some help from a police officer named Kip. Officer Kip Burland will later become the masked crimefighter known as the Black Hood, whose exploits will be published by MLJ, later known as Archie Comics. Mourners at John Reid’s funeral include the shadowy pulp hero, Daddy Warbucks, a certain golden-eyed doctor, the Spirit, Mandrake the Magician, Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon, Bruce Wayne, and Clark Kent. In this story, Dan Reid, Jr. dies before his son Britt becomes the Green Hornet, whereas he was still alive in the original radio series. The Hornet is based in Chicago, but in the CU he operated in Detroit. The Shadow/Green Hornet has already been designated an AU. The Lone Ranger's death conflicts with Jim Harmon’s “Tom Mix and the Mystery of the Bodiless Horseman.”  Therefore, this series must be an AU.

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 Cover: Year of Shadows

 

This collection of stories by Teel James Glenn features his character Anton "Dr. Shadows" Chadeaux, who is already in the CU through various connections. One of the stories included here is "The Eye of Darkness," which I covered in Crossovers Expanded Volume 1. Here's a rundown of the new stories with crossovers.

In "A Personal Demon," Dr. Shadows has Ham Brooks working on getting papers for him and his aides to go to Manchuria. He also has a throwing knife named Ike. Thomas “Trigger” O’Leary tells Chadeaux he owes the hero after he got him out of “that Skullmask murder thing last year.” Akemi Oyama calls Dr. Shadows’ friend and mentor Ki Nam Hoon “your Kato,” but he tells her Hoon is not a servant. The hero didn’t even know what prejudice was until he saw how the neighborhood teens treated his childhood friend Marguerite Sancre when she visited from her native Martinidad. When Chadeaux fakes his death, Moxie Donovan writes a color piece on the adventurer. Brooks is one of the bronze man’s five aides. Dr. Shadows’ knife Ike must be named after the avenging hero with malleable skin’s knife. The Skullmask and Martinidad are from Glenn’s book Weird Tales of the Skullmask. Kato is the Green Hornet’s chauffeur and partner. Moxie Donovan appears in a series of books by Glenn.  

In "Forbidden City Blues," Dr. Shadows says that when he started his career, he thought Clark Savage’s whole attitude toward publicity for himself was missing a chance to reach so many more people. Shadows’ lover Han Ku Lee (“Hank”) tells him, “You think Clark or Dr. Pali don’t fail?” Clark needs no introduction. Kendell Foster Crossen’s pulp hero the Green Lama often assumes the guise of Buddhist priest Dr. Charles Pali.

In "Grave Mistake," Dr. Shadows battles escaped convicts. Pat Chambers is the spokesman for the New York Police. The island of Martinidad is mentioned. Pat Chambers is from Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels. 

In "Isle Macabre," Dr. Shadows is recruited for a mission in Martinidad by Secret Service agent Rex Bennett. Chadeaux says he can get either Clark Savage or Richard Wentworth to provide him with a cover story. Bennett replies that Wentworth-Cranston Limited made land purchases in Martinidad two months ago. Rex Bennett is from the movie serials G-Men vs. the Black Dragon and Secret Service in Darkest Africa. Savage is the bronze-skinned pulp hero. Richard Wentworth is better known as the Spider. Wentworth-Cranston Limited was first mentioned in Weird Tales of the Skullmask. The co-owner of the company must be Wentworth’s half-brother, another well-known shadowy crimefighter, in one of his favorite disguises. 

These crossovers are four 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

Summer 1935 

THE DOMINO LADY’S TRIPLE THREAT 

The Domino Lady battles a German American Bund targeting an old friend of her father. As Ellen Patrick, she meets two police detectives, one of whom is Chas Faraday. Last time Ellen stayed at the Waldorf-Anthony in New York, she met a strange and shadowy man named Kent, who saw a magician named Kosmo performing amazing feats with his cape while he (Kent) was serving in the court of the Czar. Later, Kent used a Baritsu move to save Ellen's life. Ellen meets two more cops, Sergeant Garcia and Patrolman Hawke, and reads an article in The Daily Sentinel. Detective Faraday tells Ellen he is thinking of leaving the Berkeley Police Department and has applied for police jobs in Neptune and Palm City. Patrolman Hawke tells Ellen stories about his aviator brother. 

