Crossover Cover: Fury in Steel

 

Are you a pulp fan?

Then you'll love this novel, in which the Spider encounters Emile C. Tepperman's Suicide Squad!

For more information, be sure to purchase 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: 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 of the Week

Winter 1936-Late Summer 1937 

THE DOMINO LADY’S SCANDAL 

The Domino Lady (Ellen Patrick) tries to clear the name of actor Emilio Romani, who has been falsely accused of statutory rape. Ellen met Romani at a party held by Neville Sinclair a week ago. Romani knows Alan Swann. During a trip to New York, Ellen met Theodore Marley Brooks, a lawyer who regularly tops the best dressed lists. While Ellen is no Monk Mayfair or Fergus MacMurdie, she is a skilled chemist. Romani’s alleged crime happened after he got back from a party thrown by Satan Devlin. Romani mentions the parties Valentino threw every Friday night at the Hyperion Hotel. Ellen learned how to palm a syringe from Mandrake, and how to crack a safe from Jimmie Gray, the heir to the Graylock Safe Company. During another one of her trips to New York, a fellow crimefighter taught Ellen a baritsu move that effectively turned her cape into a whip. The mastermind behind the plot against Romani, councilman and chess player John Sanford, taunts Ellen about her code against killing, saying, “I would already be dead if the Spider was standing before me.” A year later, Ellen catches up with Sanford in Palm City, where he is now calling himself James Fleming. 

Short story by Brad Mengel in Domino Lady Volume 3, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2019. Neville Sinclair is from the film version of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer. Although the film is incompatible with the comic and its continuations published by IDW, which are in the Crossover Universe, Adam Lance Garcia’s The Green Lama: Unbound and Frank Schildiner’s “Blood of the Hummingbird” also establish Sinclair has a counterpart in the CU. Alan Swann is from the movie My Favorite Year. Brooks and Mayfair are two of the bronze man’s aides. MacMurdie is one of the members of the avenging hero’s crime-fighting organization. Jack “Satan” Devlin appeared in five stories by Ernest Manning in Saucy Movie Tales from July 1936-January 1937. The Hyperion Hotel is from the TV series Angel. Mandrake is the title character of Lee Falk’s comic strip Mandrake the Magician. Jimmie Gray, aka the Shadow (no relation to the American pulp hero), is an Australian comic book character created by Jeff Wilkinson. The fellow crimefighter is the vigilante of the shadows. Baritsu is from Doyle and Watson’s “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The crossover comic “The Conflagration Man” implied Sherlock Holmes had taught both the shadowy vigilante and Doc baritsu. The Spider needs no further introduction. John Sanford (aka James Fleming) is meant to be the grandfather of Peter Fleming, aka Chess, from the TV series The Cape, which is set in Palm City. 

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 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 Cover: Phases of the Moon: Full Moon

 

Are you a fan of the books and comics put out by Moonstone Books?

Then you'll love this decades-spanning graphic novel which features various characters published by Moonstone, from the Spider to Sheena!

For more information, check out my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3! Much like the first two volumes, this new tome is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 and will be published by Meteor House!

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 of the Week

Winter 1940; Summer 2011

A PLAGUE ON THE LAND

Moran’s Pub, owned by Seamus Moran, is frequented by vigilantes. Seamus pours the owner of a fire opal another large Bushmill’s, and thinks of his cousin Paddy and his bar uptown. Seamus thinks most of the vigilantes are killers, with two exceptions: “the green one was a man of peace, the pink one killed when she had to but mostly avoided it.” Seamus, a leprechaun, asks the Nightmare to deal with trouble in his homeland, Eire, the spiritual plane of Ireland. In the 21st century, Detective Sergeant Bianca Jones of the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide division talks to Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, at Paddy’s. Bianca thinks the Nightmare is “a character, like the Spider or the Pink Reaper,” but Nemesis says he was real, and persuades Bianca to go back into the past to help the hero in Eire.

