Crossover of the Week

June 1981

KUMIHO 

Carl Kolchak encounters the fox-maiden from Korean mythology, which can assume the form of a beautiful woman. Tony Vincenzo sends Kolchak to Chicago to cover the de Grandin Metaphysical Symposium. Tony tells Carl there are going to be some important metaphysical speakers there, including John Thunstone, William Sebastian, and Harry Snowden. The moderator is a tall, blonde man named Rhodes. The Kumiho’s former lover shows Kolchak a book called The Darkness Out of the East. Captain Joseph “Mad Dog” Siska is learning tai chi from Master Li Sung. An old contact of Kolchak’s lends him a dog named Casca. 

Short story by Matthew Baugh in Kolchak the Night Stalker: Passages of the Macabre, Dave Ulanski and Tracey Hill, eds., Moonstone Books, 2016. The de Grandin Metaphysical Symposium is named after Seabury Quinn’s occult investigator Jules de Grandin. John Thunstone is one of Manly Wade Wellman’s occult detectives. Thunstone’s The Darkness Out of the East appears in the Jules de Grandin story “The Green God’s Ring.” William Sebastian is from the TV movie Spectre. Harry Snowden is from the TV movies Fear No Evil and Ritual of Evil. Dr. Michael Rhodes is from the TV series The Sixth Sense. Li Sung is a blind martial arts master played by Mako in The Incredible Hulk episodes “Another Path” and “The Disciple.” Mako also played a Triad leader named Li Sung in the Kung Fu: The Legend Continues episodes “Tournament” and “Veil of Tears.” This Li Sung could see and was a descendant of the emperor’s nephew killed by the first Kwai Chang Caine in the original Kung Fu. The two Li Sungs are probably related. Casca is named after the immortal mercenary from Barry Sadler’s novels. This story takes place during Kolchak’s tenure with the Hollywood Dispatch, in a year where June 4 falls on a Thursday. 1981 is the first year after the original run of Kolchak: The Night Stalker that fits that parameter. 

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! Like its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

Today marks my 700th post on this blog. Thanks to everyone who follows this site. In honor, of this occasion, I am doing something a little different for the Crossover of the Week. Instead of sharing a write-up from the main timeline, I am going to provide an excerpt from one of the addendums, "The Anno Dracula Universe and Character Guide."

Anno Dracula 1968: Aquarius (in Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha, Titan Books, 2012)

