Thursday, October 17, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 The Egyptian wizard Ibis encounters both Celtic and Greek boogiemen in IBIS #4 when he squares off against both Morgan LeFay and Cerberus.



Wednesday, October 16, 2024

MONSTER MASHUPS #108

 I've now reviewed both the 1995 and 1997 narrative incarnations of the DARKSTALKERS franchise here.



In addition, two episodes of the 1995 TV show sustain a crossover-vibe. In "Donovan's Bane," the episode that introduces the monster-hunter Donovan Baine, the spirits of both Merlin and Morgan Le Fay briefly appear to lend aid to their respective descendants, Harry Grimore and Morrigan the Succubus. And in "Darkest Before the Dawn," regular vampire Dimitri is revealed to have been in contact with the O.G. King of Vampires, who appears in a flashback to give Dimitri an idea that becomes the main story of the episode.

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #14 did its own version of "the Trenchcoat Brigade," even though most of the characters aren't wearing trenchcoats. This version includes Deadman (occupying the body of Wonder Woman in this scene), Doctor Fate, Doctor Occult, Zauriel, Zatanna and Etrigan the Demon. These weirdie-heroes get the lion's share of action while the regular JLU heroes sit things out.



Tuesday, October 15, 2024

RAR #78: LI'L CHIEF BUGABOO

 Scene from the debut story of the Little Chief in PEP #40. At least he makes his bones by punching out a mountain lion.



Tuesday, October 1, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 The 1990s MASK cartoon had at least one villain-crossover, the half-hour "Convention of Evil." At least six villains-- Pretorius (Tim Curry), the Stinger (Stuart Pankin), the Tempest (Bud Cort), Lucifer (Jonathan Harris), Kablamus (Jim Cummings) and Gorgonzola the Cheese Witch (Cree Summer) -- had already appeared on earlier episodes, as is illustrated by clips from those shows.




Monday, September 9, 2024

NULL-CROSSOVERS #19

  Most of the null-crossovers I've examined here have been covers or one-page interactions of characters that are not genuine narratives, like this one. SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE #44 is a crossover between various horror-hosts, consisting of two pages at the comic's beginning and a full-page joke at the end. Despite the greater length I would still judge this to be a non-narrative vignette of the type I discussed here


 As usual in these types of vignettes, the hosts not only don't interact with the characters, there's also no real narrative in their three pages here. This is in marked contrast to the EC story "Horror Beneath the Streets," examined here, in which the hosts both interact with their "victims" and dominate the story as focal icons.



As a curiosity, the letters-page issue of HOUSE also sports a "crossover" of a very different sort, as future comics superstar Todd MacFarlane weighs in with his opinion on a recent issue.


The same lettercol includes a separate letter in which a fan asks about the disposition of several DC characters that have nothing whatever to do with any of the horror-titles. I rather doubt the fan directed this inquiry to SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE; probably someone just wanted to run the letter some place and SECRETS had a hole to fill. This exchange is amusing for a comment, attributed to DC editor Len Wein, in which the reader asks about the TEEN TITANS character "Bumblebee" and is told that the character "never existed."