Crossover of the Week

Mid February–October 1931

THE HUNTERS

Jim Anthony asks his friend Eddie Phipps if he is coming to the next meeting of the Baltimore Gun Club. After Phipps is attacked by a strange man-monster, Jim tells an old man to call Healy in Homicide, and tell him he said there’s been trouble at the Suydam Building. Healy refers to “that thing last year with that Yogami fellow—,” to which Jim replies “Yes. The so-called Werewolf of Red Hook.” One of Phipps’ murderer’s other victims is named Guster Wooster. A man who unsuccessfully tries to kill Jim commits suicide by taking a distillation of Mariphasa Lupinum, the Tibetan Moon Blossom. At the Gun Club, Jim and his sidekick Tom Gentry meet Count Zaroff, whom a castaway named Rainsford falsely claimed died on his island a few years ago. Another Gun Club member, Otto DeLancy, asks Jim if he was in New York when Bertie Freis left. Jim replies he was in Paris on a case involving a band of thieves, Les Vampires. A murderous fiend called Fantômas was also involved in this case. Jim thinks of a Gun Club member named Ironcastle. Jim and Tom battle a group of Tcho-Tcho. Zaroff says the Tcho-Tcho tried to kill him while he was in Tibet, searching for the elusive Mi-go. The word Leng pops into Jim’s mind. Franklin Pike reminds Jim of their trip to Maple-White Land, and of someone named Ki-Gor who was also present. Pike refers to Leng as the Doorway to the Lost Valley of Carcosa, and tells Jim about a swami in New Orleans, “Chanda-something.” Jim requests his butler Dawkins have certain tools from his laboratory delivered to the Freis family burying ground at New York’s Wildwood Cemetery. A captured Tcho-Tcho claims to be a member of the royal guard of the King in Yellow. Jim sees Zaroff speaking to a man called Allardravitch, who, like Zaroff himself, was once part of the Czar of Russia’s inner circle. Zaroff invites Jim to hunt with him on an uncharted island, far west of Sumatra, which is inhabited by prehistoric animals. Allardravitch sneers at Jim’s use of mercy bullets, which prompts Jim to tell him not to confuse him for the bronze man. Traveling to the island, Jim and Zaroff spot a ship in the distance called the Venture. Zaroff tells Jim how an old German named Lidenbrock put him up in his lodge during the Great War, and told him he and his uncle went on an expedition to the center of the earth many years earlier, where they also encountered prehistoric animals. Lidenbrock’s uncle told him of a previous, aborted attempt to enter the earth’s core, through an opening on the island Jim and Zaroff are visiting. That ingress was sealed, but not before creatures from the core migrated through it and settled on the island. Aboard the Venture, Jim and Zaroff meet filmmaker D. W. Cecil De Cent, his leading lady Dana Sparrow, the elderly captain of the ship, and Jack the first mate. Dana grew up in an orphanage, with her father unaware of her existence. Jim finds a book written by one of the Weta-people, who sailed to the island from the Gray Havens after the return of the king, but cannot read it. Zaroff tells Jim there are signs of a giant anthropoid on the island. Dana refers to “that Doctor Wildman in the pulps.” The ape’s unveiling in New York draws a lot of celebrity attention, including that of the Celebrated Feral Child of Africa, who has a personal interest in apes, giant or otherwise. De Cent, about to unveil the ape, tells Jim’s Comanche grandfather Mephito he has filmed the strange monoliths and ruins of the Indians in Dunwich. The ape escapes thanks to Zaroff’s scheming, and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building with Dana in his paw, only to be shot down by airplanes.

