Crossover TV Episode: Muse

 

In this episode of Endeavour set in April 1968, Endeavour Morse, who has been promoted to Detective Sergeant, refuses to believe in the existence of an international thief called the Shadow, saying “It’s all a bit Simon Templar.” Among the items the Shadow is reputed to have stolen is the Lugash Diamond. The artist’s model whose murder Morse is investigating once posed for painter Gerard Pickman. Simon Templar is Leslie Charteris’ “laughing Robin Hood of crime,” the Saint. The Lugash Diamond is the titular gem from the movie The Pink Panther and its sequels. Gerard Pickman may be a relative of painter Richard Upton Pickman from H. P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model.”

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 TV Episode: Death of a Great Dane

 

In this episode of The Avengers, John Steed identifies Sir James Mann's car as a '61 Hirondel. The Hirondel is the fictional automobile driven by the Saint in Leslie Charteris' novels.

This crossover 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 official and fully AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: The Air Loom

 

The Pulptress battles the Air Loom Gang, who have been causing people to experience sudden madness in England, including her old teacher, Peter Knight. Helping her is Knight’s grandson Roger, a New Scotland Yard inspector. Knight is said to have fought “the ungodly” as early as the Roaring Twenties. Roger describes his grandfather as “the modern Robin Hood.” The Pulptress asks Roger, “Did your grandfather ever tell you about his really strange adventures? The story about the giant bugs or the one about Loch Ness?” At the end of the case, the elder Knight tells Emily and Roger, “The two of you did well...Although you realize, you owe it all to my teaching.” Emily responds, “As the actress said to the bishop.” The Pulptress is already in the CU through meetings with Derrick Ferguson’s character Dillon, Erwin K. Roberts’ hero the Voice, and Ron Fortier’s undead vigilante Brother Bones. “Peter Knight” is a thinly disguised version of Simon Templar, the Saint.
This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, winging your way in the future from Meteor House! Much like the first two books, this one is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: The False Globe

In this story by Erwin K. Roberts, the Moon Man (Steve Thatcher) remembers a reporter from the St. Louis Clarion telling him about the Saint, an Englishman dubbed the “Modern Robin Hood of Crime,” who steals from what he calls “the ungodly.” The reporter also said for some reason the Clarion’s home office takes a serious interest in mysterious folks like the Saint. The Moon Man appeared in tales by Frederick C. Davis in the pulp magazine Ten Detective Aces in 1933–1937. The Saint, also known as Simon Templar, is from Leslie Charteris’ books. The Clarion’s home office is the New York Clarion, owned by Frank Havens, an ally of another pulp hero, the Phantom Detective.

Crossover Cover: The Secret Service

Spy Jack London trains his nephew Gary in the art of espionage. After Jack is shot and killed, Gary toasts his uncle with London’s own trainer, Rupert Graves, who says, “Your uncle and I toasted a lot of old pals over the years. Steed. Gambit. Even some of the old timers like Drake and Templar." Apparently John Steed (The Avengers and The New Avengers), Mike Gambit (also from The New Avengers), John Drake (Danger Man/Secret Agent and The Prisoner), whose birthday is today, and Simon Templar (aka the Saint) have all died or faked their deaths by the time this story takes place. The year is 2009 based on a reference to Elton John trying to adopt. The Secret Service is supposed to take place in the same universe as several of Millar’s other comic books, including Wanted, Kick-Ass, Nemesis, MPH, Superior, and Supercrooks. However, including all of these series would bring in many more superheroes and supervillains than can smoothly fit into the Crossover Universe. Furthermore, Wanted portrays the world as secretly controlled by supervillains, which also does not fit with CU continuity. Therefore, the events of The Secret Service must have occurred in both the CU and the “Millar-verse.”

For the record, I'm not a fan of Millar's writing, and Civil War in particular is one of my most hated comics of all time, so much so that I'm glad they're jettisoning most of Millar's plot for the film. That said, my policy is not to exclude works that have a valid link to the CU simply because I dislike them or their author. I know my tastes are not everyone else's, and there are works I love that are in the CU that not everyone in my circle of friends enjoys as much as I do.

Crossover of the Week

June 1945

CHANCE OF A GHOST

George Chance’s (aka the Green Ghost) friend Ned Standish, of the Kingsport Standishes, a summa cum laude graduate of Miskatonic University, has been accused of murder. Although Chance calls Standish “Commissioner,” he is actually an Assistant Police Commissioner for one of New York City’s boroughs, as are Weston, Kirkpatrick, Woods, Foster, Quistrom, Gordon, Warner, Hombert, and others. Chance refers to other vigilantes active at the time he began his career, such as the Black Bat, Captain Midnight, the Phantom Detective, the Domino Lady, and Ki-Gor. Chance’s wartime missions began with liberating Professor Horatio Smith, who was something of a modern-day Scarlet Pimpernel, from a supposedly unescapable German prison camp. Subsequent missions for the OSS included a strange encounter with a hideously wriggling whitish worm at an abandoned chateau in Northern France and one with a revolting frog-mouthed, tentacle-lipped creature that accosted him in the sewers of Paris. Standish went over the file on flapper girl Toby Basinger’s case with D.A. Skinner. A lookalike for Standish murdered Basinger, who killed an ex-girlfriend of Chance’s, nightclub singer Angel de la Ruse. Chance’s aide Joe Harper smokes Red Apple Cigarettes.