• Kate Reed
• Kôr (kingdom ruled by Ayesha, aka She Who Must Be Obeyed, in novels by H. Rider Haggard)
• Jerusalem’s Lot (’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King)
• Gamma Bomb (source of Dr. Bruce Banner’s transformation into the Hulk in stories published by Marvel Comics)
• Bali Ha’i (Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener, adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as the musical South Pacific)
• Frank Mills is the title character of a song in the stage musical and film Hair
• Algernon Ford (The Reverend Alexander Algernon Ford; Gavin Reed, The Body Beneath)
• Horatio Stubbs is featured in a trilogy of novels by Brian Aldiss
• Seaton Begg is Michael Moorcock’s alternate reality counterpart to Sexton Blake
• Compact magazine is from the British soap opera Compact
• Bikini Girl magazine is from the film The Night Caller
• Wow Magazine is from the film Cover Girl Killer
• Fred Regent (Richard Jeperson’s policeman sidekick in Newman’s Diogenes Club stories)
• Jim Graham (Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard; Graham is a fictionalized version of Ballard himself)
• B Division and Pickering are from R. Chetwynd-Hayes’ book The Monster Club
• Herrick (William Herrick; Jason Watkins, Being Human)
• The Diogenes Club
• Detective Superintendent Bellaver, Detective Sergeant Griffin, and Keith Kenneth (Alfred Marks, Julian Holloway, and Michael Gothard, Scream and Scream Again)
• Premier Torgu (Ion Torgu; Fangland by John Marks)
• Lord Ruthven
• Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula)
• Abraham Van Helsing
• Morgan Delt (David Warner, Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment)
• Nezumi first appeared in "Anno Dracula 1923: Vampire Romance"
• Arthur Bryant and John May are members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit in novels by Christopher Fowler
• Mycroft Holmes
• Richard Jeperson
• Donna Rogers (Anna Massey) and the Midnight Mess restaurant are from the film The Vault of Horror
• Geoff Brent (Geoffrey Brent; Ian Hendry, Police Surgeon)
• The Crimson Executioner (Mickey Hargitay, Bloody Pit of Horror)
• Carol Thatcher (Janet Lynn, Cool It Carol!)
• Geneviève Dieudonné
• Waldo Zhernikov (Herbert Lom, The Frightened City)
• Hogarth, aka Big Bloodsucker Hog (Peter Egan, Big Breadwinner Hog)
• The Living Dead motorcycle gang is from the film Psychomania
• Inspector Hornleigh (protagonist of a 1930s radio show)
• George Dixon (Jack Warner, The Blue Lamp and Dixon of Dock Green)
• Jack Regan (John Thaw, The Sweeney)
• Timothy Lea (Robin Askwith, Confessions of a Window Cleaner, Confessions of a Pop Performer, Confessions of a Driving Instructor, and Confessions of a Summer Camp Councillor; Askwith also played Joe Sickles in Cool It Carol!)
• Peter Steiger (Ralph Arliss, Blood Relations)
• University of Watermouth (The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury)
• St. Bartolph’s and Laura Bellows (Caroline Munro) are from Dracula A.D. 1972
• Walter Goodrich and Doctor Holstrom (Peter Cushing and Edward Woodward, Incense for the Damned)
• Caleb Croft and James Eastman (Michael Pataki and William Smith, Grave of the Vampire)
• Professor Bowles-Ottery (Leo McKern, A Jolly Bad Fellow)
• E. B. Fern is a science fiction author played by Harold Kasket in "Amazing Stories," an episode of the British television anthology Red Letter Day
• Tom Choley was played by Paul Angelis in a six-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel A Dog’s Ransom on the anthology series Armchair Thriller
• The Winchester is from the movie Shaun of the Dead
• Neville Hetherington (Robert Crewdson, Her Private Hell)
• Sybil Waite (Patricia Haines, Virgin Witch)
• Sixth Form Girls in Chains, Zarana and Lady Celia (Lady Celia Asquith-Leaves) are from Newman’s story "Soho Golem"
• The Science of Sex is from the movie Deep End
• Bathtime with Brenda is from the movie Terror
• Thomas Nolan is David Hemmings’ character from the film Blow-Up (Newman provided him with his surname, which is the same as that of Hemmings’ character in The Charge of the Light Brigade; Hemmings named one of his sons Nolan in honor of that role)
• Lucy Westenra
• Sir John Rowan (Peter Cushing, Corruption)
• Baron Meinster (David Peel, The Brides of Dracula)
• Clive Landseer (Alexis Kanner, Goodbye Gemini; the "white-blonde male and female twins who 'came together'" are Julian and Jacki Dewar, played by Martin Potter and Judy Geeson)
• Syrie Van Epp (Elizabeth Shepherd, The Corridor People)
• The Fevre Dream is from George R. R. Martin’s vampire novel of the same name
• Sebastian Newcastle (Don Sebastian de Villanueva, from vampire novels by Les Daniels)
• Herbert von Krolock and Professor Abronsius (Iain Quarrier and Jack MacGowran, Dance of the Vampires aka The Fearless Vampire Killers)
• Mrs. Michaela Cazaret and Tom Lynn (Ava Gardner and Ian McShane, The Ballad of Tam Lin)
• Paul Durward (Shane Briant, Captain Kronos–Vampire Hunter)
• Canon Copely-Syle (To the Devil a Daughter by Dennis Wheatley)
• Emir Abdulla Akaba was played by Henry Soskin in the "Death a la Carte" episode of The Avengers
• Plainview Oil is a reference to the film There Will Be Blood
• Berkeley-Willoughby (Archibald Berkeley-Willoughby, The Adventures of PC 49 radio series)
• Jack Andrus (Kirk Douglas, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff, Targets; his role of Clayface is meant to evoke Basil Karlo, the first of several Batman foes to use the name Clayface, who modeled his masked persona after the character he played in the horror film The Terror, which is also the name of Byron Orlok’s last film)
• Countess Addhema (The Vampire Countess by Paul Féval)
• Toby Dammit (Terence Stamp, Spirits of the Dead)
• The Daughter of the Dragon (Fah Lo Suee, daughter of Fu Manchu; her alias of Lin Tang is the name given to Fu’s daughter in the Harry Alan Towers-produced films in the late ‘60s, in which she was portrayed by Tsai Chin, while her role as Thomas Nolan’s personal assistant is a reference to Chin’s appearance as Thomas’ unnamed receptionist in Blow-Up)
• The Lord of Strange Deaths (Fu Manchu)
• Barbara von Weidenborn (Evelyne Kraft, Lady Dracula; her pseudonym Barbarushka is a reference to 1960s fashion model Veruschka, who appeared as a fictionalized version of herself in Blow-Up)
• Edwina (Edwina Lionheart; Diana Rigg, Theatre of Blood)
