CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In some of my posts on the crossover subject, I've noted that I didn't consider a work a crossover if a famous icon appeared only as a conventionally dead person. Thus DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is not a crossover simply due to the presence of Dracula as a slain corpse, because in that form the vampire has no agency. If he was seen doing only one thing before he perished, as happens with Fu Manchu in DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, Dracula would have agency. (Parenthetically, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is a charisma-crossover because Van Helsing carries over from the 1931 film and does have agency within DAUGHTER as well.) So an undead being can still have agency, even if the original character of the individual has erased, as seems to be the case with Undead Wild Bill Hickock in JONAH HEX TWO GUN MOJO.                                                           

 The same principle holds for spirits of the dead that may not be able to do anything but render warnings or advice. This type includes the various specters that tutor the Ghost Rider so that he can become a new champion of the frontier: Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Pat Garrett, Kit Carson, and some lawman I never heard of, Bill Tighman. The end of the story suggests that the hero may have dreamed the encounter, but as long as the icons in question have a possible real existence, as opposed to being null-variants, they still have crossover-agency.                                                                   

  

RAR #87: INJUN JONES

 Injun Jones, a white kid raised to maturity by an Indian tribe, hung out in the pages of ACG's BLAZING WEST title for a while. The name sounds a bit inspired by Mark Twain's "Injun Joe" character in TOM SAWYER. I bet he was more consistent than the Apache Kid about maintaining his "redskin" appearance with the use of "warpaint."             

 

RAR #86: THE FROZEN GHOST

 

"The Frozen Ghost" was first the title of a old Lon Chaney Jr mystery flick, but here the name is a literal ghost of an Indian, turned into a frost-demon by the Indians' "god of winter." Only a courageous white guy, armed with Indian magic, can descend into the Frozen Ghost's icy lake and destroy the fell spectre. 

RAR #85: LITTLE CLOUD

 

After the tribe of the juvenile medicine man gives succor to a gang of white outlaws, the evildoers slaughter the Indians. But they come back, possibly due to Little Cloud's powers, and wreak vengeance. The leader gets a non-supernatural punishment in the form of the old "shrinking rawhide" trick.  

MONSTER MASHUPS #115

 There's no story in OUT OF THE NIGHT #4 (1952) that corresponds to this cover, apparently depicting a battle between a witch (note the broomstick) and a winged demon. But since it's Frank Frazetta, who would complain?                                                                                               

   Same thing here: two monsters fight on the cover with no corresponding story inside. The white creep battling the winged demon was perhaps meant to be a zombie, given the graveyard setting.                                                                                                   

 

RAR #84: MOONSTALKER

 Moonstalker is a noble villain who tries to kill people with explosive arrows. He first appears in the 1994 ZORRO series being rescued from a whipping by the title hero. He then pauses in the midst of the action to interrogate Zorro to find out why the hero rescued him. A possible anticipation of the popular "white savior" canard of the 2000s?               

    

RAR #83: JOHN RUNNING BEAR

 If this "pilot" for space-series SEEKER 3000 had launched, possibly the Indian Guy in the multi-culti crew would have got something more to do than just pose on the closing page.                                                              

RAR #82: DEPUTY TALL BEAR

Deputy Tall Bear (from KID COLT #105) is one of those well-meaning efforts from credited writer Stan Lee that some readers would find problematic. Hero Kid Colt observes that Tall Bear, an Indian who talks in pidgin English, has been made deputy during the sheriff's absence. Colt also perceives that the local bigots are planning to assault Tall Bear in the night to teach the Indian his place. So the outlaw comes up with a complicated plan, putting blanks in the deputy's gun and then using mad gunfighter skills to humiliate the bigots and send them packing. I don't have any objections to Colt rescuing Tall Bear-- the political cant about "white saviors" I view as garbage-- but the pidgin English is hard to take, and the character isn't given any reason to be so devoted to enforcing white man's law.           

    

RAR #81: LITTLE POCAHONTAS

 

I found this feature in the first couple of issues of the DC Comics title TOMAHAWK. It's as mediocre as all the other half-page humor features DC used to run, but I assume it's the only one ever centered upon a female Real American. For a time, TOMAHAWK included not only stories of the titular Indian-fighter, but also backup strips about Indian culture.

ALLOMYTHS AND ISOMYTHS PT. 4

"LOW ALLOMYTHICITY-- This would apply largely to what I've " called a "monster of the month" situation. Godzilla faces a number of one-shot monster-opponents-- Ebirah, Megaguirus, Biolante-- and although they are allomythic in comparison to Godzilla, their stories end in their debut tales, and so they do not sustain their allomyths beyond a low level of intensity." -- ALLOMYTHS, pt. 2.             

                       

As I've looked over the various entries I've made since starting this project, I see that I've tended to emphasize three types of monster-mash. The first emphasizes a group of monsters who occupy superordinate status, what I've called Primes. The second deals with a group of monsters who occupy subordinate status, what I've called Subs. (An interstitial category involves both groups in opposition to one another, as in the TV cartoon DRAK PACK.) The third opposes two monsters from separate franchises, as seen in FREDDY VS. JASON and ALIEN VS. PREDATOR.                                                   

In the essay quoted above, though, I did account for the existence of a low level of allomythicity in simple one-on-one conflicts between monsters, usually where one of the freakazoids (Godzilla, Gamera) is the star of a series. Yet I've also devoted posts to one-off encounters of two disparate monsters like "Full Moon," wherein the two opposed monsters not only don't generate franchises or histories beyond their generic identity; they don't even have proper names. Surely, even if a Godzilla-foe like Biolante only has one go-round with the Big G, just being part of Godzilla's gallery of grotesques earns him more mythicity than a one-off vampire and werewolf. At this time, I don't know that I'll start posting that many more examples of monster mashes comprised of just a continuing mon-star and a one-shot enemy, if only because there are so many of them. But I'll probably start working in a few just for consistency's sake.  ADDENDUM: This post invalidates my statements in the first two "anti-mashup" posts that a couple of one-shot encounters, respectively in the "Gamera" and "It the Living Colossus" serials, were not true "monster mashups."