Short story by Brad Mengel in Domino Lady Volume Two, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2016. Chas Faraday is an ancestor of Michael Faraday, the protagonist of the TV series The Cape, which is set in Palm City. Kosmo is also from that series. The Waldorf-Anthony is the hotel owned by pulp hero Jim Anthony. Kent is the pulp hero of the shadows. Baritsu is a Japanese wrestling style from the Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The comic book story “The Conflagration Man,” a crossover between the shadowy vigilante and the bronze man, implied both heroes had learned Baritsu from Holmes. Philip José Farmer originally identified Holmes as one of Doc’s teachers in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Baritsu was also mentioned in The Cape. Sergeant Garcia is a descendant of Sergeant Demetrio Lopez Garcia from Disney’s Zorro television series. Patrolman Hawke is the father of Matt Hawke, aka the Avenger, the hero of a series of Men’s Adventure paperbacks by Chet Cunningham. The Daily Sentinel is the Los Angeles edition of the Detroit newspaper published by Britt Reid, the Green Hornet. Neptune, California is the setting of the television series Veronica Mars. Patrolman Hawke’s aviator brother is the father of Stringfellow and St. John Hawke from the TV series Airwolf. This story takes place in summer, three years after the death of Ellen’s father, meaning 1935. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to 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: The Green Hornet '66 Meets the Spirit

Are you a Green Hornet fan?

Then you may enjoy this miniseries, in which the Hornet (surprise) meets the Spirit!

For more information, check out the appendix on alternate universes in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to 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

Many thanks to author Michael Howard for sending me a list of the crossovers in his novel, and a promo code to purchase a copy!

Spring 1912 

JIMMIE DALE, ALIAS THE GRAY SEAL 

Jimmie Dale, the Gray Seal, battles a white slavery ring. Appearing or mentioned are Dick Van Loan; Frank Havens; Artie “Chimp” Jermyn; Daniel Reid; the Blakeney family; Gunnison; Lady Kate Maxwell; Wilson Hargreaves; the Faithful Fifty; Billy McGee; Mrs. Battle; a Hirondel roadster; Harrisonville, NJ; the Ruritanian embassy; Aubrey Maturin; McKenzie of the Oracle; Glencannon’s Dew; the Sea-Girl; Allan Montague; frog-headed natives near Ponape; Haddock of the Karaboudjan; Englehorn of the Venture; Officer Karl Lohmann; Latveria; Yat Soon; the Si-Fan; Ashton-Kirk; a Potawatomi Indian; Lupin; Meadowes; Sam; Detective Gryce; Middleton, CO; Parr; Kramer; Fernack; Rumsey; Summers; Arthur Dimmesdale; Townsend Harper; Waverly; Frances Baird; the Duchess of Denver; Joan Barkley North; Hamilton Cleek; Thurston Howell II; Philo Vance; Westrel Keen; Drusilla Lane; the Continental Detective Agency; the Black Ship; Rachel Barans; Stars Hollow; the Model Press Clipping Bureau; Miriam Possible; James Clarkston Savage; Anatole; the de la Vega family; Professor Kennedy; Rosalind Hollis; Victor Carden; Ida Jones; Nick Carter; Hesselius; Baul-tar; Carcosa; Professor Harold Hill; a blonde southern woman named Porter; Skarl the Drummer; the Black Lotus; the Teduki bush; Yajur-tahn; Lake Hali; Mana-Yood-Sushai; Prince Omar; Officer Humboldt; Q-6; Blair Hospital; Dr. Gillespie; Ephraim Tutt; Professor Van Dusen; the Moreau Men; and Hugo Danner. 