Short story by George Chance, edited by Win Scott Eckert in Legends of New Pulp Fiction, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2015. The Green Ghost (aka the Ghost) appeared in the pulp magazine The Ghost, Super-Detective (later retitled The Ghost Detective, and then The Green Ghost Detective). Kingsport, Massachusetts and Miskatonic University are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos tales. Commissioner Weston appears in the tales of a vigilante who can cloud men’s minds. Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick is from the Spider stories. Commissioner Woods is from the Green Lama’s pulp exploits. Commissioner Charlie Foster is from the Secret Agent X tales. Commissioner Arthur J. Quistrom is from Leslie Charteris’ novel The Saint in New York. Commissioner Gordon operated as a whispering vigilante in pulp novels by Laurence Donovan. Commissioner Jerome Warner is from the Black Bat stories. Commissioner Hombert and D.A. Skinner are from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. Captain Midnight is from the radio series of the same name. The Phantom Detective appeared in pulp stories by Robert Wallace. The Domino Lady is a pulp heroine created by Lars Anderson. Ki-Gor is a jungle hero who appeared in pulp tales by John Peter Drummond. Professor Horatio Smith is from the movie Pimpernel Smith. The Scarlet Pimpernel is from Baroness Orczy’s novels, of course. The seemingly unescapable prison camp is Loki from Farmer’s authorized Doc Savage novel Escape from Loki, which is also the source of the whitish worm, which Doc encountered in Baron de Musard’s chateau during World War I. The frog-mouthed, tentacle-lipped creature is Dewer, who encountered occult detective Jules de Grandin in Seabury Quinn’s story “The Bride of Dewer.” Toby Basinger and Angel de la Ruse are from Howard Hopkins’ Green Ghost story “Ghost of a Chance,” although Basinger’s name is Eckert’s invention. Red Apple Cigarettes appear in a number of films, including Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, as well as a number of other works by Eckert.

Crossover Cover: Don't Point that Thing at Me

Art dealer Charlie Mortdecai visits specialized automobile body maker Mr. Spinoza, who is willing to consider restoring or recreating various brands of car, including Hirondelles. Leslie Charteris’ hero Simon Templar, the Saint, drove a fictional brand of car called the Hirondelle (also spelled Hirondel). This reference confirms Charlie Mortdecai in the CU.

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.)

Crossover Cover: Daemons are Forever

The second novel in the Secret Histories series. Eddie Drood, now leading the Drood Family, must find a way to drive out the Loathly Ones, demons that were brought to Earth during World War II to help fight the Nazis, before they summon the Hungry Gods to destroy the world. Appearing or mentioned are: a Hirondel sports car (from Leslie Charteris' Saint novels); Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); Merlin’s Glass (from Green's Nightside series); Vril Power, Inc. (a reference to the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race); Harry Fabulous (also from the Nightside books); a ghost named Ash (Leonard Ash from Shadows Fall); a minor Norse godling (Jimmy Thunder from Green's Drinking Midnight Wine); the Many-Angled Ones (a term originally used by Grant Morrison to describe the Lloigor of the Cthulhu Mythos in the superhero comic book Zenith, which must take place in an AU, but it has been adopted by other Mythos authors over the years); the Celestials (an alien race with untold cosmic power appearing in various series published by Marvel Comics); Renfield’s (named after Dracula's zoophagous servant, of course); a couple of Baron Frankenstein’s more successful creations; Melmoth the Wanderer (from Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name); Dracula; a French demon hunter named Mallorie (possibly a reference to the French horror film Bloody Mallory); the Kandarians (from the Evil Dead films); Dr. Syn’s Fly by Night Delivery Service (a reference to Russell Thorndike's Dr. Syn novels); “this American gentleman and his giant rabbit” (Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey from the movie Harvey); Giles Deathstalker (from Green's Deathstalker series, which takes place in one of many potential futures for the CU); a giant mechanical spider confiscated from an American mad genius in the Wild West (from the film version of The Wild Wild West); the Kessel run (from the Star Wars films); and an Old One (from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.)

Crossover Covers: Secret Histories

Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, is a member of the Drood (née Druid) clan that protects the world from supernatural threats. He is suddenly inexplicably declared a rogue by his family, who set out to kill him. He strives to learn the reason why. The Secret Histories books are set in the same universe as the Nightside series and other works by Simon R. Green. Appearing or mentioned in this book are: a Time Agent whose latest regeneration has gone terribly wrong, turning him inside out (a reference to Doctor Who and Torchwood); the Necronomicon (from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, of course); a Kandarian possessing amulet (referencing the Evil Dead films); the Old Ones (another Mythos reference); a Hyde using a distillation of Jekyll’s old formula (from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel); Rossum’s Unionized Robots (a reference to Karel Capek's play R.U.R.); a 1930s powder blue Hirondel convertible sports car (the same fictional brand of car driven by Simon Templar, aka the Saint); Alice Little (aka Alice Liddell of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fame); Penelope Creighton (presumably a relative of Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward from Thunderbirds, which probably takes place in an AU); Area 52 (located in the Antarctic, and therefore presumably the same Area 52 seen in the Image Comics series of the same name); taduki (from the Allan Quatermain novels); Martian red weed (from Wells' The War of the Worlds); the Arcadia Project (from the Nightside book Hell to Pay); Vril Power Inc. (based on the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race); the Lurkers on the Threshold (a reference to August Derleth's The Lurker at the Threshold); Arne Saknussemm (from Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth); Cave Carson (a longtime DC Comics hero); a stuffed moomintroll (from Tove Jansson's Moomin books); a statue of a black bird (the Maltese Falcon); a small black lacquered puzzle box (a Lament Configuration from the Hellraiser films); the Holy Hand Grenade of St. Antioch (from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which would be a greatly exaggerated account of the quest for the Grail); scrimshaw carved from the bones of a great white whale (Moby Dick); and Baron von Frankenstein.