Crossover of the Week

Early June 2015

TOMMY HANCOCK’S BRANSON NON-ADVENTURE 

While New Pulp publisher and author Tommy Hancock is being treated at the Nettles Clinic for congestive heart failure, assassin and master of disguise Mirror Image is targeting another patient, Morton Vickers, an analyst for a multiagency task force operating against various loosely allied organized crime organizations. Vickers is the grandson of legendary 1930s G-Man Lynn Vickers. After hearing about the assassination plot, the Voice, long semi-retired, called Curt Van Loan’s covert network for help. A woman equally adept at disguise pits herself against Mirror Image. Lemuel Barnes of the Treasury Department is monitoring Vickers’ operation. The woman, Emily, later introduces herself to Hancock. 

Short story by Erwin K. Roberts in Legends of New Pulp Fiction, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2015. Tommy Hancock is a real person, and this story is inspired by a medical crisis he suffered in real life on June 8, 2015. Lynn Vickers, Agent G-77, appeared in nine stories by Bryan James Kelly in the pulps Public Enemy and Federal Agent from 1935-1938. The Voice is the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by Roberts. The hero is implicitly the son of Secret Agent X. Curt Van Loan, another of Roberts’ creations, is the son of Richard Curtis Van Loan, aka the Phantom Detective, and Muriel Havens. Emily is the Pulptress, a second-generation heroine who has appeared in novels and anthologies from Hancock’s company, Pro Se Productions. Lemuel Barnes is likely a descendant of Bromley Barnes, a Treasury Department agent who appeared in stories, novels, and collections by George Barton from 1909-1920. 

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

December 1999

VOICE OF PAIN

FBI Agent-in-Charge Jeffrey Reynolds tells Police Lt. Ralph Adams he has been reading classified official reports about vigilantes such as the Voice. The most recent report was dated in the late sixties, and concerned a disguise artist referred to as Mr. Jones who worked for the Bureau. The Voice refers to George Sanchez as “my Burbank.” Reynolds considers asking his Great-Uncle Lynn about the vigilantes of the old days. Former police chief Cobbins refers to vigilantes (or “Independent Operators”) who were involved in World War II, including an Australian who served with his country’s military while wearing a mask and using the code name “the Phantom Commando.”

Story by Erwin K. Roberts in Double Danger Tales #52, Tom and Ginger Johnson, eds., Fading Shadows Publications, May 2002; reprinted in Casebook of the Voice, Modern Knights Press, 2014. Mr. Jones appeared in Dennis Lynds’ story “The Man of a Million Faces,” published in the June 1968 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine under the house name of Robert Hart Davis. Burbank is an agent of a shadow-cloaked pulp hero, specializing in communications. Reynolds’ great-uncle Lynn is FBI agent Lynn Vickers, who appeared in stories by Bryan James Kelley in Public Enemy (later retitled Federal Agent). The Phantom Commando is an Australian comic character created by John Dixon who appeared in his own series from 1959–1970.

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

September 16-23, 1989

CRIME OF THE ARTS

            The Voice teams up with a woman named Dana to take down the militia to which the man who disfigured her belonged. The hero uses his father’s gas gun, and quotes the First Master Detective, “Watson, you see, but you do not observe.” The Voice uses a meditative technique one of his honorary uncles taught him rather than go to sleep. The Voice compares a female scientist working with Dana’s victimizer to the original Victor Frankenstein. The woman’s father worked at a secret facility that reprogrammed people located near a town in upstate New York. The Voice calls his friend Curt Van Loan of Havens International Media. The Voice uses his Uncle Kent’s mental trick to fall asleep nearly instantly, and teaches Dana his Uncle Jethro’s technique for reducing pain without drugs. The Voice remembers seeing a picture of the militia’s leader in the New York Clarion. The Voice thinks that Matt Helm would have taken a practice shot at a tree, but he can’t alert whoever is approaching. Dana compares the militia’s headquarters to Fu Manchu’s lair, but the Voice replies “If old Fu owned this place, we’d probably be dead by now.”