This 2017 novel by Michael Howard is a prequel to Frank L. Packard’s Gray Seal series. Dick Van Loan is better known as the Phantom Detective. Frank Havens is his ally, the publisher of the New York Clarion. Artie “Chimp” Jermyn is a member of the family seen in H. P. Lovecraft’s “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family.” Daniel Reid is the nephew of John Reid, the Lone Ranger, and the father of Britt Reid, the Green Hornet. “Gunnison” is a reference to Bill Gunnigan, the city editor on Britt's newspaper, the Daily Sentinel. The Potawatomi Indian is the Lone Ranger’s companion Tonto. Joan Barkley is from The Lone Ranger radio series; her married name implies she is an ancestor of Hugh North, the protagonist of F. Van Wyck Mason’s novels. Jimmie Dale is revealed to be a descendant of Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the hero of Baroness Orczy’s books. Lady Kate Maxwell is from the Night Wind stories by Varick Vanardy. Wilson Hargreaves (or Hargreave) is from Doyle and Watson’s “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.” The Faithful Fifty, Yat Soon, and the Black Ship are from the Shadow novels. Billy McGee is from Earl Derr Biggers’ novel Seven Keys to Baldpate. Mrs. Battle is the wife of G-8’s butler. The Hirondel roadster and Inspector John Fernack are from Leslie Charteris’ Saint novels. Harrisonville, NJ is from Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin stories. Ruritania is from Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda. Aubrey Maturin is a descendant of Dr. Stephen Maturin from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels. Captain Leonard McKenzie of the Oracle is the father of the Marvel Comics hero Namor the Sub-Mariner. Glencannon’s Dew is a reference to Guy Gilpatric’s Mr. Glencannon stories. The Sea-Girl is from Robert E. Howard’s Sailor Steve Costigan tales. Allan Montague is from the works of Upton Sinclair. The frog-headed natives are from Abraham Merritt’s The Moon Pool. Captain Archibald Haddock and the Karaboudjan are from Hergé’s comic The Adventures of Tintin. Captain Englehorn and the Venture are from King Kong. Officer Karl Lohmann is from Fritz Lang’s M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Apparently, he lived in New York for a time before the events of those films. Latveria is the country ruled by the Fantastic Four’s archenemy, Dr. Victor von Doom. The Si-Fan is from Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. Ashton-Kirk is a detective created by John T. McIntyre. Lupin is Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. Meadowes is a relative of Bertie Wooster’s valet before Reginald Jeeves in P. G. Wodehouse's novels. Anatole will go on to be the chef of Bertie’s aunt and uncle, Dahlia and Tom Travers. Sam is Johnston McCulley’s lisping pickpocket Thubway Tham. Ebenezer Gryce is Anna Katharine Green’s police detective, often working in tandem with Amelia Butterworth. Middleton, CO and Miriam Possible are from the animated television series Kim Possible. The cartoon is too outlandish to fit smoothly into the Crossover Universe, so presumably Kim has a CU counterpart. Deputy Parr was created by Frederick Irving Anderson. By extension, Anderson’s characters Oliver Armiston, the Infallible Godahl, Sophie Lang, and Jason Selfridge are also in the CU. Inspector Kramer (or Cramer) is from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. Inspector Rumsey is from Hulbert Footner’s Madame Rosika Storey series. Inspector Summers is from Herman Landon’s Picaroon tales. Arthur Dimmesdale is a descendant of the reverend of the same name seen in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Townsend Harper is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Monster Men. Alexander Waverly is from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Frances Baird is from Reginald Wright Kauffman’s Miss Frances Baird, Detective. The Duchess of Denver is the mother of Dorothy L. Sayers’ sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Hamilton Cleek, “the man of the forty faces,” is Thomas W. Hanshew’s detective. Thurston Howell II is the father of Thurston Howell III from the TV series Gilligan’s Island. Philo Vance is S. S. Van Dine’s detective. Westrel Keen, Rosalind Hollis, and Victor Carden are from Robert W. Chambers’ The Tracer of Missing Persons. Drusilla Lane is the niece of Drury Lane, an actor and amateur sleuth created by “Barnaby Ross” (Ellery Queen). The Continental Detective Agency is from Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories. Rachel Barans is related to Rabbi David Barans from the TV series Gilmore Girls, which takes place in Stars Hollow, Connecticut. The Model Press Clipping Bureau is from Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. James Clarkston Savage is meant to be Doc’s father. Savage says he and Jimmie are related; Philip José Farmer established the elder Savage’s real name was James Clarke Wildman, Sr., and revealed he was the great-grandson of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Officer Humboldt is from the Doc Savage novel The Annihilist. The de la Vega reference implies Jimmie is also descended from Johnston McCulley’s Zorro. Professor Craig Kennedy is Arthur B. Reeve’s detective. Ida Jones is one of the assistants of dime novel detective Nick Carter. Dr. Martin Hesselius is from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly. Baul-tar and Yajur-tahn are meant to be Baal-Pteor and Yajur from Robert E. Howard’s Conan story “Shadows in Zamboula.” The Black Lotus is also from the Conan tales. Carcosa and Lake Hali are from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. Professor Harold Hill is from the musical The Music Man. The southern woman named Porter is related to the jungle lord’s wife. Skarl the Drummer and Mana-Yood-Sushai are from Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegana. The Teduki (or Taduki) bush is from H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain series. Prince Abdul Omar is J. U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith’s detective Semi-Dual. John Christopher, aka Q-6, is the father of Jimmy Christopher, aka Operator #5. Blair Hospital and Dr. Gillespie are from Max Brand’s Dr. Kildare stories. Ephraim Tutt is Arthur Train’s lawyer. Professor Augustus Van Dusen is Jacques Futrelle’s detective, “the Thinking Machine.” The Moreau Men are a reference to H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. Hugo Danner is from Philip Wylie’s Gladiator. 

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

Crossover Covers: Masks 2

A sequel to Chris Roberson, Alex Ross, and Dennis Calero's series Masks, which takes place in an alternate universe, as I discussed in a previous post. Heroes from three different time periods team up to fight a villain called the Red Death, including two Green Hornets, two Katos, the Black Bat, two Miss Furys, the Shadow, the Black Terror, two Black Sparrows, the Spider, the Green Lama, Lady Satan, and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. The contemporary Hornet and Kato are the ones from Dynamite's ongoing Green Hornet comic, which is incompatible with NOW Comics' take on the character, further cementing this series as an AU.

