THE WEIRDIE FILES

 DC jumped feet first into the supernatural/Gothic thing after having generally avoided that type of story for over 20 years, and it seems likely that Carmine Infantino was the biggest influence, as he himself claims in a JOURNAL interview:

I was trying to prepare for the inevitable. In my mind, “What if these things die? What if we’re back in the old days and suddenly superheroes drop off?” The reason I threw out a mess of different titles was, I wanted to sneak in The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets without people much realizing what was going on. Which I did. And also we had a chain of them out there, if you remember, and they were all successful before anyone at Marvel realized what was going on. So we had those going for us, and the superheroes going for us. Meanwhile I kept experimenting with different things.

So in Evanier's book KIRBY, ME claims, maybe a little dubiously, that when Kinney Corp bought DC in 1967, they thought they were getting the top company, only to become displeased when they learned that Marvel was such a strong second. (I think Roy Thomas claimed Marvel didn't obtain the majority market share until the early seventies though.) Still, that story isn't absolutely necessary to put across the notion that someone in management thought it was time for some changes. Infantino was made first art director and then editorial director in 1966 and 1967, and it looks like promoting horror and the Gothic was his major "experiment." Not only did he get rid of the superheroes in HOUSE OF MYSTERY in '67, he also debuted DEADMAN in the failing book STRANGE ADVENTURES. The Spectre had been revived earlier under the tutelage of Julie Schwartz, but the initial format was so rationalized that any "weirdie" appeal of the hero was nullified. Spectre also got his own title in 1967, and though it didn't last long it soon converted into spookier stories before it died. In the late sixties and early seventies, even some of the "mainstream" DC superheroes began exploiting Gothic/horror themes on their covers, such as (obviously) BATMAN but also less obvious types like FLASH and TEEN TITANS. 

One fan attributed the big change to the influence of DARK SHADOWS in '66, but I think it was more likely that DC saw that the Warren magazines had been doing well since 1964 (EERIE) and 1966 (CREEPY) respectively, and that they hired guys like EC stalwart Joe Orlando to cut into that action. That also probably led to the revival of The Phantom Stranger in 1969, as well as another fifties character, Doctor Thirteen. The intersection of the two seems to be the first regular convocation of two "weirdies" at DC Comics, in 1969's SHOWCASE #80-- though the good doctor was dropped from the Stranger's adventures pretty quickly.

RAR #75: THE SHAMAN (1947)

In BLACKHAWK #17. The Blackhawks and their comrade Miss Fear take on The Shaman, who uses illicit atomic science to impress his native followers with his "magic." The location might be Canada, given that the only city mentioned is a made-up place called "North City." There's one line of dialogue where the White governor admits that the natives have some justice on their side, but that he doesn't like The Shaman's fear-mongering. Once he's out of the way, of course, everything becomes hunky-dory.

THE WEIRDIE FILES

Though Alan Moore wasn't the first writer to convoke weirdies, he was one of the guys who made the trope popular.

In SWAMP THING ANNUAL #2. for instance, the titular muck monster has to journey to Hell to save the spirit of Abby Arcane, and he gets the assistance of a former ally, The Demon, in so doing. Moore manages to work in Deadman, The Spectre and the Phantom Stranger, even though none of them are necessary to the plot.

In contrast, Moore's almost-final SWAMP THING story guest-stars all of the above weirdies, plus Doctor Fate and many others, and they are all necessary to the plot, so maybe he used the Annual to re-familiarize his readers with DC's resident weirdies just so they wouldn't seem yanked in out of nowhere.

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 Here's a prominent example of a convocation of weirdies with no monster content, the so-called "Trenchcoat Brigade" from THE BOOKS OF MAGIC.

THE WEIRDIE FILES

Technically the story "Brothers" crosses over Brother Power with a couple of Swamp Thing's support characters, but it counts.

A cool cover to a boring story in SPECTRE #11, featuring stature-characters Spectre, Doctor Fate, Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, and The Enchantress, and one charisma-character, The Gentleman Ghost.

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 In keeping with my new determination of "weirdies" as a subcategory of crossovers, THE WEIRDIE FILES are dedicated to this literary phenomenon. 

I'll start with the most recent iteration of JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK.

The superordinate ensemble is made up of Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, Man-Bat, and Detective Chimp.

The subordinate ensemble consists of The Demon, John Constantine, Blue Devil, and the late great Zatara.

Subordinate guest stars with stature include Zauriel, Deadman, Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Andrew Bennett, and five Justice Leaguers. A few such characters show up for one panel and have no lines.

Subordinate guest stars possessed of only charisma are Traci Thirteen, Klarion the Witch Boy, Morgaine LeFey. Felix Faust, Nabu the Wise, Mordru, and the demonic trio Ghast, Rath, and Abnegazar. Traci, daughter of the ghost-buster Doctor Thirteen, attained a little stature in the backup series ARCHITECTS AND MORTALITY but I'm not sure it's consequential enough to designate her a stature-type.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Woody Woodpecker started out as a proto-crossover, popping up in the Andy Panda cartoon KNOCK KNOCK in 1940, and quickly eclipsing all the other characters in the Walter Lantz studio.

