RAR #94: JAMES HIGHWATER

 In the Grant Morrison ANIMAL MAN run, James Highwater is an anthropologist who helps the hero undergo a "vision quest," though he's not a standard "mystical Indian" in any way.

MONSTER MASHUPS #140

 THE FLAME FISH.

THE BATWING PELICAN.

THE LIGHTNING EEL.

THE SEA MONSTER and THE LOBSTER SHARK.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 The cover to KRAZY KOMICS #2 is a null-crossover between Tessie the Typist and her boyfriend (who are in the comic) and Li'l Vinegar (who is not).

But Basil Wolverton contributes a real crossover between a goofy pilot-character, Flap FlipFlop, who'd been launched the previous year, and his much more popular hero Powerhouse Pepper. For good measure Wolverton tosses in another null-crossover, having Pilot Flap comment on reading a "Tessie the Typist" comic book.  

Also in WILLIE #16, we get a totally unheralded crossover between the alliterative Jeanie Johnson and Millie the Model in "A Modeling Mood."

MONSTER MASHUPS #139

 The first monster mashup in Warren's CREEPY shows up as early as 1965, for issue #2's "Wardrobe of Monsters." Archeologists unearth five sarcophagi: one containing an Egyptian pharaoh and the other four containing "monster-suits" with a suspicious resemblance to creatures conceived long after the empire of Egypt.

One of the experts figures out that the "monster-suits" can be activated into living forms if one sends one's astral spirit into them, and wouldn't you know it, the unscrupulous cad finds reason to bring all four fiends to life so that he can knock off his colleagues. However, the spirit of the pharaoh is still in play, and the rotter learns that whether you're a vampire, a Frank-monster, a werewolf or a devilman, using these devices to commit murder just isn't suitable behavior.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Aside from a two-page fight-scene, there's not much to recommend about Dark Horse'd 1995 teamup of The Shadow and Doc Savage. It's not actively bad, just unambitious.

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #138

 First we have the SPEARBIRDS, who serve the (non-monstrous) "Wingmen."

 And THE LONG NECK MONSTER, whom Samson drafts to help him against the flying warriors.

MONSTER MASHUPS #137

 Here we have the SWORD-GRASS...

THE SKELETON BEAST...

THE VENUS MAN TRAPS (unleashed by a female villain, of course)

 THE STRANGLER VINE.

THE KNOCKOUT POD-PLANTS.

MONSTER MASHUPS #136

 

I was working on some notations and just wanted something uninvolving on the TV screen to supply background, so I put on the 1978-79 THE BAY CITY ROLLERS. I expected it to be a skit-show with musical numbers by the Rollers, which it was. I didn't know that it started as THE KROFFT SUPERSTAR HOUR, which was a retooled version of the 1976-78 KROFFT SUPERSHOW. I'd watched some segments of the first show but must have overlooked/avoided SUPERSTAR HOUR for whatever reasons. The original one-hour SUPERSTARS show had the Rollers introduce three separare comedy-segments, "Horror Hotel," "The Lost Island," and "Magic Mondo." The first eight episodes must not have scored well, for the show was cut back to half an hour, and all of the shows under the ROLLERS rubric featured only the musicians doing skits and songs and the "Horror Hotel" segment. Those segments are the only ones on streaming, which is a shame because now I'm vaguely curious about the "Lost Island" with its wacky crossover of several Krofft characters. 

I didn't watch PUFNSTUF, except for the movie version, but I'd still would tend to label that version of Witchiepoo more "villain" than "monster." In "Horror Hotel," an altered version of Witchiepoo runs the hotel of the title and doesn't do anything villainous. I can see labeling this version of the character sort of a "mischief-monster." However, all her suitmation assistants are IMO just anthropomorphized animal goofballs with no monster-aspects. If one does deem Witchiepoo a funny monster-- and one can certainly make a case for some witches being monsters, despite Samantha and Sabrina-- then "Horror Hotel" would be a monster-mashup only whenever a "guest monster" appeared. This short list included a mummy, a weird creature from a painting, a black-robed ghost, a Dracula (played by Jay Robinson), and a flat-out copy of the Universal Frankenstein Monster, though the name "Frankenstein" is never used.     

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 

In youth I watched some of the Sid and Marty Krofft live-action shows but avoided most of the producers' "suitmation" episodes of the decade. So I was unaware as to how often those shows-- H.R. PUFNSTUF, SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS, and LIDSVILLE-- played host to crossovers between those franchises.  Probably the most notable one took place on LIDSVILLE. Though actress Billie Hayes had a regular role on that show, she also guested as her PUFNSTUF character Witchiepoo, wherein she had a romantic relationship with LIDSVILLE's comic villain Hoodoo. The two characters later showed up in "Horror Hotel," a segment of the 1978-79, but in a non-romantic context. "Hotel" also played host to comical versions of Dracula and an unnamed Frankenstein Monster.

     In 1972, when ABC was still seeking to publicize both PUFNSTUF and LIDSVILLE, the station aired THE BRADY BUNCH MEETS ABC'S SATURDAY SUPERSTARS. I've no idea if I saw the hour-long special in The Day, but at present only a brief clip appears on YouTube. This hype-special seems to have more of a narrative than most such specials, in which actors would most frequently just introduce clips from the TV shows being hyped. Apparently for the whole hour of SUPERSTARS, all six of the Brady Kids get zapped into a television set, meet both Witchiepoo and Hoodoo, and presumably watch clips of shows that needed hyping before getting returned to what passed for "Brady reality."     

MONSTER MASHUPS #135

 Samson faces THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON. (Some humans claim it belongs to a group called "Smoke Monsters," but only one is seen.)

 And then there's THE WIDE-MOUTH MONSTER.