This series, along with many other works of fiction, will be included in my forthcoming two-volume tome Crossovers Expanded Vols. 1 and 2, an authorized companion to Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Vols. 1 and 2 by Win Scott Eckert. The books will debut at FarmerCon/PulpFest on July 21-24, where Win (who also will be providing the foreword for Vol. 1) and I will be signing copies at the booth of Meteor House, the books' publisher, which Win runs along with Michael Croteau and Paul Spiteri. Keith Howell, who provided the covers for both volumes, and William Patrick Maynard, who is contributing the foreword for Vol. 2, will also be on hand to sign copies.

Crossover Cover: The Difference a Day Makes

John Taylor and Dead Boy help an ordinary woman figure out why and how she came to be in the Nightside, and also try to reunite her with her husband. Appearing or mentioned are: the Maltese Falcon (from Dashiell Hammett’s private eye novel of the same name); Something from a Black Lagoon (a reference to the Universal horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon); one of Frankenstein’s female creations (from Mary Shelley's novels and its various sequels and adaptations); knockoff Hyde formula (from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); a lipstick-red Plymouth Fury with a dead man grinning at the wheel (the titular car from Stephen King’s novel Christine); a great black beauty of a car, driven by an Oriental in black leathers, and a man in the back in a green face mask and a snap-brimmed hat (the Green Hornet and Kato, with this particular pair probably being Paul Reid and Kono Kato, who began working together in 1993); and worms from the earth (a reference to Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn story “Worms of the Earth.”)

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: Inferior Five

This series features a team of incompetent second generation superheroes. Parodies of various CU characters appear, including Reed Victor, the Yellowjacket, and his chauffeur Plato (Britt Reid, the Green Hornet, and Kato); Caesar Single and Kwitcha Belliakin of C.O.U.S.I.N.F.R.E.D. (Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin of U.N.C.L.E.); John Claypool, Lord Gravestone, aka Darwin of the Apes (the jungle lord); Sir Chauncey Berkeley, the Crimson Chrysanthemum (Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel); and Allergy Queen (Ellery Queen). Parodies of several Marvel heroes also appear. While Dennis E. Power did a Wold Newton article regarding this series, for CU purposes, I consider it an AU.

Crossover Cover: From a Drood to a Kill

Eddie Drood takes action when his beloved, Molly Metcalf, is abducted by the Powers That Be to take part in the Big Game. Appearing or mentioned are: the Merlin Glass, the London Knights; MI 13; the London Knights, Kayleigh's Eye, the Nightside, Saint Jude's Church, Strangefellows, Walker, Dead Boy, the Night Times, Castle Inconnu, Harry Fabulous, John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie, and the Hawk's Wind Bar and Grill (all from Green's Nightside series); Area 52 (probably the same one seen in the titular Image Comics miniseries); an old 1930s Hirondel (the same fictional car driven by Simon Templar, the Saint); Queen Mab (from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); King Oberon and Queen Titania, and Puck (from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream); the original Fantom of the Paris Opera (from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera); Charlotte Karstein, the Wilderness Witch (possibly a relative of Carmilla Karnstein from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire tale "Carmilla"); Castle Frankenstein (from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its many adaptations and sequels); the Ninteen Sixties Black Beauty (from the 1960s Green Hornet television series); a shocking pink Rolls-Royce (Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's car, FAB 1, from the Supermarionation show Thunderbirds, which takes place in the 2060s; presumably the Droods acquired the car through time travel, and possibly dimensional travel as well); the only occasionally successful Lotus submersible (from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me); Julien Advent (from the Nightside books, but a thinly-veiled version of the title character of the television series Adam Adamant Lives!); Shadows Fall, Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat, and Old Father Time (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); the Carnacki Institute and Catherine Latimer (from Green's Ghost Finders series); Deathstalker (the protagonist of another series of novels by Green, which take place in an alternate future); Jason Royal (a thinly veiled version of the main character of the British television series Department S and Jason King); Lady Gaea (aka Gayle), Carrys Galloway, the Waking Beauty, and Bradford-on-Avon (from Green's novel Drinking Midnight Wine); the Doormouse and his House of Doors (from the Nightside series, though the Doormouse is a member of a group of hippies turned into mice first seen in Drinking Midnight Wine); Robot Archibald (meant to be Robot Archie, who appeared in the British weekly comic book Lion); knock-off Hyde (Dr. Henry Jekyll's formula from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, used as a drug); Martian Red Weed (from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds); and smoked black centipede meat (from William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.)