For years to come Lantz would continue having his characters cross over in comics and cartoons. FOUR COLOR COMICS #21 is devoted to Oswald Rabbit and his friends, and Woody appears just for about three or four pages, just because.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Since the historical character of Rasputin has IMO acquired what I deem a "legendary" status, I consider that both the 2004 HELLBOY and the graphic novel on which it's based to be charisma-crossovers.

The situation is a little different with characters that are based on myths but who are given some sort of gimmick that doesn't have anything to do with their original stories. For that reason, I don't consider the film's seqjuel GOLDEN ARMY to be a crossover of any kind. However, the 2019 reboot, which mixes at least two figures from disparate mythologies-- Nimue from Arthurian tales, and Baba Yaga from Russian folklore-- does count as a charisma-crossover.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

To celebrate the 50th issue of Warren's VAMPIRELLA in 1976, writer Bill DuBay and various artists collaborated on a crossover-- possibly the first for the vampiric vixen-- between Vampirella and two other characters who had their own serials in the magazine. It's a decent story but not anything I feel the need to review in depth

Here's Vampirella's first meeting with Pantha, the girl with the tendency to go feline and feral.

Later Vampirella and her support-characters encounter the magazine's resident witch-heroine, Fleur.

Finally, because at the time Warren was publishing reprints of Will Eisner's SPIRIT, a final playful story involves a couple of Vampi's buddies visiting Wildwood Cemetery, in the mistaken belief that the long dead Denny Colt may have been revived as a mad killer. More a joke than a real crossover is the last page, where what might be "the spirit of THE SPIRIT" makes an appearance.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 BETTY BOOP AND THE LITTLE KING is a curiosity with nothing much to recommend it but whatever story might lie behind the mundane details of how it came to exist.

 

To be sure, at least Betty is central to the action of this 1936 short, in contrast to her being a glorified guest-star in POPEYE THE SAILOR WITH BETTY BOOP in 1933. Ostensibly the animators made a cartoon sex film in which the sailor-man and the Boopadoop girl got it on, which if extant would probably constitute their most interesting crossover.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

I've now reviewed the three Famous Studios cartoons that led to the ascension of Herman the Mouse to his small degree of stardom. None of these are crossovers, but because they give Herman stature, he's a star when he's teamed up with his most famous adversary. He gets teamed up (in the sense of repeating enemies) with a cat who bears some resemblance to Katnip in 1947's NAUGHTY BUT MICE. Proto-Katnip made two more appearances before being given his official form, and the re-use of his template suggests enough identity for me to label his presence in NAUGHTY a "proto-crossover," since he does take on a starring role alongside Herman for several cartoons thereafter. However, though none of the partnerships of the mouse and the cat following NAUGHTY are any sort of crossovers, because Katnip hadn't established enough solo stature. This stands in contrast to my argument that all Daffy Duck/Porky Pig teamups are crossovers, because both members of the team had stature when they first teamed up.

Herman also made a couple of cameo appearances, notably in the 1946 banned POPEYE short THE ISLAND FLING.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

The Grant Morrison run on ACTION COMICS, reviewed here, contains various crossovers of heroes and villains with the main hero, but the oddest revival is that of super-obscure Super-villain Ferlin Nyxly.

MONSTER MASHUPS #104

DC's hoary BOB HOPE tried to appeal to monster-loving kids by injecting famous fiends into the stories. Not sure if it started in #95. but this issue also shows a faculty of fiends meeting a goofy teen named "Super-Hip." This dopey character, who could change into any form, was created by writer Arnold Drake, who one year later would become the scripter on DC's first version of PLASTIC MAN. Not sure if the monsters helped, but the HOPE title managed to soldier on until 1968.

 

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 And the award for the worst-drawn "retcon crossover" goes to whatever Quality Comics editor took a plain old teen humor tale from JONESY #5 (1954)...

...and turned it into a WOOZY story in PLASTIC MAN #62 (1956), with what must be comics' most badly done replacement of one cartoon head with another.

I don't know the original for this retcon, but the one-page feature BIG TOP had appeared since the early 1940s in Quality Comics. So it's very likely that there was some earlier original in which some regularly seen character, rather than Woozy, unleashed chaos.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 My verdict on JETSONS MEET THE FLINTSTONES...

"may qualify as one of the most underwhelming crossovers in pop culture."

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 

In the prosaically titled story "The Spider Widow and the Raven" in FEATURE COMICS #60 (September 1942) the Spider Widow, who'd made her solo debut in FEATURE #57, began a series of informal team-ups with another hero, The Raven. The running joke was that they just kept tripping over one another by accident, rather than intentionally teaming up, like most partner-teams.