            Story by Erwin K. Roberts in Casebook of the Voice, Modern Knights Press, 2014. The Voice’s father is the pulp hero Secret Agent X, who was created by Paul Chadwick under the pen name “Brant House.” The First Master Detective is Sherlock Holmes. The Voice’s honorary uncle who taught him the meditative technique is Michael Traile, “the Man who Could Not Sleep,” the archenemy of Donald E. Keyhoe’s pulp villain Dr. Yen Sin. The reference to “the original Victor Frankenstein” is consistent with numerous books, comics, and movies in which relatives and descendants of Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein engage in experiments of their own. The secret facility near upstate New York is Doc Savage’s Crime College. Curt Van Loan is the son of Richard Curtis Van Loan, aka the Phantom Detective, who appeared in a titular pulp magazine by several authors using the pseudonym “Robert Wallace.” Van Loan’s girlfriend in the original pulp stories, Muriel Havens, is Curt’s mother; her father, Frank Havens, was the publisher of the New York Clarion newspaper. Uncle Kent is Kent Allard, alias the Shadow, while Uncle Jethro is Kendell Crossen’s pulp hero The Green Lama, whose real name was Jethro Dumont. The references to Matt Helm and Fu Manchu could be interpreted as allusions to fictional characters, but given the Voice’s familiarity with a number of other heroes and villains, I am treating them as valid crossovers.

Crossover Cover: Plutonium Nightmare

This novel features the New Pulp hero the Voice, who is heavily implied to be Secret Agent X's son. I covered the Voice's origin story, "Voice to a New Generation," in a Crossover of the Week post a while ago. At one point, the Voice says, “In the long run the police, as Nero Wolfe once told my Dad, have their legions of experts.” The hero also gives many thanks to Uncle Simon and Willie, his British knife throwing mentors, referring to Simon Templar (alias the Saint) and Willie Garvin (Modesty Blaise's sidekick), respectively. There's also a bonus story included called "The Last Son of Thor," a sequel to Roberts' novella "The Sons of Thor," which was previously the subject of a Crossover Cover post here, in which the Voice encounters the last remnants of the Sons, a German nationalist group that had a run-in with several vigilantes in the late '30s. The hero remembers his Uncle Dick, the father of his best friend Curt Van Loan, telling them about the Sons, and recommending the young boy ask his big Uncle Jim and Uncle Tony about them. Uncle Dick is Richard Curtis Van Loan, aka the Phantom Detective. Big Uncle Jim is Jim Anthony. Uncle Tony is Tony Quinn, aka the Black Bat. Information about the Sons that came from the Ashton-Kirk estate was recently stolen from the locked archives of a local university. Ashton-Kirk was a detective created by John McIntyre for The Popular Magazine; the stories were collected in four books. He, the Phantom Detective, Jim Anthony, and the Black Bat all appeared in "The Sons of Thor."

Crossover of the Week

August 2-10, 1974

STATESIDE DEBUT

            In 1991, the vigilante known as the Voice, convalescing at a clinic, tells his nurse the story of how he became a crimefighter. Returning home from Vietnam, his plane made a stopover in Hawaii, where he visited Chang Apana, a former member of the Honolulu Police Department and the alleged model for the character of Charlie Chan. He mentions the first master, who had a maxim about eliminating the impossible. Some say that the first master is still alive and living in Tibet, or else he acts as the oldest beekeeper in the United Kingdom; he also wrote monographs. Investigating a cabal he heard rumors of in Saigon, the future Voice is confronted by his own father. One of the men injured by the soon-to-be hero, Mr. Jones, is treated by his honorary uncle, Dr. Fairchild. The cabal was actually a gathering of Independent Operators, part of a network set up by the Voice’s uncles Dan and Richard, both former civilian federal agents. After a falling-out with J. Edgar Hoover and the McCarthyites, the two joined an all-branches military group called JANIG in the mid 1950s. The sting operation was designed to capture people wishing to destroy the network; however, many of those people turned out to be individuals on the side of justice investigating rumors of the network’s existence. These included Steve McGarrett, a naval officer named Magnum, members of Robert Ironside’s team, Dan Briggs, Jim Phelps, King Farriday, Napoleon Solo, John Keith, Amos Burke, Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson, and JANIG’s own Steve Ames.