Short story by John L. French in Apocalypse 13, Diane Raetz, ed., Padwolf Publishing, 2012. The vigilante with the fire opal is the shadowy hero of the pulps. Paddy Moran and Nemesis are from Patrick Thomas’ Murphy’s Lore series. “The green one” is the Green Lama, while “the pink one” is the Pink Reaper, another character from the Murphy’s Lore series. The Nightmare is a pulp-era vigilante created by French. The Nightmare became romantically involved with Nemesis in Thomas and French’s book From the Shadows. Bianca Jones appears in her own series of stories by French. Bianca is wrong about the Nightmare and the Pink Reaper being fictional, and she is also wrong about the Spider’s nonexistence.

Crossover of the Week

Apologies for the lack of posts since Monday. I was in New York City from Tuesday until a few hours ago. :)

1939
THE UNDEAD KILLER
The Nightmare battles the Dead Man, a zombie sent back in time from the future, who is now acting as an enforcer for gangster Wolf Hopkins. A mugger tells the Nightmare about a conversation he overheard among a group of hoods at the Black Ship. The Nightmare thinks maybe Kent can give him some pointers on phrases to use to intimidate criminals. Later, in his alter ego of Michael Shaw, the hero is approached by Lieutenant Jerome Easton at the pub Moran’s. Easton refers to “gentlemen’s clubs, like that one the Commissioner belongs to, what’s it called? The Baltic Club?” Shaw replies, “Something like that.” Contemplating the best course of action in confronting Hopkins, Shaw thinks, “Richard would charge in with guns a-blazing, taking down his quarry, but only after leveling half the city in doing so. Kent would already know where Hopkins’ headquarters was. He would stealthily infiltrate it and find the clue that would lead him straight to the Dead Man. He’d go there straightaway, always assuming he didn’t have to rescue an agent or two first.” Considering whether he should recruit agents of his own, or an attractive female companion, he thinks, “Who am I kidding? If I had a girl like Nina or Carol, I’d marry her at once, and the Nightmare would be a memory. Sometimes we can be such damn fools.”
Short story by John L. French in Zombies in Time and Space, Ron Hanna, ed., Wild Cat Books, 2010. Kent is the alter ego of a certain shadowy pulp hero; the Black Ship, the Commissioner, and the club to which he belongs are from the same series. Moran’s is owned by Seamus Moran, whose cousin Paddy Moran runs the bar Bulfinche’s in Patrick Thomas’ Murphy’s Lore series. Richard is Richard Wentworth, better known as the Spider. “Nina” may be a typo, and meant to refer to Wentworth’s beloved, Nita Van Sloan. Alternatively, it could be a reference to Nina Ferrera, niece and former assistant of Harold Ward’s pulp villain Doctor Death, and the girlfriend of Death’s foe Jimmy Holm. Carol is Carol Baldwin, girlfriend of Tony Quinn, alias the Black Bat. The central premise of Zombies in Time and Space is in the far future, the Zombie Institute of Time and Space was created, which sends the undead back in time because physically traveling through time is impossible for living beings. Since there are numerous instances of recorded time travel by living beings in the Crossover Universe, the Institute likely exists in the future of an alternate reality, and the Dead Man was sent to the 1930s of the CU rather than his native reality. This raises the possibility the other time periods in which the zombies found themselves were also alternate realities, both to their own universe and to the CU.

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 of the Week

July 1996

EXPLOSIVE JUSTICE

Former police officer Bowen Chadwick (secretly the superpowered vigilante known as the Blaster) watches a news story on National News Net, a part of Havens International Media, delivered by Curtis Van Loan. In a flashback to the circumstances under which Chadwick gained his powers, Sergeant Sampson Jones tells Special Agent Simmons, “I do not care if the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover comes up to me with a request signed by the ghosts of Eliot Ness, Wyatt Earp, and Sherlock Holmes; I will not relinquish control of this environmental travesty.” Van Loan later introduces Chadwick to another vigilante, the Voice, who needs his help against a right wing militia. The Voice says, “If it weren’t for the women and children in the compound, I’d be sorely tempted to use my honorary Uncle Dick’s scorched earth methods. Go Mack Bolan on ’em.” After the militia is defeated, a helicopter picks up the Voice and Chadwick; the crew of the aircraft refers to the pilot as String.