Jim Anthony: Super Detective Volume Two, Airship 27 Productions, 2010, composed of two novellas, “Death in Yellow” by Joshua Reynolds and “On the Periphery of Legend” by Micah S. Harris. Jim Anthony appeared in the pulp Super Detective. The Baltimore Gun Club seen here is the New York branch of the club seen in Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. The Suydam Building is named after Robert Suydam from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook.” The Mi-go are a race of Yeti from Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Leng is a plateau in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, first described in “The Hound.” Dr. Yogami and the Mariphasa Lupinum (or Mariphasa Lupina Lumina) are from the film Werewolf of London. Guster Wooster is presumably an American relative of P. G. Wodehouse’s most famous character, Bertie Wooster. Count Zaroff, his island, and Sanger Rainsford are from Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.” Xavier Mauméjean’s story “The Most Exciting Game,” which is set in 1930, also portrayed Zaroff as a member of the New York branch of the Gun Club. Les Vampires are from Louis Feuillade’s 1915 film serial of the same name. Fantômas is a French pulp villain created by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. Hareton Ironcastle is from J.-H. Rosny aîné’s L’Étonnant Voyage d’Hareton Ironcastle, as well as Philip José Farmer’s translation and adaptation, Ironcastle, which revealed Ironcastle was a member of the Baltimore Gun Club. The Tcho-Tcho race were created by August Derleth as part of the Cthulhu Mythos. These Tcho-Tcho must have been the result of interbreeding with humans, as they are noticeably taller than the race is described to be by Derleth and other authors. Maple White Land is from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. John Peter Drummond’s jungle hero Ki-Gor’s first adventure must have actually taken place years before its 1938 publication in Jungle Stories Magazine. Carcosa is originally from Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” but also appears in Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, which Lovecraft incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos. The Swami Chandraputra is an identity assumed by Randolph Carter, the protagonist of Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, in the story “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.” He also appears under that alias in Lovecraft and Hazel Heald’s story “Out of the Aeons.” Wildwood Cemetery also hosts the grave of the allegedly deceased Denny Colt, also known as the Spirit. “Allardravitch” is actually the shadowy hero who was a spy for the Czar during the Great War.. The uncharted island is Skull Island from the classic film King Kong. The Venture is also from King Kong. “D. W. Cecil De Cent” and “Dana Sparrow” are aliases for Carl Denham and Ann Darrow, while the captain and first mate are Captain Englehorn and Jack Driscoll; all four appear in the film. The giant ape is Kong himself, of course. The bronze man is a famous pulp hero of the 1930s and ’40s, of whom Rick Lai notes, “Doc wouldn’t have been using mercy bullets regularly until 1932 (The Phantom City). However, Doc might have experimented with mercy bullets like Anthony in early 1931. Doc would have abandoned them to avenge the deaths of his father (The Man of Bronze) and favorite tutor (The Land of Terror) during May–July 1931.” Axel Lidenbrock and his uncle Otto are from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. The connection between the subterranean world visited by the Lidenbrocks and Skull Island was first proposed by Micah S. Harris in The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp. Although that novel takes place in an alternate universe, apparently the connection is true in the CU as well. According to The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp, Ann Darrow was the illegitimate daughter of Becky herself (from William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair) and Lord Eugenides, an analogue of the jungle lord. Unlike the jungle lord, Eugenides grew to adulthood during the Victorian era, with his own counterparts to Jane and La. The Ann Darrow of the CU is probably the daughter of Becky Sharp and the time-traveling future version of the jungle lord (aka John Gribardsun) seen in Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift. The Grey Havens (aka Mithlond) are an Elvish port from J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip José Farmer revealed an iconic pulp hero’s real name as James Clarke Wildman, Jr. However, Dana’s reference to Doc Wildman as a pulp character should not be taken literally, since his pulp magazine did not begin publication until 1933, two years after the events of this story. The Celebrated Feral Child of Africa is the jungle lord. Although Harris places Kong’s unveiling in April, shortly after Denham and company return from Skull Island, Kong’s rampage took place in October in the CU. More likely, Kong spent months in quarantine before being officially exhibited. Dunwich is from Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.”