Frank Borth, who drew both this strip and PHANTOM LADY in POLICE COMICS, then experimented for three months crossing over the features. First, The Raven pops up in POLICE COMICS #20, as he and Phantom Lady work together.

Then, in FEATURE COMICS #69, The Raven decides to team up with Phantom Lady to continue investigating the crime-scheme begun (as he himself says) in POLICE COMICS. For the sake of the joke, Borth conveniently forgets that up until this point, Raven and Spider Widow DON'T know one another's secret identities, but they act as if they've known each other for some time  . Spider Widow and Phantom Lady immediately rub each other the wrong way-- probably because Phantom Lady really does have a yen for the Widow's sort-of boyfriend. Thus it's not much of a team-up, and the high point might be Raven "quoting" the slogan of the Blackhawks.

In POLICE COMICS 21, the crooks being pursued by the trio have noticed the contentiousness between the two heroines, and they write a couple of letters, making each heroine think that the other one has challenged her to a sword-duel. Despite the fact that the letters mentioned the heroines only by their hero-names, Phantom Lady comes in costume but Spider Widow leaves behind her trademark witch-mask. Nevertheless, the watching hoods somehow figure out the mundane identities of both crimefighters. Usually this means that the crooks are doomed to get killed before they reveal all, but at the end of the story the malcontents are simply taken to jail.

FEATURE COMICS #70 implies the consequences of this omission. for more crooks, probably allies of those imprisoned, track Spider Widow down to her home and abduct her, with the unnecessary excuse that they're going to take her to their other captive, The Raven. The Widow manages to let Phantom Lady listen in on the conversation, so the latter heroine goes to aid her buddies. Strangely, even though it's the Spider Widow's feature, she never assumes her costume or uses her spiders, and Phantom Lady gets the best action.

Then POLICE COMICS 22 contributes a chapter that does involve the ongoing crimes involving Phantom Lady's father, so technically this is part of the narrative, even though Raven and Spider Widow make no more than a cameo.

Then for FEATURE #71 we're back to a full-fledged team-up, with a splash showing a memorable double-drubbing of one beast by both beauties. The main story has Raven planning to lock up the quarrelsome ladies in  a room so they'll resolve their differences, but the plot backfires, so that the Widow has to save both Raven and Phantom Lady from a watery demise.

That sixth adventure is the last installment, but for whatever internal reasons, the next two adventures for Spider Widow and Phantom Lady were their last appearances at Quality Comics, although the company Fox bought the rights to Phantom Lady and continued her adventures with a greater emphasis on salacious visuals.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I watched two of the four PRETENDER/PROFILER crossivers, but both were just superficial teases, in which the respective "guest stars" on each show barely had any impact on the exploits of the main character or characters. Since the first couple were so dull, I'm not sure if I will even bother with the other crossovers if I can find them.

THE 100 GREATEST CROSSOVERS OF ALL TIME #61

 Here's my review of TEN YEARS BEYOND BAKER STREET, the superlative intermingling of the continuities of Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu.

RAR #74: LOANGA

 In one of heroic Samson's last adventures in FANTASTIC COMICS, he contended with a zombie-maker named Loanga in some unspecified "Caribbean" locale. "Loanga" sounds like "loa," a term from a deity from Haitian voodoo, but neither Loanga nor any other native is drawn to look Black. The strange orange skin-color doesn't look like the standard hue attributed to Real Americans, but it's at least possible Loanga and his fellows are supposed to be Carib Indians.

RAR #73: ECHO

 Here's my analysis of the first arc devoted to that cheery deaf Choctaw ECHO. Not a lot of Real American tropes except for this panel.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Review for GOTHAM SEASON THREE here.

This time both long arcs are full crossovers. The crossover-mojo of the first long arc, "Mad City," is mostly due to the three subordinate ensemble villains and the one villain-group crossing over with a new killer in town, The Mad Hatter. "Mad City" also plays host to a short arc of three episodes, in which the Joker-doppelganger re-appears. Being the only person mapping out this territory, I assign this short arc by the most interesting episode-title, "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" (named for a song-title). In Season 2, the first long arc also played host to a three-episode Joker arc, which I term "The Last Laugh." Apparently the showrunners wanted to hold back on Joker-appearances in the first three seasons.

The second long arc of the second season focused on the monstrous creations of Hugo Strange, and the second long arc of Season Three, "Heroes Rise," once again offers some of the previous Bat-villains, like Mr. Freeze, Firefly and Strange himself. First-time additions include Ra's Al Ghul and his League of Assassins (renamed "League of Shadows') and what may be the first live-action depiction of his League-rival The Sensei. This version of the Sensei is loyal and bonded to his leader Ra's, and is never actually given that proper name, though Hugo Strange calls the character a "sensei."

MONSTER MASHUPS #103

 EVIL ERNIE takes on carious monster-doppelgangers in a 1997 bit of whimsy.