Short story by Erwin K. Roberts in Casebook of the Voice, Modern Knights Press, 2014. Havens International Media is an outgrowth of the Daily Clarion newspaper owned by Frank Havens, an ally of the Phantom Detective (aka Richard Curtis Van Loan). The Detective’s girlfriend in the pulp stories was Muriel Havens, Frank’s daughter; Curtis “Curt” Van Loan is their son. Sergeant Jones is almost certainly mistaken about Sherlock Holmes being deceased, and was probably fooled by Holmes faking his death in 1957. The Voice’s honorary Uncle Dick is Richard “Dick” Wentworth, better known as the Spider. Mack Bolan, the Executioner, is the protagonist of a series of novels by Don Pendleton and others. It has been suggested Bolan is Wentworth’s son. The helicopter pilot is Stringfellow “String” Hawke from the television series Airwolf.

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: The Devil of Harbor City

This collection of stories has crossover connections to other pulp characters, as well as one of the author's own New Pulp characters. In "Enter the Devil," the Harbor City police commissioner asks Officer Frank Devlin to become a vigilante. Devlin replies, "Well, now, do you want me dressing up as a bat or a spider or something? Or should I just blend in with the shadows?" The Commissioner replies, "Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, but I’d rather them be afraid of a crazy cop with a license to kill." Devlin is referring to Batman, the Spider, and the Shadow. In "Deal with the Devil," Sergeant Benjamin Campbell dismisses the idea of Devlin hiding in darkness: "That was what that guy in New York would do. Devlin’s not one to play with shadows." The Police Commissioner introduces Devlin to Michael Shaw, a New Yorker who owns a private investigation agency, whose services he has enlisted to clean up the courts in Harbor City. Shaw refers to underworld hangouts in New York such as the Pink Rat and the Black Ship. 'That guy in New York" is the Shadow. The Pink Rat and the Black Ship are underworld dives from the Shadow novels. Michael Shaw operated in the 1930s as the vigilante called the Nightmare, as seen in a series of stories by French. In "The Devil's Wake," Devlin is apparently killed by men working for New York City gangster Wolf Hopkins. Hopkins planned his attempt on Devlin’s life with a Harbor City crook at the Red Thorn in New York, which has the same reputation as the legendary Pink Rat and Black Ship, bars where the police dare not go. The Police Commissioner, Sergeant Benjamin Campbell, and private investigator Michael Shaw attempt to avenge Devlin’s death, but he turns out to be very much alive. In the 1930s, Wolf Hopkins was the archenemy of the Nightmare. In "Devil's End," Devlin finally ends the menace of Wolf Hopkins. Afterwards, he and his bride-to-be Angela Martinelli accept a job with Michael Shaw’s private investigation firm.

Crossover of the Week

1914

THE MARK OF THE RED LEECH

            Private Henry Jones Junior is scolded for journaling by Captain Dickson, whom Colonel Renwick respects. Jones’ journal entry refers to Pvt. Simpson. Dickson refers to Captain Spencer and the others, and doubts that they will see Captain Ulysses Paxton again in this world. Jones says that his father has met Dickson’s famous mentor. The mark left on the corpses of a group of soldiers reminds Dickson of something in his mentor’s files called the red leech, a case which his biographer never published. A maddened Major Richard Wentworth attacks Dickson and the others, but is subdued and calmed down. The killer proves to be the vampire Sir Francis Varney. Dickson says that Dracula is real. Varney is killed by a man named Isaac, who is accompanied by a little girl. Several groups were investigating the soldiers’ deaths, including one led by Colonel Renwick and one including Colonel Wyndham-Price.