• Marcus Monserrat and Mrs. Monserrat (Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey, The Sorcerers)
• Hugh Conway and Shangri-La (Lost Horizon by James Hilton)
• Shambhala is from Tibetan and Indian Buddhist mythology
• K’un-L’un is the adopted home of the Marvel Comics hero Iron Fist
• Kent Allard
• "The secret of killing via shouting" is a reference to the film The Shout
• Catherine Cornelius is the sister of Michael Moorcock’s adventurer and secret agent Jerry Cornelius
• Moira Kent ("The Dancing Life of Moira Kent," strip in the British comic Bunty)
• Fontaine Khaled (The Stud and The Bitch by Jackie Collins)
• Sir Billy Langly was played by Kevin Brennan in "The Human Time Bomb," an episode of the television series Doomwatch
• The Steel Claw is a British comics character
• Vanessa is Richard Jeperson’s lovely companion
• Charles Beauregard
• Danny Dravot
• Whitney is Whitney Gauge from Newman’s "Moon Moon Moon"
• Maureen is Maureen Mountmain from Newman’s "Seven Stars"
• Louise-Ésperance is Madame Louise Ésperance "Mama-Lou" d’Ailly-Guin from Newman’s "The Serial Murders," which is also the source of Corri (Professor Barbara Corri) and The Northern Barstows
• Quelou is Mademoiselle Quelou from Newman’s Doctor Who novel Time and Relative
• CI5 is from the British television series The Professionals
• WOOC(P) (The Ipcress File by Len Deighton)
• The Circus is from the George Smiley novels by John le Carré
• Universal Exports is the front for the British Secret Service in the James Bond novels
• The Section is from the TV series Callan; David Callan’s boss is known as Colonel Hunter
• Sandbaggers are a reference to the British spy TV series The Sandbaggers
• Scalphunters are a reference to le Carré’s Smiley novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• Edwin Winthrop
• Mildew Manor is from Kim Newman’s story of the same name
• James Manfred, O.B.E. (James Cossins, Raw Meat aka Deathline)
• The Department of Administrative Affairs is from the British sitcom Yes Minister
• Nicholas Dyer (Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd)
• Professor Elwyn Clayton (George Zucco, Dead Men Walk)
• Faber College is from the film National Lampoon’s Animal House
• Santonix (Rudolf Santonix; Endless Night by Agatha Christie)
• Harry Paget Flashman
• Horatio Hornblower
• George Edward Challenger
• Sir Francis Varney
• Prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall, Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream)
• Dru is Drusilla (Juliet Landau) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Ricky Strange (Steve Patterson) and Groover’s are from the film Au Pair Girls
• Mina Harker
• Kostaki ("The Pale Lady" by Alexandre Dumas)
• Styles, the Haymarket Strangler (Edward Styles; Michael Atkinson, Grip of the Strangler)
• Constable Thackeray is from the Inspector Cribb novels by Peter Lovesey
• Eric DeBoys was played by Patrick Mower in The Avengers episode "A Sense of History"
• Cathy Castel and Pony Tricot are meant to be the vampires played by Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel in several films directed by Jean Rollin; "Pony Tricot" is one of Marie-Pierre’s stage names.
• Howard W. Campbell Jr. (Mother Night and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut)
• Miss Brabazon (Sheila Keith, House of Mortal Sin)
• Scrawdyke (Malcolm Scrawdyke; John Hurt, Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs)
• Withnail (Richard E. Grant, Withnail & I)
• Moïse King is a combination of Moise from the film The Party’s Over and King from the film These Are the Damned; both roles were played by Oliver Reed
• Simon Armstrong (The Feast of the Wolf by Thomas Blackburn)
• Anna Franklyn (Jacqueline Pearce, The Reptile; Pearce also played Marianne Gray in "A Sense of History")
• Fran (Marianne Morris, Vampyres)
• Roquentin (Antoine Roquentin; Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre)
• Elizabeth Bathory
• Hesselius (Dr. Martin Hesselius, In A Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan LeFanu)
• "The vanishing police box" is the Doctor’s TARDIS from Doctor Who
• The Mother of Tears is from Dario Argento’s film trilogy consisting of Suspiria, Inferno, and Mother of Tears
• Carmilla
• Edward Langdon, MP (Lennard Pearce, Face of Darkness)
• Dr. John Hardy (Marius Goring, The Expert)
• Lionel St. Dubois (Lorenzo "L. S. D." St. Dubois; Dick Shawn, The Producers)
• Horace Rumpole (Leo McKern, Rumpole of the Bailey)
• Joe Hawkins is the protagonist of the Skinhead novels by "Richard Allen," a pen name for James Moffat
• Adam Cochran (Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead by "Etienne Aubin," also a Moffat pseudonym)
• Reginald Bird (Ronald "Budgie" Bird; Adam Faith, Budgie)
• Peter Craven (Malcolm McFee, Please Sir! and The Fenn Street Gang)
• Fullalove of the Gazette (James Fullalove; Paul Whitsun-Jones, The Quatermass Experiment; Brian Worth, Quatermass and the Pit)
• Stenning of the Express (Peter Stenning; Edward Judd, The Day the Earth Caught Fire)
• DCI Charlie Barlow (Stratford Johns) and New Town are from the TV series Z Cars and its many spin-offs
• Sergeant Lynch (James Ellis, Z Cars)
• Jasper Lakin was played by John Laurie in The Avengers episode "Brief for Murder"
• Perryman (Det. Sgt. Perryman; Michael McStay, No Hiding Place)
• North (Det. Sgt. Bill North; Roger Rowland, Special Branch)
• The Bowmans, from the titular episode of the British sitcom Hancock, is a parody of the radio soap opera The Archers
• Sister George is from the play and film The Killing of Sister George
• Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham, Dracula A.D. 1972; Joanna Lumley, The Satanic Rites of Dracula)
• Marcus Obadiah (The Dead Travel Fast by Richard Tate)
• Kingstead Cemetery is from Dracula
• The India-Rubber Men are from Edgar Wallace’s novel of the same name
• Graf von Orlok (Max Schreck, Nosferatu)
• John Blaylock (David Bowie, The Hunger)
• Orlon Kronsteen (They Thirst and "Makeup" by Robert McCammon)
• Mavis Weld (The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler)
• Biff Bailey (Roy Castle, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors)
• Marcel DeLange (Martin Kosleck, House of Horrors [no relation to the above])
• The Gorilla of Soho is from the 1968 German film of the same name
• Renfield
• St. Swithin’s and Michael Upton (Barry Evans) are from the television series Doctor in the House and Doctor at Large

