Crossover Covers: Tarzan/Carson of Venus

Crossover Covers: Moonstone's Green Hornet anthologies

All three of Moonstone's Green Hornet anthologies have stories with crossovers in them. Several stories reference the Hornet's genealogical relationship to the Lone Ranger. Win's stories in the first and third volumes feature the insidious green-eyed Chinese doctor Shan Ming Fu, who is best known by another name, and his granddaughter Isabella Fang, who is also the daughter of the titular villain from the radio series Doctor Fang. (Shan Ming Fu and Isabella also appear in Win and Matthew Baugh's Honey West/T.H.E. Cat crossover novel A Girl and Her Cat, incidentally.) Matthew Baugh's stories in all three volumes feature Tim Nektosha of the Potawatomi tribe, a relative of Tonto, and his girlfriend Hanomah Return, a relative of Manly Wade Wellman's Native American detective David Return. There are other crossovers in the anthologies as well. It's worth noting that the hardcover edition of The Green Hornet: Still At Large! features a story by Michael Uslan in which the radio version of the Hornet meets the Avenger. Besides an appearance by Britt Reid's elderly great-uncle John, the story also has veiled references to Doc Savage and the Shadow.

Crossover Cover: Tropical Heat

The first of John Lutz's novels about Florida P.I. Fred Carver. At one point, Carver takes a bite of his pan-fried steak and understands why he'll never be a gourmet like a private eye he met in Boston. This is a reference to Robert B. Parker's P.I. Spenser. There are two other crossovers involving Carver that I've already written up. He has a cameo in Robert J. Randisi's Miles Jacoby novel Hard Look, and his best friend Lt. DeSoto has a larger role. Lutz's story "Recreational Vehicle" (included in the Moonstone anthology Sex, Lies and Private Eyes) is a team-up between Carver and Lutz's other series P.I. character, Alo Nudger.

Crossover Cover: Skull Duggery

Remo Williams vs. Fu Manchu!

Crossover Cover: Razor/Shi

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!

Crossover Covers: Hellraiser/Nightbreed: Jihad

A crossover based on two works by Clive Barker. There are several other references bringing the Hellraiser movies into the CU. In addition, the Necronomicon appears, and the Mad Arab, Cthulhu, and Shub Niggurath are mentioned.

Crossover Covers: Spike vs. Dracula

This miniseries explains the bad blood (no pun intended) between Spike and Dracula alluded to in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Buffy vs. Dracula." The first issue, set in 1898, has Spike killing a girl at the Slaughtered Lamb pub (from the movie An American Werewolf in London) in order to turn the customers against Dracula. In the final issue, set in 2003, Spike boasts that Dracula may have fought Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, King Arthur, and Zorro, but in Spike he's met his match. Dracula has encountered Frankenstein and the Wolf Man in several movies, books, stories, and comics. He met King Arthur and Zorro separately in two comic miniseries.

Crossover Cover: Nick and Jake

In this novel composed of letters and newspaper articles, Nick Carraway (from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby) and Jake Barnes (from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises) become friends, and encounter a number of famous people of their era. Characters from still other works of fiction who appear or are mentioned in the book are: Alden Pyle (who is revealed to be really Alden Pyle Carraway, Nick's son) and Thomas Fowler from Graham Greene's The Quiet American; Larry Darrell from W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge; Irving Sheinbloom (originally Steinbloom) from Christopher Guest's film A Mighty Wind; Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show; and Lamont Cranston, who in this context must be the Shadow in his guise as the real millionaire of that name. Besides the Shadow connection, The Great Gatsby and The Quiet American both have other crossovers bringing their events into the CU.

Crossover Cover: Scream for Jeeves

Wodehouse meets Lovecraft. I can't help but wonder whether or not Alan Moore knew about this book when he wrote the "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss" section of The Black Dossier.

Crossover Cover: Sherlock Holmes and the Greyfriars School Mystery

Crossover Cover: Mr. Mercedes

In this book, a roadie for the boy band 'Round Here (first mentioned in King's novel Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining) wears a Judas Coyne T-shirt. Aging rocker Coyne was the protagonist of King's son Joe Hill's novel Heart-Shaped Box. In that book, it is mentioned that Coyne owns books by Aleister Crowley and Charles Dexter Ward, who is of course from Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Crossover of the Week

1934

NEIGHBORHOOD IN PERIL

            Jim Anthony works to protect the non-Anglo Saxon residents of a New York neighborhood from a racist group. Officer Burland secretly meets with Jim to discuss the situation. Gibbons, the Managing Editor of Jim’s paper, the New York Star, tells Jim that Gunigun at the Sentinel says one of his delivery boys in the neighborhood got hit by a truck. FBI agent Dan Fowler asks Jim not to get involved with the investigation. Jim threatens to go to Frank Havens of the Clarion with the story, and suggests that someone in the U.S. government may be working with a “pure America” group like the Knights of the Open Palm. Jim is later visited by G-2 agent Jeff Shannon, aka the Eagle, who refers to a man named Ashton-Kirk. After the villains are defeated, Jim shakes hands with Dan, the Sentinel’s elderly owner.

            Story by Erwin K. Roberts in Jim Anthony: Super Detective Volume Four, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2013. Officer Kip Burland is the alter ego of the comic book hero the Black Hood, whose adventures were published by MLJ, the company later known as Archie Comics. The character also appeared in a short-lived pulp magazine, Black Hood Detective. It is unconfirmed whether Burland ever operated as the Black Hood in the CU. “Gunigun” is a reference to Bill Gunnigan, the City Editor of the Daily Sentinel, the newspaper owned by Britt Reid, aka the Green Hornet. Dan is Britt’s father, Dan Reid Jr. Since the Green Hornet was based out of Detroit in the CU, Gunnigan and the elder Reid must have been visiting New York to work with the paper’s branch in that city. The year of this story is conjecture based on the fact that it takes place before Britt took over ownership of the Sentinel from his father. FBI agent Dan Fowler was created by Major George Fielding-Eliot and appeared in the pulp G-Men Detective. Frank Havens and the Clarion newspaper are from the pulp magazine The Phantom Detective, written by a number of authors using the pen names “G. Wayman Jones” and “Robert Wallace.” The Knights of the Open Palm are from Carroll John Daly’s short story of the same name, the first of a series of tales about P.I. Race Williams that appeared in the pulp Black Mask. Jeff Shannon, aka the Eagle, appeared in four stories in the pulp Thrilling Spy Stories and one in Popular Detective, all written by Norman A. Daniels as “Kerry McRoberts.” Ashton-Kirk was a Sherlock Holmes-like detective (albeit based in New York) who appeared in stories by John T. McIntyre for The Popular Magazine, which were collected in four books.