MONSTER MASHUPS #134

 In this post I linked to my short review of the short-lived monster-mash title HOWLING COMMANDOS OF SHIELD, but I can't even muster a short review of its predecessor, the mostly incoherent six-issue series NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS, written by Keith Giffen and penciled by three different artists.

The main members of the "Creature Corral" (yes, they're called that once) are mostly new variations on standard monster-types: vampire Nina Price, werewolf "Warwolf," a clone of the Frankenstein Monster, and a zombie with no ID, "John Doe." The other three members may or may not be continuous with earlier Marvel monsters known respectively as "The Glob," "The Living Mummy," and "The Gorilla-Man." Despite the title, Nick Fury makes only a token appearance, and his subordinate Clay Quartermain is actually in charge of ramrodding the mutinous monsters. 

 A few non-monster guest-stars with occult associations, such as Brother Voodoo and the Son of Satan, make appearances, but most of the other subordinate characters are literal monsters: Lilith the Daughter of Dracula, Goom, Grogg, Groot (not yet confined to one word), and Dragoom. Wiki claims that the Werewolf By Night and the Manphibian are in there but I didn't see them. An old Giant-Man foe, the Living Eraser, is name-checked only, and some old Hulk villains, the Lords of the Living Lightning, appear briefly. The Mole Man shows up for two panels toward the end. Some guy named Merlin is the villain but he seems unlikely to be continuous with any previous version. The series is pretty much a mess, and the art's ugly.  

MONSTER MASHUPS #133

 THE DART-TONGUED BEAST.

This one's called both THE CHOKE-FOAM MONSTER and THE SOAP-BUBBLE MONSTER.

THE CAVE-CENTIPEDE.

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #132

 In GORGO #5, Gorgo's Mother-- who I'll bet never gets a name of her own-- finally contends with another monster of the deep, billed on the cover as "The Sea Beast."

 Then in #10 both Gorgo and his mom fight a race of colossal Venusians.

MONSTER MASHUPS #131

 THE CLAWED SQUID.

THE THREE-HEADED LIZARD.

 For the first time, Samson's co-feature "Tom Morrow" gets in on the mashup action with THE LARIAT BEAST and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLYFISH, as well as a few garden-variety revived dinosaurs. Oddly, though I don't think the two future-worlds have anything in common (except possibly their writer), a big Jellyfish also appeared one issue previous in SAMSON.  

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 Here's a "DC Gothic" that, like DEADMAN, preceded my previous candidate for the company's second non-anthology "weird feature," which I had previously pegged as the SHOWCASE debut of the Phantom Stranger: the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, a failing book that the company strove to shore up with spooky content.

     One issue during this run had the heroes encounter both DC's private eye character Jonny Double and their high-wire haunter Deadman.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #130

 Samson strikes again, against THE THROWER-BEAST and his spiked-mace tail...

...and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLY-FISH...

 

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I'm not about to try chronicling all of the multitudinous crossovers in DC's war comics, even though I've just finished laying out the one in SGT. ROCK ANNUAL #2. Still, though the story "Heap the Corpses High" in DC SUPERSTARS #15 (1977) isn't worth explicating, this is a really nice cover juxtaposing Sergeant Rock, Mademoiselle Marie, and the disguise-master Unknown Soldier masquerading as Rock for some damn reason. More Kanigher craziness as usual.

 

RAR #93: MADOGA

 

Madoga, seen above in the first three panels fighting a big mummy, was a member of a society of sorcerous villains, The Legion of the Weird, who were defeated in their one outing by the Challengers of the Unknown.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #129

 More Samson-monsters, starting with THE GIANT STING-RAY.   

And the poorly-named SEA MONSTER.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In this post I noted how one issue of Timely's KRAZY KOMICS took a subordinate character, The Creeper, from a strip called "The Vagabond" and made him a co-star of a strip about a rabbit-detective named Homer. Only this first "teamup" counts as a crossover of these two characters. A little later The Creeper was joined in his nutty nefarious activities by his lookalike son "Crawler," while Homer and his allies kept chasing the two of them down. In KK #9-10 the antagonists visited "Fairy Land" (which might as well be the story's title) and met...                              

  RED RIDING HOOD and her WOLF        

KING MIDAS and THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE.    

 
THE THREE BEARS and the GIANT from "Jack and the Beanstalk"                                                             

SIMPLE SIMON, WILLIAM TELL, and three characters from the "Hey Diddle Diddle" rhyme.                                                                                     

                      

KRAZY KOMICS #7-9 also played host to a three-part story teaming up a new character, a beneficent fairy named "Inky the Imp," with a "Fractured Fairy Tales" version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and his mice (who are the Piper's allies this time).   

In KK #11, though the "heroes" and their "villains" aren't in Fairy Land anymore, they still meet a "King Arthur" who looks more like Old King Cole. 

KK 12 then asserts that all of the Krazy Komics characters inhabit their own world, and The Creeper magicks some of them into the "real world."  They try to protest their treatment in the comics to the creators of Timely Comics (all of whom are caricatures of the real raconteurs). I recognize only Ziggy Pig, Silly Seal and Super Baby, but the main characters are still Creeper, his son Crawler, and the rabbit Homer. 

MONSTER MASHUPS #128

 

This MARVEL FAMILY story, "The Trio of Terror," is not only a crossover for the Marvels but also a "mashup" of three monsters from Greek mythology.

True, the story acts as all three are "monster-types," when that distinction applies only to the Satyr. In mythology there's only one Argus and one Hydra, and as almost anyone knows, the Hydra is not some two-headed troll but a seven-headed dragon. Since none of the three are particularized icons, the monsters comprise a mashup but not a crossover.      

MONSTER MASHUPS #127

 THE METAL-EATING MONSTER.                                                         

THE TREE TERROR.                                                                          

THE GIGANTO-BULL.