Crossover of the Week

Autumn 2004

HELL ON EARTH 

Caballistics, Inc. battles the living dead and a fallen angel in the North Yorkshire village of Boswell. Appearing or mentioned are: the Templars Resurgent; the Starry Wisdom; Delta Green; the Cult of the Black Sun; Arkham University; the Quist Foundation; Doomwatch; the Carnacki-Silence Spectrum; Motley Hall; Yuggoth; the Lamp of Alhazred; the Merrin Ritual; the Karras Ritual; Hobb’s End; Florizel Street; Totters’ Lane; the Brigadier; “a similar facility that stored such material in the U.S.”; Ringstone Round; jaunting bracelets; the eighth Dagger of Megiddo; a chameleon circuit; an owl named Ozymandius; Department 7; Omega; a water tower undergoing a sweep for medieval magic residue; Exham Priory; Watchers; “certain subterranean mouths”; Nephren-Ka; Kadath in the Cold Waste; Irem; Kiran; Sarnath; Ib; Hali; Raccoon City; Umbrella; Mr. Phelps; the Jones/Brody archives at Barnett College in New York; Nyarlahotep; the Yeti incident; Drax Industries; the British Rocket Group; Saknusem’s Swallow; Leidenbrock’s Ledge; Wenley Moor; Sir Rufus Folkes; Templar; Harold Pelham; “something Straker Estates”; and the Mayflower Project. 

Novel by Mike Wild, 2000 AD, 2006. The Templars Resurgent are the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. The Starry Wisdom Church and Nephren-Ka are from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.” Arkham University must be in Lovecraft’s recurring setting of Arkham, Massachusetts. Yuggoth is another name for Pluto in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Exham Priory is from Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” Kadath in the Cold Waste, Sarnath, and Ib are mentioned in several Lovecraft stories. Irem is from Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City.” Kiran is from Lovecraft’s “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” “Nyarlahotep” is a misspelling of Lovecraft’s god Nyarlathotep. Delta Green is from the eponymous supplement for the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The Cult of the Black Sun is a CU version of the group seen in Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's superhero comic book Zenith. The Quist Foundation and Doomwatch are from the TV series Doomwatch. The Carnacki-Silence Spectrum is named after Thomas Carnacki and John Silence, occult investigators created by William Hope Hodgson and Algernon Blackwood, respectively. Motley Hall is from the TV series The Ghosts of Motley Hall. The Lamp of Alhazred is from August Derleth’s titular Cthulhu Mythos story. The Merrin Ritual and the Karras Ritual are named after the late Fathers Lankester Merrin and Damien Karras from William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. Hobb’s End is from the movie Quatermass and the Pit. Ringstone Round is from the television serial Quatermass. Professor Bernard Quatermass heads the British Rocket Group. Florizel Street was the original title for the long running British soap opera Coronation Street. Totters’ Lane and chameleon circuits are from Doctor Who. The Brigadier is Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart from that series. The Yeti incident is a reference to the serial “The Web of Fear.” Wenley Moor is from the serial “Doctor Who and the Silurians.” The “similar facility that stored such material in the U.S.” is the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones’ friend Dr. Marcus Brody appears in both that film and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The latter is the source of Barnett College. Jaunting bracelets are from the television series The Tomorrow People. The eighth Dagger of Megiddo is a nod to the Seven Daggers of Megiddo from the movie The Omen. Ozymandius (or Ozymandias) is from the TV series Ace of Wands. Department 7 and Omega are from the show The Omega Factor. The water tower is Castle Saburac from the TV series Catweazle. The Watchers and “certain subterranean mouths” (Hellmouths) are from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hali is from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation are from the Resident Evil video game series. Mr. Phelps, who is given a “mission, should [he] choose to accept it,” is apparently related to the late Jim Phelps from the TV series and movie Mission: Impossible. Drax Industries is from the film version of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Moonraker. Saknusem’s Swallow and Leidenbrock’s Ledge refer to Arne Saknussemm and Otto Lidenbrock from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Rufus Folkes (or ffolkes) is from the movie North Seas Hijack. Simon Templar is Leslie Charteris’ adventurer the Saint. Harold Pelham is from the movie The Man Who Haunted Himself. Ffolkes and Pelham were both played by Roger Moore, who also played Simon Templar on the 1960s The Saint TV series. “Something Straker Estates” refers to Richard Throckett Straker, vampire Kurt Barlow’s minion in Stephen King’s 'Salem’s Lot. The Mayflower Project is from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

This crossover writeup 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 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.

