CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I'm not a fan of the DC spook-books, but GHOSTS seems one of the weakest of the bunch. In issues #97-99, DC tried to pump some energy into it by having a meaningless "teamup" between Doctor Thirteen and The Spectre. The title concluded (appropriately enough) thirteen issues later.

RAR #99: STRONG BOW

 Though heroic ranch-owner Spurs Jackson was the star of all six issues of SPACE WESTERN, backup stories included some solo stories by his two buddies, Hank Peters and the Indian (possibly Pueblo) Strong Bow. The latter, despite being a typical laconic Red Man, gets the only good joke in the series.

And in SPACE WESTERN #42, Strong Bow has to help his people fight off "Aztecs from Vulcan," who are masters of fiery technology.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I never expected to find a villain-crossover in the pages of the short-lived SPACE WESTERN COMICS (six issues). But after separate stories introduced such interstellar evildoers as "Korok of Mars" and "Vodor of Venus," the two of them teamed up and tried to destroy Earth, only to be thwarted twice by SPACE WESTERN's heroic modern-day cowboy, Spurs Jackson.

First, the two schemers sent mole-like creatures from Earth's moon-- somehow living there by boring into the ground-- to wreak damage on Spurs' homeworld.

Then in one last story, the villains seek to destroy Earth with a comet. They fail and the title died before they were permanently captured by the cowboy crusader.

 
  

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Most manga serials didn't delve into any crossovers, but GHOST SWEEPER MIKAMI (1991) crossed over the main character, Japanese exorcist Reiko Mikami, with the folkloric character of THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.

 To be sure, it's really just a minor demon that tosses together a lot of tropes from the Pied Piper story and reworks them for its own convenience (much like the manga author), such as changing adult humans into children or controlling rat demons. But one could argue that it's still a loose adaptation of the original, though it counts only as a "high-charisma" crossover.

The manga got an adaptation into an episode of the 1993 TV anime, under the title "Everyone, Turn Into a Kid!" Again, the name "Piper of Hamelin" just gets cursory mention. 

Other manga-episodes, as well as their anime adaptations, brought the ghost-sweepers in contact with Santa Claus and with the Japanese folklore-figure Yuki-Onna. The one movie made from the franchise was not based on a manga from the author and has the GS team encounter a very Nippon-ified version of the vampire Nosferatu.     

RAR #98: CHARADE

 

"The Bravados," from the short-lived Skywald Comics, enjoyed just four adventures, each ten pages long. The premise: six footloose heroes of the Old West team up against an evil Mexican bandit who caused them harm in one way or another. In the case of Charade, he was an Apache warrior who had his tongue cut out by the evil bandido. This affliction kept down his dialogue, and the scripts were so wedded to this idea of the "silent red man" that he never even got any of the "thought bubbles" given the other White and Black characters. To be sure, none of them were deep characters either, for all the stories were just fast-paced adventures. And, believe it or not, it was only upon visiting this comic again that I realized Charade must have been named for a certain game in which one has to remain silent throughout.    

MONSTER MASHUPS #154

 Mediocre monsters from Gerry Conway's really stinky LEGION run.

THE JOVIAN ATTACK SQUID...

And THE VENUSIAN NIGHT SHARK.

  

MONSTER MASHUPS #153

 I didn't pick up a lot of the early copies of the title LIFE WITH ARCHIE back in the day. So until I looked at a lot of issues online, I'd never noticed that for the first 50 issues, the title featured a lot of book-length melodramas, rather than the short teen-hijinks stories typical of other ARCHIE features. To be sure, the melodramas were still dominantly comical in nature, but LIFE often had the Riverdale teens getting mixed up in spy games, travels to exotic lands, and encounters with monsters.

LIFE WITH ARCHIE #39 is dated July 1965, so it's likely that the unidentified writer and artist were primarily swiping from THE MUNSTERS, which launched in September 1964. To be sure, though, only the emulations of Herman and Lily Munster are clearly patterned on MUNSTERS characters. 

Oddly, Archie meets "The Kreeps" thanks to encountering what seems to be a "normal girl," a la Marilyn Munster. However, the winsome brownette Wendy quickly reveals that she's a witch. Further, though Archie doesn't come on to her, she instantly falls for him and slips him a love mickey before inviting the teen to meet her aunt and uncle. Note the resemblance of Wendy's chant to a certain superhero magic word.

As the witch and her enchanted swain proceed to their destination, jealous Veronica stows away in Archie's car. She, not being muddled by magic, is duly shocked to see on the Kreeps' estate a big wolf, a tentacle belonging to an unseen horror, and a pair of disembodied hands named "Boris." 

Arriving at the main house, the teens first meet a creepy butler named Igor (of course), the shadow of a T-rex named Rex, and a caged, talking bat named Percy, though Wendy insists he's a canary. But Archie's comes out of his love-trance just in time to join Veronica in freaking out at the sight of Wendy's aunt and uncle. The two teens speed back to Riverdale, and don't get to see Wendy show that she, too, is a real monster. I think the reason she becomes a fish-woman is so that the writer could toss out an in-joke vaguely referencing Starkist Tuna's mascot Charlie (created in 1961). I doubt that this was the Archie Gang's first encounter with multiple monsters-- certainly it's not even a good story of its kind-- even if the only earlier item might be the cover of this 1961 magazine.