Crossover Cover: The Hulk Meets the Hunchback of Notre Dame

This comic is adapted from "When Monsters Meet," an episode of the 1980s Incredible Hulk cartoon. Dr. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross are in Paris to meet with the Academy of Science. Betty is carrying a key that opens an underground gold vault. The namesake and great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Quasimodo kidnaps Betty, hoping both to plunder the vault and to have one of the assembled scientists mutate him into a “normal” human form. Bruce has been given a formula by one of his colleagues that could cure him of his double life as the Hulk, but winds up losing it, and it falls into the hands of Quasimodo. However, the formula seemingly lacks efficacy, and Banner turns into the Hulk and does battle with the hunchback. However, Quasimodo is finally cured of his deformities, and he and the Hulk make peace.

Crossover of the Week

1949

SHOWDOWN AT STEAM TOWN

            A man named Leo hitches a ride with two young men named Dean and Sal. Sal says that Dean has problems with his family on his father’s side, and therefore he is tense when meeting people from Britain. They are nearly crushed by a massive creature. They are led to a place called Steam Town by an elderly Native American named Little Beaver. They meet a young woman named Fran Reade, whose grandfather built Steam Town. Little Beaver refers to atomic bomb testing sites such as Los Alamos, White Sands, and Gamma Base. The creature that attacked Leo, Dean, and Sal turns out to be an ant that has grown to gigantic size due to exposure to radiation. Fran helps drive off the ant (as well as another of its kind) with a steam-powered automaton built by her great-grandfather.

            Short story by Travis Hiltz in Night of the Nyctalope, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2012; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 12), Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2013. Leo is Jean de La Hire’s hero Leo Saint-Clair, aka the Nyctalope. Dean and Sal are Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise from Jack Kerouac’s classic Beat novel On the Road. Win Scott Eckert’s essay “Who’s Going to Take Over the World When I’m Gone? (A Look at the Genealogies of Wold Newton Family Super-Villains and Their Nemeses)” (Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, Win Scott Eckert, MonkeyBrain Books, 2005) argued that Dean was the great-nephew of Professor Moriarty. As a boy, Little Beaver was the sidekick of the title character of Stephen Slesinger and Fred Harman’s Western comic strip Red Ryder. Fran Reade is the great-granddaughter of dime novel inventor Frank Reade, and the granddaughter of his son Frank Jr, both of whom built steam-men. Gamma Base is from the exploits of Marvel Comics’ the Hulk, although the CU version of the Hulk is much less powerful than his Marvel Universe counterpart, and his rampages are much less destructive. The giant ants are from the movie Them!