            Short story by Travis Hiltz in Harry Dickson vs. the Spider, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2014. Private Henry Jones Junior is better known as Indiana Jones. Captain Dickson is detective Harry Dickson, from pulp stories by Jean Ray and others. Colonel John “Renny” Renwick will later become one of Doc Savage’s five aides. Pvt. Simpson is meant to be an ancestor of the titular family from the animated sitcom The Simpsons. However, The Simpsons is too absurd in its events to comfortably take place in the CU. Most likely, there is a Simpson family in the CU, but they have had very different misadventures from their cartoon counterparts. Also, they almost certainly do not have yellow skin and only four fingers. Captain Eliot Spencer will later become the Cenobite known as Pinhead, as seen in the movie Hellraiser, based on Clive Barker’s story “The Hellbound Heart,” and its sequels. Captain Ulysses Paxton is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars novels. Dickson’s mentor is Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Watson referred to Holmes’ involvement in “the repulsive story of the Red Leech” in “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.” Major Richard Wentworth will later fight crime as the Spider. Sir Francis Varney is from James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire. Dracula needs no introduction at this point. Isaac Laquedem (aka the Wandering Jew) and the little girl (Lotte) are from Paul Féval’s novel The Wandering Jew’s Daughter. Despite the different spellings, Colonel Wyndham-Price is meant to be an ancestor of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce from the television series Angel.

Crossover of the Week

Summer 1935-1936

DAY OF THE DESTROYERS

            Jimmie Flint, Secret Agent X-11 of the Intelligence Service Command, battles Colonel Lucian Starliss and his Medusa Council, who seek to oust President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and take over the United States. Along the way, he receives aid from the Phantom Detective (Richard Curtis Van Loan), the Black Bat (Tony Quinn), the Green Lama (Jethro Dumont), and the Gray Face (Owen Tull.) Herald-Tribune reporter Luke Jaconetti moonlights for the Amalgamated Press, which employs Jimmie’s girlfriend Kara Eastland. Luke receives a phone call from Betty Dale. After the Council is defeated, Kara says that Dumont is organizing other wealthy men such as himself, including Van Loan and “that odd chap, Wentworth” for a Patriots for Progress group.

            An anthology of linked stories by Gary Phillips, Tommy Hancock, Aaron Shaps, Jeri Westerson, Ron Fortier, Eric Fein, Joe Gentile, Paul Bishop, and Adam Lance Garcia, edited by Gary Phillips, Moonstone Books, 2015. Luke Jaconetti first appeared in Garcia’s story “The Black Rock Conspiracy,” featuring Lester Dent’s pulp hero Foster Fade; he also appeared in Garcia’s novel The Green Lama: Scions. Reporter Betty Dale is the girlfriend of Secret Agent X, who has no known connection to Secret Agent X-11. “That odd chap, Wentworth” is Richard Wentworth, aka the Spider. This crossover brings Secret Agent X-11 (a character created for this anthology) and the Gray Face (another original character, created by Phillips), into the CU.

Crossover Cover: The Spider: Shadow of Evil

Shakespeare, Montaigne, and John Raymond Legrasse are quoted on the subject of evil. Richard Wentworth tells Commissioner Kirkpatrick that he’ll be enjoying a fine meal at the Cobalt Club while Kirkpatrick is accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Ladies Auxiliary. William Shakespeare and Michel de Montaigne were real people, but John Raymond Legrasse, from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” is not. Henderson has chronicled Legrasse’s further exploits in a series of stories. The Cobalt Club is from the Shadow novels. Wentworth celebrates his birthday, allegedly his fortieth, early in the book. However, Wentworth was born in 1891, which would make this birthday actually his fifty-third. There is also a bonus story, “Lights, Camera, Murder!” by Rich Harvey. Ed Race, the Masked Marksman, investigates the sabotage of a film being made by a friend of his. A grimy storefront set reminds Race of old Doc Turner’s drugstore in Manhattan. Race had his own series of stories by Emile C. Tepperman in The Spider pulp magazine. Doc Turner, a pharmacist and amateur detective, appeared in stories by Arthur Leo Zagat in the same magazine. Both Race and Turner encountered the Spider in 1934, as seen in Harvey’s story “One Death to a Customer,” bringing them both into the CU.