            Short story by Erwin K. Roberts in the magazine Double Danger Tales, Fading Shadows Press; reprinted and revised on the Planetary Stories website. This crossover brings Roberts’ pulp-style hero the Voice into the CU. Supposedly, Chang Apana was indeed the real-life basis for Charlie Chan; however, Chan was a very real individual in the CU. Nevertheless, Max Allan Collins’ Nate Heller novel Damned in Paradise establishes that Apana had a CU counterpart. The first master is Sherlock Holmes. The Voice’s father is Secret Agent X, a pulp hero created by “Brant House” (Paul Chadwick.) Mr. Jones was a plastic surgeon turned disguise artist who appeared in Dennis Lynds’ story (written under the house name Robert Hart Davis) “The Man of a Million Faces,” Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, June 1968. Dr. Jeffrey Fairchild, alias Dr. Skull and the Skull Killer, battled the villain known variously as the Octopus and the Scorpion in two one-shot pulp magazines. Dan is Dan Fowler, G-Man, who was created by Major George Fielding-Eliot and appeared in the pulp G-Men Detective. Richard is Chinese-American Secret Service agent Richard Wong, created by Lee Fredericks, who appeared in G-Men and G-Men Detective. JANIG (Joint Army Navy Intelligence Group) and Steve Ames are from the Rick Brant juvenile adventure novels by “John Blaine” (Harold L. Goodwin and Peter J. Harkins.) Steve McGarrett is from the television series Hawaii Five-O. Magnum is Thomas Magnum from the TV series Magnum P.I. Robert Ironside is from the television series Ironside. Dan Briggs and Jim Phelps are from the classic television series Mission: Impossible. King Farriday (or rather Faraday) is a spy character appearing in the short-lived comic book series Danger Trail, published by DC Comics in the early ’50s. Napoleon Solo is, of course, from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. John Keith is from Norman Daniels’ The Man from A.P.E. espionage novels. Amos Burke is from the television series Burke’s Law and Amos Burke, Secret Agent, as well as the 1990s revival of Burke’s Law. Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson are from the TV series I Spy. The Independent Operators appear in several stories by Roberts.

Crossover Cover: The Pulptress

This anthology features the Pulptress, the daughter of two of the greatest (unidentified) pulp heroes of all time, who after being orphaned as an infant was trained as a crimefighter by her parents' colleagues. Several of the stories are crossovers with other New Pulp heroes, most of whom are in the CU through other crossovers. Derrick Ferguson's "Black Mask, Big City" features a guest appearance by Derrick's hero Dillon, who is revealed to be one of the Pulptress' former teachers. In Ron Fortier's "Butcher's Festival," the Pulptress joins forces with Ron's undead vigilante Brother Bones. Erwin K. Roberts' "Voice to a New Generation" has the Pulptress working with Roberts' hero the Voice, also a second generation pulp hero, and Dillon is mentioned. "The Bone Queen" by Andrea Judy has the Pulptress battling the titular supernatural villain, whose origin Judy later revealed in the novel The Bone Queen. Derrick also has a Dillon novel in the works that has appearances by the Pulptress and his character Fortune McCall. As that link shows, Derrick also has a crossover in the works between Dillon and Elisa Hill of Percival Constantine's Myth Hunter series. The Li Shoon mentioned in the plot synopsis for that book is a Yellow Peril villain created by H. Irving Hancock, who appeared in the pulp Detective Story Magazine.

BTW, this is my 100th post on this blog!