Crossover of the Week

Early June-Early September 1882

THE ISSUE OF DR. JEKYLL

            Several English professors travel to Massachusetts, where they wind up examining a comet that landed on the Gardner farm. Appearing or mentioned are: Doctor George Edward Rutherford; Doctor Henry Jekyll; Mr. Banks; Mr. Darling;  Professor Henry Higgins; Doctor Moreau; Doctor Perry; Denton; Causton; Arkham; Evangeline West’s uncle; Miskatonic University; Witch’s Hollow; Bolton; Kingsport; Innsmouth; Derrie; Axel Lidenbrock; Ammi Pierce; Nahum Gardner and his wife Nabby; Chapman’s Brook; Professor Selwyn Cavor; Karel Colceag; Herbert West; and Gabriel Utterson.

            Short story by Pete Rawlik at the HorrorTalk website. Doctor George Edward Rutherford is meant to be Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger; Farmer revealed that the Professor’s true last name was Rutherford in Tarzan Alive. Doctor Henry Jekyll and Gabriel Utterson are from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mr. George Banks is from P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins books, while Mr. George Darling is from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Professor Henry Higgins is from George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Doctor Moreau is from H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. Moreau’s first name is given as Jean-Paul in this story, whereas he is identified as Alphonse Moreau in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II and other sources. The Jean-Paul reference must be considered an error. Doctor Abner Perry is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar novels. Denton is the English town where R.D. Wingfield’s Jack Frost novels and the television series A Touch of Frost take place. The English town of Causton is the setting of the Chief Inspector Barnaby novels by Caroline Graham, as well as the television series Midsomer Murders. Arkham and Miskatonic University are staples of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Evangeline West’s uncle is James West from the television series The Wild Wild West. Witch’s Hollow is from the story of the same name by August Derleth. Bolton and Herbert West are from Lovecraft’s “Herbert West—Reanimator.” Kingsport is from Lovecraft’s “The Festival.” Innsmouth is from another Lovecraft story, “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” The town of Derry (spelled “Derrie” here), Maine appears in many of Stephen King’s novels and short stories. Axel Lidenbrock is from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Ammi Pierce, Nahum and Nabby Gardner, and Chapman’s Brook are from Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” Professor Cavor is from Wells’ The First Men in the Moon; his first name was given as Selwyn in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I. Karel Colceag’s name is a nod to Carl Kolchak, although the two are not meant to be the same character.

Crossover Cover: Sherlock Holmes on the Roof of the World

In this novel, Ludwig Horace Holly and Leo Vincey (from H. Rider Haggard's novels about Ayesha, aka She-who-must-be-obeyed) encounter a Norwegian named Sigerson in a Tibetan monastery. Sigerson, whom readers of Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Empty House" know is a supposedly dead Sherlock Holmes, investigates the murder of the monastery's head librarian. Kent has written two more Holmes pastiches, both featuring Haggard's Allan Quatermain and other literary characters, The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life (which Win included in Volume 1, along with its predecessor) and Allan Quatermain at the Dawn of Time, which will be in the new volumes. Two continuity-related matters must be noted regarding The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life. The death of Axel Lidenbrock (from Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth) must be exaggerated, as he appears alive and well in the first chapter of John Peel's serial story "Return to the Center of the Earth" (set in 1872) and  Pete Rawlik's story "The Issue of Dr. Jekyll" (set in 1882), and is mentioned as having encountered General Zaroff (from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game") during World War I in Joshua Reynolds and Micah S. Harris' novel Jim Anthony: Super Detective Volume Two - The Hunters. Secondly, as Win noted in his writeup for the book, Miller must be incorrect in his speculation that Professor Moriarty was really Sherrinford Holmes, Sherlock's older brother, and that Sherrinford was also Jack the Ripper.